Canal du Bourgogne St Jean de Losne to Dijon

Friday 5^th May

25.5km/19 locks/8hrs and 30 mins

St Jean de Losne to PK 217.5 on the Canal du Bourgone

We’d moved back onto the quay at St Jean d Losne on Wednesday as the mooring we had in the port was only really supposed to be for the weekend. It’s lovely being back on the river.  On Thursday evening we were joined by 4 boats of various sizes that we knew from Roanne. 

A beautiful evening moored on the Quay at St Jean de Losne

On Friday we woke up to a very, very foggy morning.  It luckily cleared enough for us to feel safe to travel the small distance to the lock to take us up back into the port and onto the Canal du Bourgogne.  We’d booked the lock for 9am and we were out by 9.10am.  A good start as we had decided we’d like to try and get to Dijon in one day.  The weather forecast was for a beautiful sunny day but the forecast for tomorrow was for rain.

This was clearer than it had been

The quay with the fog clearing

We were glad to be getting off the river, the visibility was very poor

Marie and Guy on Sinfonia setting off for their travels 

Guy taking a photo of me taking a photo of him!

We had a great trip because of the weather, once the fog had cleared but the section of canal near to Dijon is suffering from weed and this slowed down our progress somewhat.  It was like going through a thick soup, and at times with weed wrapped around the propeller we found stopping in the locks rather a challenge.  At 6.10pm we got to two locks away form Dijon and our lock keeper said that he could take us no further.  He said he lived in St Jean de Losne and had to travel back on the moped.  The locks are supposed to close at 7pm.  So we tied up at not such a pretty mooring, a port full of barges, and next to what looks like a cement works in a commercial area and the port was full of weed.  But the welcome we had from barges that were moored there permanently was lovely.  They knew Marie and Guy off Sinfonia another Piper barge (who we’d seen this morning).  So rather than being moored up  in beautiful Dijon, where we’d hoped for a nice dinner in the city, in the sunshine, we sat on the back deck and we opened a bottle of Cremant du Bourgogne and relaxed as the sun went down; realising that we would probably been too tired to go out for dinner tonight anyway!!

It turned out to be a beautiful day

The canal is dead straight from St Jean to Dijon and can be accused of being boring but the sunshine
and the colours of the rape seed fields helped make it very attractive

It was so weedy in some parts, it really made Rangali feel very sluggish

A weed muncher!  We hope that it will help with the weed problem by the time we return in about a weeks time
We had to wait for this to come down in the lock before we could enter

This lot was wrapped around our prop

Saturday 6^th May

PK217.5 to Dijon

3km/2 locks/1 hour

We woke up to grey skies, but luckily still dry.  We hadn’t booked the next lock so weren’t in too much of a rush, but we were ready to move off around 8.45am.  Luckily there was a nearby VNF office and Kev went off to see if we could book the next lock, only to find they were expecting us at 9am, so perfect.  We set off and we were moored up in Dijon by 10.15am.

We showered and went in search of lunch and found a very nice place called Le Bistro de L’Admiral.  It didn’t look much from the outside but I’d read it had great reviews on Trip Advisor and we had a very nice set 2 course lunch for 14.50 euros each.  It started to drizzle while we were having lunch, so we had a quick walk around old Dijon, and then made our way back to the port.  We then went to do a little shopping at the nearby supermarket to find it had closed and a new store had opened up about 500m further away.  Its great shopping by foot as you can only buy what you can carry. So no impulse purchases!  By the time we got back to Rangali, it had started to really rain so we have spent a relaxing afternoon reading, etc.