Woke to a foggy morning with mist on the river – autumn is approaching! So we stayed in bed and read till 10am, by which time it was clearing to a beautiful day. Rita went shopping in Vers for some essentials. Set off in late morning. Arrived at St Gery lock, just as it had been closed for an upstream boat, but luckily they saw us arrive and opened the rear gates again and then moved their boat forwards (one advantage of manual locking is that you can start, stop and reverse the process at many points). Unfortunately, as newbies, they forgot to attach a stern rope after they moved forward, probably thinking they would be pushed back by the incoming water, with the result that they were pushed forward when the incoming water rebounded off the rear gates, pushing them into the front gates. Luckily, Rita reacted quickly and got them to throw her a stern rope which she quickly attached to a rear bollard to enable them to pull themselves off the front gates.

A longish run followed without locks to the lock at Bouzies, which posed some real challenges. The weir was made from large rocks and pointed across the entrance towards the front of the lock, creating a large whirlpool where we were trying to tie up to open the gates (note that the curved panorama photo below exaggerates the situation a bit - the lock wall on the right and the moored boat on the left are actually in line with each other!). It proved impossible to moor on the first attempt and we were swept by the whirlpool towards the rocks. We stopped in time with full reverse thrust, and then decided to turn around and start it all again. But on starting the turn, I realised we were doing quite a tight circle, so we just did a loop and came directly into the mooring – looked like I knew exactly what I was doing (NOT). But the good thing was that we didn’t panic – just took it slowly and did the best we could in the conditions.

As we finished the lock preparations, another boat arrived. We went in first and they followed. I controlled the ascent using just the stern rope to hold the bow off the front gates, pulling across the rope, then shortening it as we rose. As we reached the top, the English crew on the rear boat applauded and said “9 and a half out of 10”!! Amazing what a little bit of experience with Kanumbra has enabled us to do!

We then had a short run past the pretty town of Bouzies Bas into the Port de Bouzies, which is located along a beautiful stretch of the river, with high cliffs on the side opposite the Halte Nautique. When we got there, we saw that the pleasure boat moorings were all 90degree rear-in parking – another new experience for us, especially in a fast-running river. Our first attempt was less than successful. As soon as we put the stern towards the pontoon, the bow got caught by the river flow and pulled downstream, meaning that we were now downstream of where we wanted to be and also at an angle. So we tried again, without trying to get exactly perpendicular to the pontoon and leaving one space between us and the upstream boat. We got the stern ropes attached as quickly as possible, then manually pulled the boat around so that it was roughly at right angles to the pontoon. We were not the only one to have this problem, as we were to witness several times over the next 18 hours.

But the view across the river from the moorings was worth the effort.

We then went for a walk over the narrow suspension bridge to the “English Castle” where English brigands took refuge during the 100 Years War.

Then back through the town of Bouzies which is utterly charming and old-fashioned with beautiful stone buildings.

We also found a property with some interesting sculptures made from reinforcing bars.

Rita found lots of overladen plum trees in the gardens along the road, which she proceeded to relieve of their loads.

Came back to the boat for dinner, but the people on the next boat were arguing, so we decided to go up to the restaurant Les Falaises, where I finally got to try the famed local Quercy lamb. While they were nice, it just reminded me that I don't really like lamb chops very much – too much work for too little reward.