So . . . after our failure to get onto the Canal de
l’Espierre and Canal de Roubaix, we headed off south to get to Lille to meet
Robert, the long way round, via the Escaut, Dunkirk-Escaut Waterway and the
Deule! (We had spent so long in the two
boatyards this spring that our original intention of doing the
Paris-Marne-Strasbourg-Toul circuit had been postponed till next year, so this
year was a good opportunity to tackle some northern waterways.)
We decided to overnight in the Bassin Rond at the junction
of the Dunkirk-Escaut waterway and the Escaut as we had done 4 years ago. We had loved the mooring then and did now,
but 4 years ago it was virtually empty of moored boats but now there were many
more, including several ex-commercial peniches.
We moored up with the help of the owner of COSMA, a historic 1960s
working barge still virtually ‘as built’.
The Bassin Rond is a lovely spot, nearly as nice as the
Tournai Yacht club mooring but not as big.
Having met Stephan we decided to stay for 2 nights and invited him and
his wife Florence for drinks and returned to COSMA for coffee the next
day. We had lengthy conversations with
them both on the subject of commercial traffic and how it is regulated in
France and began to understand his frustrations at the system, which has seen
many of the smaller owner-operated commercial craft give up the struggle.
After another night en route we got to Lille where we found
the Bras de la Citadelle mooring completely empty!! Great! a good spot to rendezvous with Robert
who was arriving on Eurostar for a long weekend.
We sussed the buses to Lille Europe station and caught one
the following morning to meet him. We
had a bit of a hiccup on the bus on the way there because the tickets wouldn’t
‘compost’ (stamp) in the machine on board.
Other travellers tried to help but it was the machine which was at
fault, and eventually the driver got out of his seat, re-set the machine
several times until finally it worked.
We had a good laugh with the driver over that, and amazingly when we
returned with Robert, it was the self-same driver who this time had to explain
to us in his non-existent English and our poor understanding of French, that he
couldn’t drop us at the same spot where we had got on – roadworks had caused a
diversion apparently! Still, it all made
for a fun ride.
We had lunch at the restaurant adjacent to our mooring
(sadly in the pouring rain) and thus acquired its wifi password, so Robert was
happy as he could continue ‘life as he knows it’ with his I-pad.
We decided on a short cruise north to the River Lys and
Armentières where we spent a pleasant night with warm sunshine for evening
drinks on deck. Armentières was almost
completely destroyed during the war and this was our first experience of being
‘in the battle zone’.
The return to Lille went without incident apart from an
inexplicably long wait at one of the locks.
This can often happen on the canals and can make planning a voyage
tricky, but in this case we just couldn’t understand the lock-keeper’s
rapid-fire French, so we just waited . . . and waited.
Having dropped Robert off in Lille after his weekend, we
continued our cruise south towards the Somme.
Out first stop was near to the junction with the now-closed
Canal de Seclin, which we investigated on our bikes. It was a lovely ride of about 5 kms to the
terminus and the town, which like many small towns in France has the most
beautiful 13th century buildings, in this case the ‘Hôpital’.
On the canals we’ve noticed several widenings in the canal
called ‘Gare d’Eau’ on our maps. The one
south of Lille – 300m long and offline, behind an islan,d is marked with a ‘P’
sign. It was entirely empty of boats, so
we entered rather gingerly, and found to our surprise that the depth was pretty
good on the whole though along the edges some parts were a bit shallow for
RICCALL. Bollards were installed at
regular intervals and after some probing with the long barge pole, we found a
couple with adequate depth. A short
cycle ride into the village took us to a small supermarket with most essentials
we might require. How come such a good
off-line mooring has been effectively abandoned?
We woke up to heavy mist the next morning and delayed our
departure but it soon cleared and we headed towards the Canal du Nord.
At Douai we found a good mooring and went off exploring on
our bikes. We rode along the Scarpe
Inferieure which has been closed for about 10 years due to a road bridge at
Raches near the Douai end. After about
6kms we found it, all renewed and with its hydraulics intact, seemingly
operational but not yet opened! This one
bridge prevents use of a perfect short cut.
What a waste of a lovely canal!
We also found near Douai an amazing water and adventure park,
which was clearly very popular with the local children. Of course this was during the school summer
holidays, but it was great to see everyone enjoying the various pretty new
facilities – including a fantastic climbing and tree-top area where children and
parents alike wear hard hats and clipped-on safety harnesses and negotiate the
high level obstacle course and zipwires.
(A cornet in glorious sunshine provided the ice-creaming on the cake.)
Close to this we also found a brilliant town mooring, in the
centre of Douai, with water and electricity, on the line of the old
through-town canal now closed, with just one cruiser mooring up on it as we
rode up, but we were dissuaded from moving onto it by a very low-looking bridge
which would have meant a hasty roof removal.
Not this time, but perhaps . . .
So after these explorations we continued onto the Nord and
up to the summit level – 7 up-hill locks to negotiate first, behind a
commercial, whose captain we got to know quite well during all that
effort.
However, after the last lock he continued to the tunnel
while we (chickens!) moored up 6kms before it for a quiet night. We had an unexpectedly easy passage through
the tunnel the next day which happened to be a Sunday. The tunnel is 4kms long and in the middle is
a 1km long lay-by!! Boats start at each
end at the same time and then in the middle they pass in the lay-by. Traffic lights indicate who does what and
when.
So the tunnel behind us, we continued down the 5 locks to
the junction with the Somme, which winds its way through a delightful area of
lakes and etangs on which are many little boats and fishing shacks. Louise had acquired a book ‘Spring on the
Somme’ by Arthur R Taylor to read while travelling the Somme, and she would
thoroughly recommend it to anyone, particularly anyone making the same
trip. It was fascinating, amusing and
very informative. (It’s always great to
have a book about the area through which you are travelling.)
Mooring up seemed very problematic before the very first lift
bridge, as GRAND DUTCHY, a narrowboat we had come across in Toul, and a cruiser
were moored on the very inadequate quay.
We hovered around a bit looking perplexed, but quickly MV MALANTA’s
captain Fred offered to move off, let us in and moor on us. So kind!
But that’s how some boaters are.
So of course, aperos on RICCALL followed! A good omen we felt for our cruise on the
Somme.
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