This is the eighth part of our journey which takes us from Nevers to Decize.
We enjoyed out short time in Nevers but it was time to move on. Again we were very lucky with the weather although a little chilly. Out of the marina there are two semi automatic locks which thanks to out Parisian friend we were able to operate with ease.
This video is a combination of real time and time-lapse video. We had seen brief glimpses of what we thought looked like Otters swimming in the canal, but we were not sure. It turned out that that we were seeing Coypu which are basically giant rats. The first ones we saw appeared to be quite allusive hiding in the undergrowth, then we came across a couple which seemed to be quiet happy to be filmed an the bank of the canal while I kept a certain distance. We only saw the Coypu in the very quite areas of the canals. It turns out that these rodents are not native to France and the French consider them to be a pest. Regardless, we enjoyed watching the giant rats for a while.
When we reached Decize in the evening we found another semi-automatic lock before finding a hammer-head birth for a couple of days. We only just managed to tie up in time before the marina manager had finished for the day. This was one of the few locations that we had to pay for our overnight stay and we also had to pay for electric and water which was unusual but this meant that we had excellent marina facilities and a brilliant little restaurant.
Thank you for watching………
