Saturday 7 June

Agnès and Alain, two French friends, joine us in the morning for a cruise. We set off in a grey morning upstream and immediately found the first low bridge on the Nivernais, the main bridge in Auxerre. However, we went through the centre arch easily and arrived at the first lock well before the designated lunch break of 12:00 to 13:00 (different, of course, from the downstream locks, which are 12:30 to 13:30. The slightly miserable lock keeper let us into what seemed like a very small lock, but was a comfortable fit for us and meant there was not much room to move about from side to side, even without tying up.

Through onto the Nivernai we made it through two locks then tied up for lunch. We remembered why we liked it so much here - peaceful canal, no commercial boats and simple locks with a lock keeper at each one. As the grey turned to drizzle and raind we enjoyed a glass or two of Champagne, followed by a leisurely lunch, washed down with a local wine brought by our friends. Three levels of maturity of the same goat's cheese was another very welcome gift from them.

As we returned the afternoon turned even more grey and tea and scones on the boat were accompanied by a steady downpour. They left as the sky turned prematurely black for the evening and we were glad we had decided to return to the marina for one more night, even at the relatively expensive price of €21.