ABOVE: Brittany Boating
France by Boat - Brittany Boating
There’s something undeniably romantic about rivers and waterways that roads and motorways can never hope to match. It’s Huckleberry Finn floating down the Mississippi on a raft versus Michael Douglas losing it on a gridlocked freeway in Falling Down. The gentle pace, quiet and calmness of water soothes the soul and raises the spirit in a way that concrete and tarmac never will. Now, combine aquatic appeal with the excitement of going abroad and there, surely, are the requisite ingredients for a great holiday.
As a third-generation Englishman with an Amateur Swimming Association bronze award for personal survival, I like to think that there’s enough maritime tradition in my make-up to enable me to steer my family safely along the inland waters of Brittany. And, although it was pretty big and comfortably spacious, the Nicols 1000 motorboat we had hired for the week was nowhere near as big as the Brittany ferry from which we had disembarked two hours previously. So I was not in the least bit overawed or intimidated.
To make sure I had an adequate grasp of the fundamentals and to explain the various knobs and buttons, our instructor Sylvain took me for a short spin around the basin at Glénac, south-west of Rennes.
Regrettably, there are no brakes on a motorboat so you basically just have to throw the thing into reverse if you want to stop. That, and how to flush the toilet, is more or less all you need to know. Steering is simple enough, except when reversing, when it is quite impossible. The trick, it seems, is to be pointing in exactly the opposite direction at the moment you slip it into reverse. Then, at least, you will be going in the right direction for the first few yards before you inevitably start drifting off course. Fortunately our boat had been parked (oops, I mean moored), facing the right way so that we could at least commence our journey going forward. After stowing all the bags below and having a thorough look around our three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a galley/dining room and small rear terrace complete with table, chairs and bicycles, we cast off.
Trouble-free
With the foot, or rather hand, pressed all the way down to the boards, our maximum, full-throttle speed was barely over the five miles-per-hour limit. Although that ruled out water-skiing, it felt just about right. After ten minutes of trouble-free cruising we encountered our first crisis… a lock. In fact, it was a double crisis as it was closed for lunch, so we had to moor first, eat and then negotiate the lock.
Mooring sounds straightforward but isn’t, especially, as in this case, the bank sloped gently down to the water’s edge. It’s far easier, I was to learn later, if the bank drops down steeply, then you can come right alongside. In this instance, however, my 14-year-old daughter Charlotte was required to leap across with the rope, scramble up the nettled bank and hold on tight while my wife Rose shouted at her to be careful and I shouted at her to hurry up.
A conscientious captain, I restricted myself to just one bottle of the local red wine as I scrutinised the waterways map chart over a light lunch in the sun. We were heading west along the Nantes/Brest canal with the vague intention of eventually turning round at the pretty town of Josselin. Although it might be theoretically possible to cover about 25 miles in a day, we set our targets rather more modestly because the last thing you want to do on holiday is rush.
A little after 1.30, I was blasting my horn to alert the lock-keeper to our presence and getting progressively more agitated until my wife reminded me that we were in no hurry. “But it’s 1.35, where the hell is he?”
He eventually emerged and ambled across to open the gates. Unfortunately, drawn by water’s hypnotic appeal and possibly the horn, a small crowd had gathered around to watch. Spectators were the last thing I needed on my debut lock. Sylvain’s advice of ‘doucement’ rang in my ears as I gently bashed into one side and then a little less gently into the other in a rather inelegant pinball-like manoeuvre, which was to become my trademark. With their love of farce and slapstick, I could almost excuse the French onlookers for chuckling, but found it harder to forgive my family their mirth.
Sliding through the beautiful Brittany countryside was delightful. With practically no other boats around on this wonderfully wide stretch of waterway, we each took turns steering although, of course, I bravely assumed responsibility when a lock hove into view.
Napoléon ordered the canalisation of France’s watercourses at the beginning of the 19th century. Initially, as with most things in those belligerent days, it was done for military reasons, hence the long, straight stretches and the protective line of trees along both banks. In many ways, French canals resemble rural French roads in being distinctively straight and tree-lined. As road and rail became the preferred method of military manoeuvring, the canals assumed the more peaceful role of commercial conduits and were a crucial element in the expansion of internal trade and the economic development of the inland regions of France. Although there are still some commercial barges plying their trade, which incidentally can claim priority going through a lock, today the waterways are principally regarded as a
leisure resource. The few fishermen and cyclists who were enjoying this resource from the towpath would return our cheery waves, as did the occupants of the very occasional boat coming the other way. Unlike cars that intrude on a landscape, a boat feels like an integral part of the environment and is a welcome part of the scenery.
Riverbank rhythm
Like the waterway itself, we soon settled into an easy rhythm. In the evening, we tended to moor a good distance away from the other boats, partly because I needed a couple of hundred metres of clear riverbank to myself to be confident of not hitting another boat, and partly because we were rather self-conscious about our knots. Although Sylvan had demonstrated how to tie up so that we could slip away from our mooring without even having to step ashore to untie the rope, this was one of several aspects of boating that we never quite mastered.
Whoever was up first in the morning would cycle to the nearest boulangerie so that we could munch fresh croissants at breakfast. One trick I learnt was mooring with bow pointing into the setting sun so that the stern was facing east. This ensured that the sun warmed our faces as we breakfasted on the rear terrace. All the places we visited en route were interesting. Most especially fascinating was the medieval market town of Malestroit with its historic, half-timbered shops and large granite houses that had been built on the profits from the leather and textile trades. It owes much of its wealth to the river that flows through its heart, a debt it has acknowledged by opening a Water Museum.
Finding the perfect place to moor at lunchtime was a major preoccupation. In truth, it would have been extremely difficult to fail as there was hardly an unattractive spot on the whole waterway. After lunch, Charlotte would often cycle along the towpath while her mother read and her father studied the charts. One thing I had to research was where we could stop and take on water. Although we had enough diesel to last a month, our water tank needing filling every couple of days and so I looked for little blue taps on the map that indicated where we could fill up.
The wildlife was wonderful. Until this trip, I had only ever seen four kingfishers. My lifetime total was doubled on the first day, trebled by the end of the second, after which I ceased counting. Unbelievably, the luminescent blue flashes from these dazzling birds were so commonplace as to become almost boring. Whereas on the first day we all rushed to look whenever someone spotted one, by the end no one was even bothering to say anything when they did. On the other hand, the curious furry creature we noticed swimming shyly along the bank on the second morning remains a mystery. Although we spotted a couple of others, the precise identity of this beaver-like animal is still uncertain. It could have been a coypu, although quite how it made it all the way from Brazil to Brittany is not easily explained. All we were able to ascertain when we described it to one of the cheery lock-keepers was that they make excellent pâté – that is to say they were tasty when minced rather than endowed with exceptional culinary skills.
After 40 miles, 19 locks and two-and-a-half days, we finally arrived at the delightfully pretty town of Josselin. Dominated by a spectacular fairytale château that rises vertically from the banks of the River Oust, it clearly caters for tourists. Only one floor of the château is open to the public. If you want to look around the few, ground floor, reception rooms, you are obliged to join an organised tour. Much better value and even more spectacular is the view from the top of the bell tower behind the church in the town square. There is no charge and you even get a bit of exercise thrown in for good measure.
Beyond Josselin and the nearer you get to Rohan, the locks become progressively more frequent – on average more than one a mile – and we figured that our Nicols 1000 had already taken enough of a battering. So, after spending a delightful day strolling the streets of Josselin, we quietly turned the boat around and headed back downstream. As well as Glénac, Nicols has other centres in the northwest of France at Sucé-sur-Erdre, near Nantes, Grez-Neuville, near Angers and Sablé-sur-Sarthe, between Angers and Le Mans. Before we visit any of these for another boating holiday, however, we must first work on our knots.