A long day, and more bad news

We decided to do a few long days to catch up with the time we have lost.  So today we travelled 30 kms, 16 locks and 3 mobile bridges from Genelard to Montchanin on the summit of this canal.

On the Western side of the summit all the tiny streams, rivers and tributaries drain into the major rivers that flow towards the Atlantic Ocean (e.g Loire and Seine), on the Eastern side they all flow towards the Mediterranean (e.g the Rhone). Hence we exited lock number 1 Ocean and tomorrow we will start off with lock number 1 Mediterrane. Fascinating.

The cut leading north from Genelard

A bucolic rural scene

At lunchtime we were passing through the big town Montceau-les-Mines which has 3 mobile bridges across the canal

Much to our surprise at the second last lock the lockie warned us that there was a hotel peniche coming towards us, and of course we met it right on a sharp bend

Sorry, bad pic

7 hours after leaving Genelard we have stopped at a mooring in the middle of nowhere, no town, no houses, nothing.  But the next stop is another 18 or kms away.  Then I checked the VNF emails and discovered that a section of the Vosges Canal that we expected to be going through in a couple of weeks time is closed until 15th May.  Not again! So we are reconsidering our options, reworking the routes and finding another solution.