Canal du Roanne à Digoin

 

After our morning coffee with Serge we were late leaving Briennon, so just went a little way, no locks but lots of narrow bridges. Being new to the barge it was not surprising we were not quite lined up for one of them and ended up in shallow water at the side of it. No problem, we thought, just push ourselves off with the bowthruster. But we were not accustomed to the use of bowthrusters either! There was a horrible noise of rattling pebbles being pulled into the bowthruster’s propeller box and it all ground to a halt. We had to push off the old fashioned way with long poles, and continue on without the help of the bowthruster and do the manoeuvring as Martin was accustomed to, with the engine.

Some bridges were just plain awkward!

We stopped at the village of Iguerande for I had wanted to see the 11^th century Romanesque church which stands on the top of a hill. Real leyline stuff! We could see the hill from our mooring, and it looked a bit steep and far away, but in the afternoon I set off on my bike and it was worth the effort. 

Iguarande Village from the hilltop church

The strange name of the village actually means ‘on the river boundary’ in Gallic, which could hardly have been more apt for the situation in any language. The village was lovely, and the church with its long sloping roof was typical Romanesque. I was pleased to find the door of the church open – something that happens rarely in France - and useful leaflets about the place inside. I returned to the barge, whizzing down the hill on my bike with brakes squeaking, to find an English narrow-boat out of Roanne trundling past. The owners, who we hadn’t met before, were wrapped up in raincoats and steering with their tiller from the back of the boat, looking very cold.

Iguarande Romanesque Church

Next day was as wet and windy as ever so we decided to stay put for the time being. We had electricity from a box on the shore at our quiet mooring amongst a few houses. When we had moored up the day before, a young woman jogging past had exclaimed with pleasure that we were the first barge of the season to stop there, so we felt quite welcome, though there was not much sign of life in the houses around.

Sunday dawned bright and sunny, though frosty, so we trundled on a short distance to Melay. For the first time we set out the deck table and chairs and sat in the mid-day sunshine, even though the air was cold enough for our jackets. In the afternoon Serge, the bargee from Briennon came along driving a restaurant barge, and blew me a kiss as he expertly turned his barge round in the space beside us.

Winter Sunset at Melay

We had made arrangements with the lock-keeper by telephone to go through the series of three deep locks between Melay and Marcigny, but when we came to start the engine Martin discovered the gear refused to go into reverse. It had been stiff before, but now it was impossible! When driving a boat that is new to you for the first time there are always anomalies and things that go wrong, but we had had all winter to sort them out. So now what? Had we been sold a barge with an expensively dodgy gear box? The big old equipment on these barges is hard to replace. Martin disconnected the wires to the gearbox and, by operating it by hand, discovered there was nothing wrong with the gearbox. Though when he reconnected it, it refused to work again! There had to be a practical solution! Finally he realised the connecting wire had simply been bent down, perhaps by being leant on when working on the engine, and it was catching on a nut. The simple expedient of bending the wire back again solved what we at first thought must be a major problem! With great relief we set off once more and arrived at the lock still on time, only to find that it was not ready for us, so we had to hang about manoeuvring the barge without our bowthrusters while they filled the lock.