The end of the line

We are now (28 July) moored in the port at Kembs, with our friends, Marilyn and Rodney, who we picked up in Mulhouse a couple of days ago. This is as far as we can go on this canal. We are just 14 km from Basel in Switzerland and when we look out the back of the boat, we can clearly see vineyards in Germany on the hills beyond the trees. Between us and them lie the Grand Canal d’Alsace and the Rhine river, which we can’t see from here but which we’ve been to look at… We still feel no need to take our 50 horse-power boat on either of those! They flow far too quickly for our liking and even though people tell us we would be fine, as long as we were traveling with the current, we can’t see that there is a great deal of fun in it if you’re scared witless most of the time. You never know when things might go wrong – and with that current, the results could be nasty!

We are the only “guest boat” in the port at Kembs and have our own dedicated pontoon. There are lots of “resident boats” here, most of which belonging to Swiss people. It is both more practical for access to the waterways network and much less expensive for them to keep their boats in France. Most other boaties by-pass Kembs as it is at the end of a short branch canal after the intersection between the Grand Canal d’Alsace and the Rhone-to-Rhine canal. If anything, they tend to stay down at Niffer, which is a couple of kilometres away and right on the intersection.


We’re really glad to have come here, however. The canal between Mulhouse and Kembs is Rhine-gauge, which meant that we shared the space with some of the huge Rhine barges – most impressive and a first for us! The port in Kembs is both beautifully situated and lovely to stay in. It is safe, attractive and has perhaps the best shower and toilet block that we’ve seen in any port so far (all good things when you have guests on board!). We’re assured that is the Swiss influence taking hold. The surrounding countryside is most attractive and the village is quite large and has a good bakery as well as a few other shops.



It also has a bus connection to Basel, which we took advantage of today. The return bus fare was just 2.20 euros per person – a bargain for the 40-minute-each-way trip!!! We had a lovely day in Basel, although the weather didn’t exactly play its part. We spent the morning wandering the city centre and taking advantage of clothes sales along the way but rain kicked in around lunchtime, forcing us to take shelter (and hot chocolate) in a traditional Swiss café. We may have paid quite a lot for the drink but the essential “Swiss-ness” of the experience, along with the warmth and the view over the main square, were more than worth it!


The other highlights were, unsurprisingly, water-based. The comings and goings of traffic on the Rhine were captivating, especially the vastly different rates of progress of barges traveling up- and downriver; and the ferries across the river, attached by overhead cables and powered, seemingly, by the force of the water in conjunction with the angle at which the cable is attached. We also loved the trams in the city. Unlike many cities in France (and NZ), Basel has never done away with its trams. New and old models of trams share the lines, are plentiful, regular and well-patronised. The people and local government of Basel must feel so smug when they see so many of the cities of France being disrupted with the construction / re-construction of tramways, for which there seems to be a real mania at the moment!


Tomorrow we’ll start the slow trip back towards St-Jean-de-Losne. Our first stop will be Mulhouse, where we’ll drop off Marilyn and Rodney, who are heading west to celebrate the PACS (or civil union) of their son, Chris with Mathilde. We’ll stay a while (again) and try to find some good weather to visit Colmar and perhaps head into Germany for a while. We know the port there is safe enough to leave the boat if we’re not there for a while. That’s the nice thing about going back on our tracks – we know what to expect when coming into a place and we know where we will (and won’t) want to stay along the way.

Leaky shower solution?

We have had an ongoing problem with a leaky shower ever since we bought the boat. One of the toilets also has a shower which leaked around the edges at floor level. Not only did that mean some water ended up in the bilge which is not highly desirable, it damaged the walls of the two cabins that are on either side of the shower. First, Catherine dug out the old mastic (see photo below - the dark bit shows the extent of the gap!) and replaced it. That solution was only temporary; the mastic eventually pulled away from the wall. C then dug out the mastic she had put in and used another product she had discovered; a two-part, plasticine-like product, which hardens on drying. That product was ‘rigid’ and looked promising for a while but then it also separated from the wall.


Catherine then decided that the problem was the floor flexes when you walk on it so she decided to see what was underneath the floor. Easier said than done. It involved lifting a hatch in the ‘hallway’ lying flat on your stomach with most of the body at an angle on the floor of the main cabin. What did C see? You guessed it, no support whatsoever under the floor! No amount of mastic would ever be a solution. The big question was, how to put any support in place remembering the hull slopes and the floor of course is horizontal… without the major cost and disruption of taking up the floor.

The available access space is 15cm high but the gap between floor and hull is 25cm. The support had to be placed a full (Catherine’s) arm length away and she had to work by feel. We considered many ideas before deciding that two small car jacks might do the trick. (Thanks to Sean, who told us about car jacks being used as piles in his friend’s newly purchased bach! That gave us the idea.) C made a couple of wedges to put under the jacks and we had on board some timber to place on top of the jacks to maximize the effect. The French version of blue tack was used to keep things in place until the jacks could be raised. All of this had to be done by ‘feel’ and it took many false starts (and no small amount of cursing) before the awkward procedure was successfully completed. (We got most of the blue tack back as it was of course squeezed out when the jacks were pumped up) Time will tell if this is the definitive solution but it does seem more promising than previous ones. The floor doesn’t move now when you stand on it so we are cautiously optimistic. I wonder how long it will be before we stop holding our breath each time we step onto that floor…

Visits

Because we have to be pretty careful with money (in order to support this boating adventure), we don’t usually pay to visit historical sites, museums, art galleries and the like as we travel around. There are so many we could visit as almost every town and village boasts a “musée” of some kind, often more than one. This year so far, we have by-passed Louis Pasteur’s birthplace in Dole, the royal salt works at Salines, the caves at Osselle, which has served as a hiding place during several wars and the French revolution, the Peugeot Adventure Museum in Montbéliard and many more. We have, however, paid for a couple of very memorable visits.


The first of these was to the magnificent citadel in Besançon, which we first saw as we approached the city on the river (see photo above). Anyone who has spent any time in France will have encountered the works of the extraordinary military architect, Vauban. The fortifications he designed are dotted all over France and no fewer than five of his works now feature on the UNESCO World Heritage list. Besançon is one of those – not just for the citadel but also for the ramparts, forts and towers that enclose the central part of the city. You can’t really go to Besançon and NOT visit the citadel, although C did once do just that. During her wanderings around France in 1983, she spent a day in the city and seem to remember deciding to spend her time walking by the canal and the river instead of climbing up to the citadel. Little did she imagine then that she might one day return to the city by way of those very waterways!


We very nearly didn’t visit it this time either – the weather was so hot for most of our time in Besançon that we couldn’t do much more than the absolute necessities with a swim in the river to cool off at regular intervals. However, after a Saturday night thunderstorm, we were treated to a cool Sunday morning and took off by bike and then by foot, when the climb became too steep. The citadel is now a spectacular shell – of no use in defending the city since warfare took to the air. As well as being a great example of military architecture and affording stunning views over all the surrounding countryside, it also houses several museums, a zoo, an aquarium... It would be impossible to visit them all in a day, so we chose to check out a quirky exhibition featuring fabulous and fanciful objects of a certain kind from Ghana and England. Here are some of our favourites; see if you can guess what they are…






Our other paying visit so far this year has been to the famous Schlumpf Car Museum here in Mulhouse. C had been here before - in 1996, during a study tour of Alsace, when she was training to be French Adviser but had no hesitation in going again. There is simply too much to absorb in one trip. There are well over 400 cars in the collection – with a particular focus on Bugatti, which the ignorant amongst us (i.e. both) were surprised to discover are French, not Italian as we’ve always assumed. One of the Bugattis - the Royale - is estimated to be worth around 6 million euros, so we couldn’t begin to imagine how much the entire collection would be worth. Some of our favourites included this little 1907 Piccolo…


…and this little electric car (a Gregoire GCE Tudor for the purists), which covered the 239km between Paris and Tours without recharging the batteries in 1942 and apparently still holds the official distance record for an electric car.


However, if we had to pick just one each, then C would choose this 1927 Type 35B Bugatti:

…and J, after being seriously tempted a couple of Mercedes, would also choose a Bugatti: this magnificent Royale Esders



To finish, a couple of curiosities, which caught our eye... This little fellow is, not surprisingly, called l'oeuf (the egg)


...and here is a scene from out the back of the museum, which captured our imagination...

Ouf!

For the first day in a long time, we have not woken to blue skies and bright sunshine – and we are much relieved! Since our Saturday night (3 July) thunderstorm in Besançon, the weather has been steadily getting hotter and hotter. We both enjoy hot, sunny weather but there is a point at which it gets too hot and we had well and truly passed it. On Saturday evening, when we arrived here in Isle sur le Doubs, we went for a (short, slow) walk into the town. The large digital time-date-temperature displays outside both the pharmacy and the real estate agency showed the temperature as 32o. We had to have a swim in the canal to cool down before going to bed that night – not something we usually do but we were alone on the quay and the water looked clean enough and we had a good supply of clean water on board to clean ourselves off with afterwards.

By Sunday afternoon, even J was “looking forward to a good thunderstorm”. Ever since her house in the Far North was flooded during a storm, she has had a real, visceral aversion to heavy rain – and a thunderstorm here only has a cooling effect if accompanied by such rain! We spent the day doing very little other than finding a shady place to sit in our folding chairs and read, and biking down to the river (less than 1km away) to cool off. For days we have been eating mostly salads and using the barbecue off the boat to do any cooking. Anything not strictly necessary that involved physical or mental exertion without the payoff of a cool-down was definitely off the agenda – no non-essential housework (boatwork?), no minor repairs, no blogging…



We have also been developing a greater understanding of the habits of some of our French friends. We find ourselves keeping curtains closed and trying to find any other way possible to stop the heat of the sun getting into the boat, remembering that Christian did the same thing at our place, when he came to visit us in NZ this summer. We have been eating dinner later and later, waiting for it to be cool enough to contemplate, let alone enjoy, and then, of course, we don’t go to bed until well after 11pm. Given that mornings are cool and we haven’t quite adapted to getting up later, the next thing for us to master must be the siesta!!

Meteociel.com, our internet weather forecasters, let us know five days ago before that we should expect the thunderstorm to arrive yesterday and if that wasn’t enough warning, the woman who served me in the bakery yesterday morning, confirmed that thunderstorms were to be expected during the day. It’s great to get accurate weather forecasting! Ever since we left Besançon, we have been planning to be here in Isle sur le Doubs – where we are, in fact OFF the river and on the canal, when the rain hit. We arrived sooner than we expected due to a lack of suitable stopping places in between but have been happy to stay here a bit longer as well, as this island offers boaties almost everything we could want:
– a supermarket and service station just across the road from the lower quay, allowing us to replenish supplies of diesel as well as groceries
– safe moorings on a canal (no possibility of being caught by rising waters)
– some shade to sit under when the boat gets too hot
– the river nearby where we can swim to cool down (there’s always water nearby but often it is either not appealing to swim in or not easy to get in and out of)
– the possibility of mooring free of charge if we choose no to access the water and electricity
– water and electricity to enable us to fill the tanks, do the laundry and (now that it has cooled off) also do the vacuuming before we leave
– a free wifi connection for boaties at the camping ground (as in many places, both are run by the local council and facilities are sometimes shared)
The port is also very near a railway station, which means it would be a perfect place to meet visitors, if any were due…

So, we have an overcast morning and a temperature of around 23 degrees, rather than the 28-in-the-shade (pharmacy)/30-in-the-sun (real estate agent’s) at the same time yesterday morning. We’ll be able to nip back to the camping ground to post this and some email, and vacuum the boat and fill it with water without getting into a lather in the process. We may even be able to give the decks a proper scrub – something we’ve wanted to do since they were covered with some nasty rust-coloured pollen in Besançon. Then we’ll enjoy a day of navigating in the cooler weather before the heat starts to build again, as it inevitably will.

Post Script….. things are still not what they seem!

The other day we left our overnight mooring spot at Laissey on the Doubs River and travelled to the first lock. One red light was showing (this is expected) Catherine activated the remote control and the lock began the process of being prepared for us. The display board showed one red and one green light indicating our request had been registered and the full lock emptied. In due course the gates opened but the red light did not go off as anticipated, the green light did and two red lights came on! Boats are forbidden to enter a lock unless there is just one green light showing. Catherine rang the VNF and explained the problem. The VNF man said he would send someone from Besancon asap to come and fix it. Catherine asked permission to enter the lock and tie up as we were on the river and there wasn’t a ‘waiting platform’ to tie up on. We didn’t want to sit in the river wasting diesel for the twenty minutes or so that it would take him to get here and VNF personnel are able to override the “orders” given by the lock lights. Permission was granted, so we entered the lock and tied up towards the back of the lock to avoid the turbulent water that rushes in as the lock fills. The lock was deep and it was a stretch for Catherine to get the ropes attached.

Not very long afterwards, we were dismayed to see another boat arrive, clearly wanting to enter the lock. We would have to move our boat forward to make room for them, just a common courtesy of course – but not easy in such a high lock. We were astounded when the two Dutch men in the arriving boat shouted at us that we had activated the red rod instead of the blue one, which is the one that sets the process of filling the lock going. (We hadn’t touched either rod because we knew there was a problem and were waiting for the VNF man). They assumed they knew the cause of the problem, even though they had just arrived. They didn’t bother asking and would not listen to our explanation. They were adamant that we had obviously done something wrong. In the end, I shouted at them to be quiet and listen. They were not impressed with that at all! C also had to ask them to listen, and finally they did…..sort of. They calmed down a bit when C said that a VNF man was on the way. C sensibly took the view that we were in this together and there was nothing to be gained by further antipathy. They asked us to move forward, C explained it would be a stretch for her to reach the ropes to take them off and re-position them. One of the men climbed up a ladder, moved our ropes forward, tied up their boat behind us and in due course the repair man came. We left the lock in our usual competent manner. C said it was a pity I didn’t have a chance to look back and watch them make a dog’s breakfast of their exit. As soon as possible we slowed down and let them go past us. We preferred to slow down and travel alone rather to share any more locks with such objectionable people.

Two locks later, there they were in a full lock going nowhere. We wondered what was taking them so long. Were they dallying to annoy us? We tied up to a waiting platform and C went and asked them if they had a problem. What a shame they hadn’t offered us an opportunity to explain our predicament! They had entered the lock, it had filled but the gates didn’t open to let them out. They had called for assistance.

It has been quite some time since I have felt so very angry. What a shame I let such pompous men generate such feelings of outrage!

Going with the flow

We arrived in the university city of Besançon not sure whether we would stay here for two or three days. We have now been here almost a week and intend to leave first thing tomorrow. So what factors have influenced our decision(s) to stay here longer?

First of all the moorings are safe. They are pontoon moorings (i.e. they rise and fall with the water level) on a canalised part of the river just beneath a lock, so if there is a lot of rain all at once, we are protected from the rising – and possibly raging - river. That said, there is a sign on the town wall on the opposite side of the canal, which shows how high the waters rose in the 1910 flood and I’m sure no lock would protect us from that!! The water would have been running over the top of the lock and right through the town. Fortunately, that was in January…

Weather has had a great influence on our decision-making this week. The first few days here were almost unbearably hot and we, Wellingtonians, not known for needing to find a breeze, were desperately looking for anything that looked like air movement – and not really finding it. What saved us, though, was the fact that the port in Besançon is on a small island and on the other side – all of 70 metres away - is easy access down to the river, upstream from most of the city. Although we are reliably told that “no-one ever swims there”, we have… repeatedly, and have thoroughly enjoyed it. It seems to entertain the locals and it cools us down like nothing else can - so everyone wins!

Then, on Saturday evening, just when we were thinking that the heat would prevent us from ever getting to see any more of the city than this small island, the weather broke with a crashing thunder storm and the temperatures cooled. The timing was impeccable as Besançon is a student city and Saturday evening on our island in the middle of the city was likely to attract groups of young people drinking. The rain certainly put paid to those plans! The next few days were cooler and we were able to venture out on bikes and on foot to discover more of the city, especially the remarkable citadel that sits on a ridge high above the city. It also meant that we were able – and willing – to attack one or two small jobs on the boat: a bit of painting here and some repairs around windows, which leak (an on-going task).

At this stage, our decision to stay on was helped by the way in which the port charges are organised. It costs 8 euros a night for mooring but 36 euros a week. After Day 4, it simply made sense (and cents) to say on for another three nights!

The availability of wifi, preferably free of charge, also helps in us decide to stay longer in a place. As it happens, the port is just across the river from one of Besançon’s tourist offices, which has an unsecured wifi connection, which we found on our first night. We’ve been using it ever since – from outside – as when we went in to ask about wifi, it wasn’t one of the options they offered! We’ve also paid for some wifi time in the port as we have had some serious web-searching to do and there is only so much you want to do perched on a park bench with the computer on your lap.

Getting reasonably-priced groceries here has been more difficult than you might imagine. The port is almost too centrally-situated for that. We are quite close to the market – but while the market has fabulous, fresh produce, it often isn’t well-priced. C finally found a discount supermarket today but it was a good 20-30 minute cycle away, much of it uphill. However, we have found that cycling uphill to the supermarket has benefits – the ride back downhill, with groceries on board (in panniers, basket and backpack), is pure joy!

Weather and will permitting, we’ll leave here tomorrow – probably quite early. We are heading up the river towards Mulhouse and Basel/Bale. There are two options for leaving Besançon – one involves a DIY lock and one involves a loop around the city and a tunnel. We are facing towards the loop – and that would be going with the flow of the river, at least for a while, so that is probably the way we’ll go…but we’ll see how we feel in the morning. Something might happen to change our minds.

A lesson or two when people watching

or "Things are not always what they seem!"

Things were not what they seemed… when on Friday, we left the lovely spot of Choisey at 9am and came into the port of Dole an hour later. There were finger moorings, plenty of spaces, no wind to speak of and we were on a canal. Backing in should present no problems, right? Wrong! There was an undetected strong current, the river was just up ahead and a lot of water streamed into the canal at that point. Backing across a strong current without thrusters was no simple matter. Fortunately a fellow boatie came to our aid and the mooring was accomplished without any fuss. We thanked him profusely and he said it was a difficult manoeuvre and he wished someone had come to help him when he was trying to dock.

After a look around the charming and interesting town of Dole, we sat in the shade of a tree and watched the port. We know we can learn a lot by seeing how others do things. Dole is a Nichols hire boat port and Friday is often a change-over day. .

Things were not what they seemed… as we watched three people cleaning a hire boat. We assumed they were getting ready to leave and were giving the boat a personal clean before they left. They were German, an older couple with what we assumed was their grown up daughter. Well, it was astonishing! The boat was hosed and scrubbed within an inch of its life for a long time. Much time was spent polishing the windows so they shone. The old man would have a shouting paddy if things weren’t done exactly the way he wanted. We felt sorry for the women; if he behaved like that in public, how did he behave in private? And how clean did the boat have to be for them to be happy living in it for a week?!


Then we found out that they had just spent 2 weeks on the boat and had spent two days cleaning the boat before handing it back to the hire boat company. The hire boat company must have been delighted! Incredibly when the boat was finally spotless, the three of them sat down in the boat and proceeded to have a few cigarettes. For those of us who hate the smell of cigarette smoke, that seemed incomprehensible.

Later, there was an opportunity to chat to the women. The older couple turned out not to be the parents of the other lady. The two women met in Namibia 24 years ago, discovered they lived close to each other in Germany and have been firm friends ever since. So much for the accuracy of our people watching! The same three people (we never exchanged names) came to NZ a few years ago and had a lovely time for four weeks touring our fair land in a camper van. The Catlins and the Coromandel Peninsula got special mentions. The ‘other lady’ spoke good English. She told us her father was a POW in England during WW2 and spent his time working on a farm, he then stayed on for a further five years at war’s end having become friends with the English family and learning to speak English. The man returned to Germany, married, had three children and the two families have remained in close contact ever since. The man died a few years ago and his wife (and mother of the other lady) just three months ago.

We were in port for several days and without exception people had trouble backing their boats into the moorings. We always went to lend a hand. In all cases the mothers / wives /girlfriends, who have to manage the ropes, were very thankful for the help we offered as they were struggling to catch a bollard as the boat drifted away downstream. Some of the men said thank you, some did not acknowledge us, perhaps they didn’t like other people seeing that they were not in absolute control of the boat. One or two of the experienced boaties did have a pretty fancy technique for using a springer rope to come back upstream and round the finger mooring at the same time. It would have been even more impressive as a technique if they had thought to tell their rope-handlers what they intended to do!

We knew that we’d have to be aware of the current when we left the port. We wanted a ‘copy book’ exit. We had seen the difficulties others experienced with the bow of the boat being swept sideways very quickly with the current. We used our ropes to position ourselves as we wanted and were then able to organize our exit in a seemly manner. This part of our ‘watching behaviour’ stood us in good stead.

Things were not what they seemed for a man with a video camera… we arrived at the first lock, tied up and the lock began to fill, when we noticed a man excitedly running towards us as fast as he could. He reached the lock and started videoing us. It was a beautiful spot. The sun was shining and there were lots of lovely big trees to provide shade. Then the man went down the side of the lock, and while he was still using the camera, walked straight into the canal! He was so busy looking at our boat through the lens he forgot he was walking towards water. When he resurfaced, Catherine asked him if he was okay, he said he was but he clearly felt foolish. We don’t know if his camera survived the ordeal.

Later in the day when we were very hot we decided to go for a swim in the river, Doubs. The water looked cool, clean, clear and very inviting…. and guess what? Things were exactly what they seemed!