Sunday Stills: Entrances and Gateways

Entrance to the Pouilly Tunnel, France

The approach to the Pouilly Tunnel seems innocuous enough; only when you’ve actually entered it do you find that long stretches are unlit.  This first journey through the tunnel took us almost an hour.  That’s a long time to hang on to your cool if you’re verging on the claustrophobic.  Subsequent passages have taken us less time – the last one being completed in around 30 minutes.

The Gendarmerie, Plombieres les Dijon

These barbarous hooks on the gate to the Gendarmerie are on the outside. 

Entering Guetin lock, Lateral a la Loire

Rear view on leaving Guetin lock

Guetin lock, on the Canal Lateral a la Loire, is one of the few with steeply sloping slides.  If you’re entering from downstream. the lock-keeper lowers a hook to take your rope from you.  This is no time to find that your ropes are not long enough…  At the bottom of the last picture you can see the lock cill which protrudes into the chamber.  Some lock-keepers will try to get too many boats into the lock, with the consequent result that the rear-most boat can get wedged at an angle as the water level goes down.  Then the lock has to be re-filled to enable the boat to be floated off… all good fun! (But not if you’re the rear-most boat.)

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