Rita and I awoke from a good sleep on the IKEA couch in the loungeroom, after we bequeathed the main bedroom to Valerie and Hilde. The girls had enjoyed the night on the boat so much that they decided to stay another night with us in Dole. So they loaded our bikes into the back of their car and drove to Dole, parked near the canal and then rode the bikes back to the boat at Ronce. They then settled down to breakfast with just a little bit of music.

When Valerie started strumming some music from the 60-70's, I knew I recognised the tune but couldn't quite place it without the words! It finally dawned on me that it was Harvest, by Neil Young, one of the first albums I ever bought when living in a flat with all the Morandini's at Waverley while doing my Masters at UNSW. We then got talking about music from that era, and the name of Arlo Guthrie (son of Woody) entered the conversation. I asked the girls if they knew about Alice's Restaurant, and surprisingly (to me) they didn't. So I pulled up the video on YouTube and played it for them. There were no moving pictures but the sound sufficed. While the lyric "You can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant" was clearly in my head, I'd forgotten that most of the song was spoken words, and the theme was about conscription for the Vietnam War. It brought back many memories. As I sat there listening, I noticed the lettering on the stern of the boat was starting to look a bit flaky. But no point doing much about it in the coming years, because when we eventually sell, the new owner will need to replace it anyway with a name of their own (I doubt anyone would want to keep Kanumbra!)

After we'd run out of songs to play/sing for the moment, we left Ronce around 1100h, headed for Dole. But by the time we'd got to Choissey, it was lunchtime, and the mooring was vacant so we pulled in to moor. This time the mooring manoeuvre was much smoother than at Ronce. We took table and chairs and food and drinks into the adjacent park and set up under a tree. After lunch, many stretched out on the grass for a little nap. Around 1500h we cast off and headed for Dole. I was a bit worried about the narrow approach to the last lock before Dole (where I had had to reverse out in 2019), but luckily this time there were no boats coming out of the lock. We continued into Dole to an almost empty harbour. The sloping stone wall on the left bank posed an interesting challenge, without bowthrusters, but Rita showed great skill and courage to get ashore with a rope and before too long we had Kanumbra tied up with the steps in the wall next to our doorway.

The view of the Dole Basilica wasn't too shabby either!

To celebrate our successful arrival in Dole, we decided to go into town for a few pre-dinner drinks. So we crossed over the canal into the cafe area and walked through an underground passageway, which had amazing echo accoustics. Naturally, the girls couldn't resist singing a little song as they walked along. We got to the end of the passageway and noticed a little cafe above us, so decided to go there and get a drink. We sat at an emply table on the outskirts of the cafe, but were asked to move along as we couldn't get a drink without ordering a meal. So we got up and left, with the waiter abusing us because we didn't put the chairs back exactly where he wanted them! We moved on to another "Sports Bar" which agreed to sell us drinks without food, which we accpeted.

On the way back though the tunnel, the girls started singing again, and it sounded so good I asked if I could video them. So they got into place in the best echo chamber and started again, with me filming. Just after we finished, we heard footsteps running through from the back of the tunnel. It was the manager of the cafe that we had been thrown out of; he wanted to know if we'd come back to the area under his cafe and sing for his patrons. We thought we might get a free feed out of this, so we agreed and went back and sang a different song. He was most appreciative, but no free meal was forthcoming. But what an interesting experience. It was so good that I made the following video of the Spooky Ladies Trio. We hope you enjoy it.

After we got back to the boat, we enjoyed our postponed meal on-board, and then watched as the sunset played out its spectacle on the gathering storm clouds. The photo at bottom-right is just a reflection in the harbour waters.

When the storm arrived there was a little rain, but it was mostly sheet lightning, which turned night into day as shown here.