You might wonder about the dribs and drabs of our blog updates, but this is just what it has been like here!
Now, don't get depressed! There are a few sun rays breaking through the clouds, the rain and the hail showers:
First: Austin and I are still having a few laughs - although his boating enthusiasm is wearing a little thin with me.
Second: we keep on meeting Jill and Frank, who are the nicest people. We are in awe of what they have done and are continuing doing in their lives. Two days ago,we all went out to dinner, including their lovely friends Rob and Terri from California, and had a really good time. We ate Café Nationale almost out of Scallops and Rabbit and the red wine was probably running low too! The desert "Steak tartare à la Frank" - translated into "Tarte tartin" went down especially well.
Today, on Sunday, the weather was promising to be dry, and we had everything geared up to set sail - so to speak. Frank and Jill cleverly got away ahead of us. I don't think they were too keen on getting caught with dilettantes in the locks.
We decided to fill up with diesel at the service dock on the Saône. Today this was only possible via a credit card in "dribs" of 68 Euros at a time. Austin insisted to feed the machine 10 times with our card, resulting in about 500 litre of Diesel, 1 hour of our time and missing the am opening time of the Canal de Bourgogne's first Lock!
After an embarrassing return to the port and a quick lunch, we tried again: this time the lock-keeper was away, servicing another lock - 35 minutes wait!
It was the same story at the second lock - this time we waited over an hour.
For the next three locks we had better luck and we ganged up with an Aussie couple plus 8 month old baby and their parents from England on a hire boat, taking turns in catching the ropes.
That's as far as we got! Tomorrow we hope to manage the residual 16 locks to Dijon. But for now we are having our first night moored at the side of the canal.
