Even if it had not been our intention to continue our flight at the same relentless pace, we would have been foiled by the river which was flowing at a good four kilometres per hour in a direction opposite to that which was our preferred. This may not sound much but when the river’s pace amounts to half of one’s usual cruising speed the result tends to be a substantial slowing of the pace.
But it was just for a bit, and we soon made the left hand turn onto the canal, where the cruising magic descended in the way yesterday’s rainbow implied it would.
We smiled and congratulated ourselves on our new found calm and how quickly we'd regained this cruising pace. We ticked along quietly through the morning, stopping at smoko for a coffee and croissant. Then, feeling ever so self congratulatory we stopped again for lunch in a nice forest clearing just a few bends and a few hundred, (perhaps five or six) from the next lock, although well out of its sight.
The cheese had barely taken its position between two halves of a slab of baguette, and neither had taken their positions between my upper and lower jaw, let alone between my upper and lower intestine, when a cyclist arrived, breathless and apparently somewhat concerned about something he obviously thought we could help him with.
The lock he said, had been set for us to go through, and he had been waiting above it on his boat for more than half an hour so he could continue his journey in the opposite direction. He went on to imply that perhaps it would be nice if we forwent our smug little luncheon and that nap that would surely follow, and got a bit of a wriggle on.
Please.
Which is how, despite our best endeavours, we found ourselves settled in for the night in Chagny, not much after two in the afternoon.
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