Oisilly to St Jean de Losne

31/10/2012

Now here's something which for us is pretty unusual - we woke this morning with a horse peering through the window!

We waited til she'd moved off a bit before letting Roxy out!

Her foals in the distance

Studied nonchalance from both parties!

A went out with the camera and wandered towards the foals and saw himself chased off, and at one point Roxy went to stand behind her - her ears swivled with Roxy's movements, and we saw her settle to prepare a kick in case it was necessary; very relieved Roxy comes when called!

Again, chilly today but the sun is shining so we pushed off at 9.30 to see how we get on, and if we stop in Auxonne - forcing a day off tomorrow as the locks will be closed for the bank holiday, or if we can make it to St Jean which will ensure no restriction of movement... We'll see! Casting off in these temps has become comedy - no point trying to coil the morring lines, its just as easy to fold them as they're frozen solid!

Yeah, good luck throwing that and hitting the mark!!

The locks are at least behaving themselves, and we arrived at the last at 11.00. The mechanism is activated by the return of the remote control in the box - but not ours! A calls them on the intercom and the guy says he can see us but doesn't know why it didn't work, so activates it at a distance and we're out!

This was our last canal section and we will be out in the river in no time. These locks are still automatic, but activated by the twisty pole, and they are significantly bigger than on the canals - although when the gates opened there were swans lying in wait! They had to be shooed out of the way so we could leave.

We are again at ease in the wide deep river; the beep of the fish finder no longer signals the possibility of running aground, but actually signals - wait for it - a FISH!! And a 15kph speed limit - heaven!

We pulled over in Pontailler for lunch and to warm ourselves through - and took out the bins and did our recycling while we were there.

At 3pm we arrived at Auxonne, and carried on through... Through a flood gate and into a mini canal section before locking back into the river and we are out of the danger of an enforced day off.

We arrived at the public quay in St Jean de Losne at 4.30pm and moored with an audience, but when we plugged in there was no power. The guide book said to get a token, but its not clear where you'd put the token so we went to the VNF office to ask - they hadn't a clue and suggested we double up on a plug which was already working. A Swiss guy on his boat offered us his multiplyer to do the same, but without access to the breaker it seems unfair to put someone else int eh position of also being without power as we're sharing their plug... Its only 16A between two boats afterall.

We walked round to the port, and due to J's (possibly) unreasonable distrust of H2O (word of mouth, what can you do but trust instincts??) we went to Blanquart and booked a spot. For 10€ we get water, electricity, Wifi and conveniences so we set off back to the boat to move it into our spot, waving goodbye to our new Swiss friend.

Out for a lovely pizza on the public quay before an early night, all toasty warm!

No regrets paying for this spot, and we have also decided to stay an extra night with a day off. Bonus, when they came to collect our payment he'd already written our receipt in advance so has given us the second night for free!

After a wander in the morning we also discovered that the supermarket will deliver to the boat - when it opens tomorrow after the bank holiday, and there is a fuel quay where we can also empty the black tank and get that damaged hose sorted properly. Liking St Jean de Losne!