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.)
For other offerings along the Sunday Stills theme of Entrances and Gateways, click on the link.
Sandra, Very interesting photos. I don’t know what’s happened to my Gravatar. The correct one is on the Like button, but there’s a strange one here. Perhaps it’s gremlins again 🙂 —Susan
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Gremlins? WordPress?? 🙂 Thanks for visiting Susan, hope you get it sorted.
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Love the little flowers on the lock gates. That’s a nice touch. 🙂
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It is, isn’t it Jackie? That’s the first time I’ve seen that. At one lock those hollows behind the cross-bars on the gates were full of water from the last lock-down, and lots of small fish were leaping around in them. At the end of the lock magpies gathered, and one by one they swooped along the interior of the lock chamber to snatch them up… and off they went. 🙂 Dinner provided courtesy of Voies Navigable de France!
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