In the morning it was time to say farewell to Valerie and Hilde, after a very memorable couple of days. After they left, I went for walk around Dole, especially on our side of the canal where there were lots of campervans parked. This turned out to be a free site for overnight (or longer) stays with a paid site with more facilities further away from the canal.

While there was just a solitary van on the north side of the parking area, it was clear that they got the best views.

There were further campervan spots behind the first batch and closer to the river than the canal. They also got a great panoramic view of the river and the new and old bridges.

Around 1000h we left Dole and headed north through Rochefort-sur-Nenon (where the single mooring was unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, full), and then onto Ecluse 63 Moulin Rouge, where we stopped on the waiting pontoon for lunch. While these pontoons usually have a sign saying no stopping except for boats waiting for the lock, there is so little boat traffic at the moment that we are unlikely to impact anyone at any time of day. On several occasions, VNF staff have driven by in their vans and simply waved to us and wished us "Bon Appetit" as we were obviously having lunch. After lunch, we left the river and entered the canal and experienced our worst weed so far. We thought it was bad in 2019 in this stretch to Orchamps, but it was even worse now with water levels being at least 50cm lower than normal. Not a good sign for later in the season. We approached Ranchot through one of my favourite pieces of canal, where the canal is separated from the river by only a stone wall down the centre. But even here, one could see the low water levels, with no water spilling over the wall from the canal to the river.

At the end of this section of canal, we entered the lock before Ranchot, which gives an opportunity to describe an "improvement" that has been made in the past couple of years. All the locks on the Rhone au Rhin use "tirettes" to control the operation of the locks. Once tied up inside the lock, you simply raise the blue one to commence the lock operations. The red one should not be touched, unless you want to stop all operations and have the VNF van come to your rescue. These tirettes are located in a recess in the lock wall, as shown at right below. Joining the tirettes in this recess now is a stainless steel "slider" pole, around which you can put a rope, instead of trying to put a rope around a bollard up on the quai. This is especially useful if you are going uphill, as we have been doing all the way on the Rhone au Rhin so far. However, as I have found out twice, care needs to be taken when using these sliders. At some points along the slider it needs to be held into the recess by cross-bars. Depending on the rise in the lock, the distance from the top of the water to the quai and the size of the boat, it is possible for the rope to be blocked by the cross-bar as it rises with the boat. If only a single rope is around the slider this may not be a problem, as you can let out more rope or disconnect the eye of the rope from the boat's bollard, and replace it above the cross-bar. However, if you use a double rope around the slider, as we have done in the past, then one rope can get locked under the other, and stop sliding up or around the slider,  causing the boat to tip sideways as the water rises. In this situation, it is necessary to cut the rope (as I did once), or have the cross-bar cut the rope for you (as happened to me once). I now use a single rope around the slider which is much easier to adjust, even if it does mean that you have to hold the rope with twice the force.

Given our location and the time of day, we made a bee-line for Roset, where we had moored overnight at the waiting pontoon in 2019. If we were correct in our estimates, we should arrive there just before the lock closing time at 1900h, thus not blocking anyone from using the waiting pontoon for its intended purpose until at least 0900h in the morning, the lock opening time. When we got there, the waiting pontoon was thankfully empty, so we tied up again.

The pontoon is overlooked by several residential properties, some of them quite classy. It also has some interesting neighbours at water level, with birds and frogs everywhere on and around the water lily pads. Luckily we are used to the sound of frogs at night from back home in Taggerty, so they weren't much of a nuisance.