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Published: April 18th 2016
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Life
Winter is now over in mid April but you would not guess it with the temperature back down to low singles at night but even 8 degrees during the day seems warm after Feb and March, should have kept the electric blanket on. Never mind we can snuggle down with the Tibetan bed warmer. (Not the Dalai Lama although he does seem like a great chap)We are definitely going away next winter possibly by ferry to the Canary Islands if we can take Yeti. Failing that a villa in Spain or Portugal. Then for the one after will think about a return to Aus and try and work out what to do with Swara , we came close to putting her up for sale but changed our mind. We know she is still there in Langkawi because our good friends Graham and Lorraine from Lorrigray went and inspected her for us. Thanks guys. One of the best things about our peripatetic lifestyle is the really good friends we make along the way; hopefully we can catch up with them this year.
Vintage Cru is now fully stocked with wine and beer, that’s the essentials done, should have
enough wine for a few weeks, months, perhaps years. Full of fuel, all the maintenance and repairs are up to date (well as much as they ever will be on an old boat ) and we are off cruising towards the end of April. Marg’s brother Dave is coming to see us in Briare next week and then we are off, assuming the VNF (the guys who run the canals) are not on strike. We aim to head south then east then north and south again ,we are determined not to make any fixed plans after all this is the carefree life.
Peter hits pension age this year but have to be resident in Aus for two years to get his Australian pension which sucks so we may have to forgo the Chateau Margaux this year and make do with less exotic breeds of wine.
We are not totally convinced of French Engineering expertise , we took the transmission out to change an oil seal , took it to the local hydraulic experts to remove the drive coupling with a press and they managed to smash it getting it off, and then had the nerve to charge us
to make a new one . Got it back to the boat, put it back in just to find they had drilled all the holes out of alignment, we had take it out again and take it back. Impossible they said they could not have done it incorrectly but did make new holes. Bizarre!
We have bought a small freezer for Vintage Cru, basically so we can have frozen peas and ice cream, ( not at the same time but that would be different)it’s small enough to run off an inverter and put on top of the washing machine, in the “utility room”.
Travels
We had a great trip to the south of France in Tilly the van, had a drive along the Canal du Midi ( well the road) did some wine tasting , visited Carcassonne for lunch , it is a great medieval city . We caught up with some friends we made in Briare last winter at Narbonne and had some great meals with them, we liked Narbonne it seems like a nice place but there were a few problems with some of the more socially challenged locals, and noise etc for
our friends who were on the main quay in the town centre.
We at last managed to catch up with our Swedish friends who we had last seen in the Caribbean 15 years ago, they have bought a house in Marsellain on the coast/ Etang du The (This is a salt water lake not a tea lake). We kept missing each other as we both finished our circumnavigations many years ago and it was great to reminisce and catch up with each other.
We did have lovely weather although cold and even managed a couple of trips to the beach with Yeti.We drove back up through the Massif Central , had blizzards , thick snow but the French Motorway People are great they had snow clearers etc out at the first sign of snow and we had no problems. We went back via the Millau Viaduct which is a fabulous bridge 343 m above the valley below. Got back to the boat to find it covered in ice and snow, but this was only the second time we had snow this winter, the other time was a blizzard which lasted about 20 minutes, Yeti and Peter were lost
in the blizzard and had to take shelter under a bridge( no pubs in Briare).
Once the weather had improved we decided to visit some more chateaus along the Loire. We first came to the Loire valley to see the chateaus in 1976 but the weather was so bad we missed a lot of them so it was good to finally see the ones we missed. Most impressive were Chenonceau, Chambord, Amboise and St Fargeau. They all were memorable but the double helix staircase at Chambord is still intriguing and the roof mind-blowing, the history of Chenonceau was just so interesting.
The pictures hopefully save a thousand words but they all have web sites, look them up if you have the time. The history, the architecture are so impressive, and they are all so different with some being ones you could live in and some so magnificent you could not imagine them being anything but a movie set. We were very impressed even considering all the fantastic things we have seen in the last 30 years of cruising.
We needed to renew our Aussie passports so a trip to Paris was compulsory, we drove up and managed
to find somewhere to park for the day for 14 euros right outside the Australian Embassy by the Eifel Tower. We arranged to meet our friends Tony and Niki from Archangel who were going to look after Yeti in case we were a long time in the passport office, we were in and out in about 10 minutes, very efficient and easy! We had a walk around and then had lunch in a delightful restaurant .Yeti loves Paris.
We had our obligatory Australia Day Party which was a little less attended than last year but a couple of new friends who live in Briare stayed longer than most and we had a great time.
Yeti the Fur Child
He is now 17 months old, his coat has been a nightmare with his adult coat growing out through his baby coat, we came close to getting him shaved but as we could not find an after shave that suited him or was approved by the Buddhist Kennel Club we decided not to... We are glad we didn’t as hundreds of hours of grooming and pulling knots out are finally paying off and Peters beard looks ok
now. He is very interested in girls now (Yeti not Peter) and has lots of friends around Briare who he gets let off the lead to play with. He loved the snow, said it reminded him of the Himalayas, loved the beach even more and had great fun chasing seagulls, running free as far as he liked and doing rolly pollys down the sand dunes, sorry that was Margaret, she always does that at the beach. He absolutely loves hotels, we had an apartment in Narbonne, and as soon as he got into the bedroom he was jumping up and down on the king size bed just like a teenage kid, which we suppose he is really .
Health
Peter has finished his post operation physio and has had great results from last blood test, most of the post op issues which could have been problematic haven’t been, so all is well. Marg’s problems after her falls last year have responded to physio and she has full function back in her hand at last.
We cannot recommend the French Dental system however, they are really weird dentists who do strange things like take a filling
out, put a temporary dressing in and say come back in six months, or want to take two good teeth out to fix a problem with another one, needless to say we avoided that option hope we can last out until we get back either to our great dentist in Mooloolaba or Thailand.
Food and wine
Yes please. We did visit a booze shop ( what a surprise) in Sully which had the most fantastic selection of Whiskeys, Rums, beers and exotic alcohols , some fantastic aged rums which are better than single malt whiskeys but we were good and only bought a dozen.
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John and Colleen
non-member comment
Another great travel story.
Hi there Marg and Peter, This was a great read and pleased that everything is going well. With the French summer approaching life on board the canal barge should be super. Keep the travellers tales going. Best regards John and Colleen.