Adrian's French Waterway's Trip

We have been Caravanners and Motor Caravanners for many years and we have often thought what a boat on a canal would be like as opposed to our usual motor caravan.
Though Clive Edwards of “Boating in France” and “Nicols Yacht” we were recently given the chance to satisfy our wonderings.

Our good friends Brittany Ferries allowed us to use their superb Portsmouth to St Malo overnight crossing so that we could wander down to Glenac to take charge of one of Nicols new Quattro boats.
We sailed on the “Bretagne” overnight to St Malo and as usual the sea was like a mill pond, we always seem to be lucky, our only grouse was that the arrival time turned out to be 45 minutes earlier than we had been told so that breakfast had to be a rushed affair.

The trip to Glenac was around 90 miles so we had at least six hours to kill, the journey was a very leisurely one, something that we are not used to!
The base for Nicols boats seemed a little like the “Mary Celeste” when we arrived so we had the chance to wander up to the village hoping to obtain a bite to eat, no such luck, we managed a cup of coffee and that was that, during our sojourn in the café we noticed a “Nicols” van go past so knew that the base would now be manned.

On arrival once again we had a warm welcome and were shown our boat, one of the “Estivale” range which we gathered was the best on the waterways at the moment. We have never been river cruising before so we have never had any experience of cabin cruisers, we must therefore compare it with our motor caravan, after all it is a little like a floating caravan. We realise that we have come on this trip in the low season and when the weather was somewhat cold for the time of year, we found that the boat was quite difficult to keep warm unless the heater was run for long spells, condensation was quite a problem unless this heater was on.
We assumed therefore that the walls were not insulated to the same extent as our own motorhome, of course the caravan is not immersed in cold water all of the time.

Having during our journey spoken to other trippers with other company’s boats we realise that they are all the same, this then is how these boats are constructed so are more suited to hot weather and windows open for ventilation.

Having wandered off the subject a little we must get back to the job in hand, we were shown all the workings of the boat, both mechanically and domestically, also how to moor, how the gas system operated, the two Nicols staff were very careful in their hand over. We then were taken for a short trip to familiarise ourselves with the feel of the Quattro, the model name of our boat.
The boat had the feel of a shallow draught boat with no keel to speak of, of necessity of course, in that the rudder had to be corrected constantly, more so when the wind was blowing.

We left the base at Glenac at around four o’clock in the afternoon and made our way, via the first lock, towards Malestroit. The lock was negotiated in a fairly tidy manner and we were away to our first stop at la Brisselais for the night, this was next to a hotel where we had a welcome drink, brandy with almonds which was delicious, we spend the rest of the week trying to find this in any shop that we went to, then back to the boat and settled down for the night.

The Nicols brochure tells us that they can supply extra foam to put on the mattress for added comfort, our advice is to take them up on the offer as the bed is somewhat hard.
Our other slight grouse is the way that the water is heated, it tells us that the water is heated by the engine, so if you have a shower after a days running you will have nice hot water, if you leave your shower until the morning, as we do, you have to run the engine for a while to heat the water, we ran it for about 30 minutes and still the water was only tepid, why couldn’t it be heated from the gas heater like caravans and motorhomes?

On the Saturday, our second day, we made our way to the next stop which was at Malestroit, this was a very pretty little town where we found all the facilities that we wanted including water, we filled the onboard tank here for our showers, this tank had a capacity of 450 litres.
We did not leave this stop until the afternoon and travelled up to a village called Le Roc St Andre. This was a sleepy tiny typical Breton place with a very large church which had an extremely unusual tower.

We wandered up to the village and went into a café for a coffee, this happened to be a betting shop as well, my lady had a flutter and came away with 32 Euros. After a nights sleep we bought a super baguette, as they all are, and prepared to depart, our destination today was to be Josselin.

This is a very quaint town dominated by what the guide books say is the most beautiful castle in Brittany, this lovely old building is right by the mooring
The waterways guide tells us that you can find electricity at the moorings here, we didn’t find it however.
We had passed through seven locks today and only made a bit of a hash of one of them, what a good job that there are about 50 fenders round the boat!
We walked round the town which has some really old houses, there are so many up for sale that we wondered what was going on. The town boasts a Basilica which has some very lovely stained glass windows.

We left Josselin to start the return trip, the day was our best yet weather wise with a strong sun and virtually no wind, this made steering the boat a little easier.
We retraced our seven locks and ended up in Malestroit where we stayed the night. We actually thought that this was a better town than Josselin with a much bigger super market and more going on generally.
We walked our socks off wandering round exploring this very picturesque place which has some interesting buildings. Strangely there appeared to be quite a lot for sale here as well, we wondered if this was a recent thing or just normal, or is it all the British people fleeing Mr Brown?
Up till now we had cooked our own meals but we determined to eat out tonight, Wednesday, at the restaurant next to the mooring at la Brisselais, and to have some more of that delicious brandy.

The well laid plans of mice and men often go awry, so it was with ours, the restaurant that we had hoped to use for our evening meal was not open “ce soir” so it was sausages and roast potatoes on the boat plus a glass or two of “plonk” ah well!

Thursday was our last day and we only had around seven kilometres to the base at Glenac, the day turned out to be windy and bitterly cold as well, we went through the last lock like the professionals we now were? and turned the corner on to the river where the wind was howling.

When we arrived at the base we had quite a hard task to moor and it was only the very welcome help of a fellow boater that saved some acute embarrassment.

Our six days were over, we had done something that we had never done before, we had seen towns and villages that we would never have stopped at if we had been in the motor caravan.

We must thank “Nicols Boats” for giving us the opportunity to sample this canal cruise, our good friend Clive Edwards of “Boating in France” for arranging the trip, and giving us the “Waterways Guide” without which you would be completely lost, and last but by no means least “Brittany Ferries” for whisking us across the channel, the return trip was to be from Caen which was further to travel, we travelled in the “Mont St Michel” a fairly new ship and lovely.
Last, but by no means least, a big thank you to our friends at Kia for the loan of a “Sorento” that cosseted us in comfort and speed.

Would we do it all again? We spent the first three days saying that we were not sure, the next three days with better weather we said yes we would.
With a proviso that the weather would have to be warmer as “our” boat could not be kept warm unless the heater was run a great deal and condensation could be a problem. The other snag was that in the entire time we never had a really hot shower, although we were told that the shower water and the kitchen sink water came from the same source something was amiss. The kitchen water, at the end of a day, was scalding, the water from the shower was not much more than warm, why?

We really enjoyed the experience, all the lock keepers were obliging and friendly as was everyone we met. Roll on the next time.

Addresses: Boating in France, Hornbeam Cottage, School Lane, Litton Cheney, Dorset, DT2 9AU Tel; 01308 482605
Nicols Yacht, Halte Nautique, Rue des Marais, 56200 Glenac France. Tel; 0299085471