Canal du Nivernais

Saturday
The day promised to be dry with some sunny intervals, so we decided to drive to a little south of Auxerre and go biking along the Canal du Nivernais. The day got off to a bad start, however, over breakfast, when Roger poured the boiling water over the coffee in the French press, and the glass jug shattered at the base, sending coffee and coffee grounds all over the counter, down the fronts (and even the inside) of the cabinets, and all over the tiled floor! What a mess! Eventually, however, we got everything cleaned up, had our breakfast, and set off!
The Canal du Nivernais links the Loire basin with the Seine basin, following the course of the Yonne River in a roughly north-south direction. The canal is 110 miles long and comprises 110 locks. Construction of the canal began in 1784, initially to aid the floating of timber from the forests of the Morvan national park to Paris, via Clamecy and Auxerre. However, the canal was quickly established as an important communication route, carrying timber, building stone, grain and wine out of the region, and bringing in coal. Nowadays it is only used by pleasure craft. We stopped for lunch at a nice little crêperie at the side of the canal, then continued on. It was a lovely ride, passing fields of wheat edged by poppies, as well as other crops. In places on the far side of the canal there were vineyards on the upper hillsides. On the water we saw mallards, swan families, several crested grebes and a grey heron. In several places the canal merges with the river, providing larger expanses of water as shown in my blip. We rode a total of about 18 miles, the longest I've ridden in a long time. Some of our return was a bit of a slog, as we had a head wind in places, but fortunately since the canal does change direction from time to time, it wasn't constant! Before driving home, we went for a little drive through the village and vineyards of Chablis.