Hot Hot Hot

Oh boy this is a heck of a heat wave mid to high 30s from 11:00-19:00, it’s now 20:30 and down to 33degs! As you can probably imagine we really aren’t doing much, by 14:00 we’re shattered. We travelled from Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, with its many many barge houseboats, further downstream. There are now fewer potential stopping places if your boat is more than 10m long, and that coupled with a lot of the smaller museums etc being closed has meant we’ve had few opportunities to stop and visit, the heat also makes it difficult to motivate yourself to ride or walk any distance. Yesterday we travelled 32 miles down the river and saw about 10 big barges and one British pleasure boat. We ended up at Port Ilon, a marina in a back water lake that appeared to be in the middle of nowhere, it would have been idyllic in normal weather conditions but as it was with electricity we could at least plug in a/c which meant that we could get a little sleep. We’re not sure how the Brit will get on, he had no idea who the VNF were or that most of the canals linking Nothern and Southern France were closed pending more rain. Nor did he know what marinas were available in Paris or where to buy fuel. He had internet but no documents, we tried to help out in shouted conversations from boat to boat. I thought we perhaps had not planned enough but well ...... On the journey we passed Limay see photo 2. We were confused at first until we realised the older foremost bridge had had an arch demolished so that boats could pass through and another newer higher bridge built behind it.
Today we passed Roche-Guyon where there is a Troglodyte church and dwellings, (cave houses) these I would have liked to see close up but never mind. We stopped for lunch in Vernon (no shade for boat or we would have stayed) and I went for a short stroll around, saw the church with some modern stained glass, lots of timbered buildings and the Garden of Arts considered crossing the bridge to Vernonete but as no shade decided against it and watched children playing the the fountains instead, wishing I was young enough to join in. After lunch we continued and started looking for shade after another 15km we found a bit on a loading station just below Notre-Dame de la Garenne lock and are just hoping they don’t start work too early in the morning and that a boat doesn’t arrive during the night! These two longer days mean we now only 80km from Rouen and our mast!Read more