I couldn't stay awake reading last night and fell asleep before midnight. So I was surprised to wake this morning and find that I had not been pinched&punched when Rita came to bed (especially considering it was Swiss National Day). So, August to me!

In the morning, Rita took a Pans on Fire CD and a Scotch&Dry flyer up to the Mairie to enquire about the possibility of playing in Dole in September. Looks promising, but will have to wait to hear from the Cultural Coordinator who was away this week.

As she came back to the barge, she noticed someone sitting at an easel on the quai doing a drawing of Kanumbra. We went outside and struck up a conversation with local artist John-Paul Vernier, who told us his story and how he often does drawings of quai-side boats in Dole. Unfortunately, we had to tell him that we would be leaving within the hour, but he said that was OK since he had finished the details of Kanumbra and just needed to complete the background (which won't change after we leave) and then complete the colouring from a photo he had already taken. He gave us his card, and we promised to visit his studio when we returned to Dole to see the finished product.

And so, around 1300h, we left Dole to continue the journey north. The canalside on leaving Dole was flanked with huge trees...

...and the EuroVelo6 bike path continued up the canal/river, ensuring a plentiful supply of bike riders to wave to.

As we cruised through Rochefort and other towns, we noticed very few moorings, and those available were already filled by mid-afternoon. We kept alternating between river and canal, with a lock at the start of each canal section (going upstream) and a set of flood gates at the end of each canal section. In the canal sections, there was lots of weed and lilypads along the edges, leaving perhaps one-third of the width of the canal for navigation. The water level was also down by perhaps 500mm, as illustrated by the lighter colouring of the rocks along this section of canal.

As we went through the Orchamps lock, we noticed this Quest 3-wheel recumbent bicycle; not every day you see one of these!

As we approached Ecluse 62 at Moulin des Malades, I thought it looked familar, and on getting closer I realised it was the lock we had visited two years ago when we were making our first reconnaisance trip to inspect the port at Auxonne.

Between Ecluses 62 and 61 was a remarkable section of canal/river, spread over 3 levels. The top level (at right below) was the canal, the bottom section (at left) was the river, and in the middle was a transition section for overflow from the canal down to the river. Each section was divided by a wide stone wall with a vertical drop of about one metre.

The vertical drops and the overflows from the canal can be seen more clearly in this photo.

At Ecluse 61, on the entry to Ranchot, the local lads were having some fun on their motor-scooters and with diving into the canal. The two shots below show one guy just before and just after he dived off the bridge railing across the entrance to the lock.

There were some moorings in Ranchot, but those on the quai were taken, and the one on the grass bank didn't look very secure (especially given the recent incidents of barges being cast adrift in the middle of the night by the local lads, and ending up down the end of the canal near the lock shown above). So we continued on in search of another mooring for the night. The Guide Fluviale showed that the next town near St Vit had several possible moorings.

But when we got to St Vit, we found two unexpected things. Firstly, the lock itself was not horizontal, but was much higher at the upstream end than the downstream end, which made tieing up an interesting proposition. We also found that the two moorings shown on the map upstream of the lock had now disappeared entirely. In their place, we found a large rowing pontoon and two dragon boats! So, on we continued.

Since it was now approaching 1900h (the closing time for locks on this canal), we had two options left. If the waiting pontoon at Ecluse 58A near Roset was empty, we could safely moor there for the night, since the lock would be closed till 0700h the next morning. If someone had already claimed the waiting pontoon, then we could just nose the barge up into the river a little way next to that lock, and throw out the anchor (which we had seen another barge doing a few locks earlier). As it turned out, the waiting pontoon was empty as we arrived at 1858h, so we claimed it!

This turned out to be an inspired, if fortuitous, choice of mooring, with an ample supply of birds in the air and fishes in the water to keep us amused for hours, as night gradually crept over the river. Serenity!