Another day on the water under the torching sun. Our last day on board. The plan for the day was to go further upstream to Trave, have lunch there, return to Savoyeux, and then to clean the boat as we needed to return it the next morning. We realized that it would be spending a lot of time on the helm.
We got up soon, had breakfast and managed to leave our mooring place at a quarter to 10. We ascended through lock #10 at Soing, passed an auxiliary lock, and then lock #9 near Chantes. Here, a technician was servicing the lock system. I had entered the lock a little bit too quickly, which the technician conveyed to me in a kind and funny manner thereby pointing out that the lock will almost certainly not move should the boat bang against the walls 🙂 The talk then went on with other unrelated topics. All in all, a entertaining chat with nice guy during a relatively long ascent. Remarkable were also the deep grooves that the ropes of the boats have left in the stones in almost 150 years of operation.
We arrived at 12:15 in Trave, secured the boat and then went to town to look for a restaurant. There were not too many option, not to say none, so we went back to the restaurant in the harbor that went by the uninspiring name “L’Embarcadère” or “landing stage”. That turned out to be a good twist of fate as lunch was really tasty. At around 14:30h, we were back on board, started the engine, and commenced our return to Savoyeux. The journey was uneventful, and we arrived at 18:00h. As always, packing and clean the boat took longer than anticipated We finished at around 9 pm.