Well here we were back in Pontoise after almost exactly 5
years and the place was much improved.
The public quay had been completely renewed and there is now a long
floating pontoon up river of the restaurant boat with water and electricity for
€14 per night, any length. On the
opposite bank they’ve refurbished the banks and installed another long floating
pontoon, around 100 metres or so, offering no facilities but free to stay.
The town itself also showed signs of investment with the
cathedral half cleaned, the squares newly paved and fresh flowers planted in
borders and planters all over town.
Our journey there from Seneffe was largely without incident
and much of it covered old ground. We
moored at many places we had moored at before which always brings a sense of
familiarity and ease. But one, to our
amazement, was completely taken up with commercials and that was at Mortagne du
Nord, just over the Belgian border into France.
We struggled our way through the silt to the small plaisance quay on the
opposite bank: a bit of shimmying back and forth got us close enough to the
quay to get the mooring lines on. The
next day, however, getting away from this mooring and back into the main channel
was a bit of a challenge. We were
ploughing a furrow in the mud and just had to let Riccall choose the best route
for our escape! No sharp turns advisable
here!
From Peronne southward we were onto new territory on the
Canal du Nord until we rejoined the Oise (which was the route we had taken 5
years ago from the Canal St Quentin).
We spent a few nights at Compiègne and this time actually
did a tour of the Palais – unfortunately we were a little underwhelmed
considering the write-up in the tourist literature though the photos make a good
show. The Fête des Muguets (lily of the
valley) occurred on a very wet May Day, and we watched the typical French
parade squelching past for hours!
Then a couple of nights in Creil from where we cycled the
impossible roads to Chantilly, to view the splendid gardens of the
Chateau. We felt the cost of visiting
the house itself was not justified, and this time our Lonely Planet said as
much. Maybe we should have discovered
for ourselves, but it was such a lovely day that we decided to stay al
fresco. In retrospect however, although
the gardens were not included in the tour of the chateau itself, it would have
allowed ample views of the best bits of the gardens anyway, so that would,
perhaps, have been the better option.
Despite the fact that it was a lovely day, the 10km bike ride to get
there had been so fraught with the presence of 40 ton lorries and fast cars on
the roads that we decided to take the train back to our moorings. As usual we were assured by the ticket office
that there was no problem taking our bikes on the €1.70 per person train ride
back to Creil. It was no easy task
lugging our heavy Dutch Gazelles onto the train, but there is no doubt it was
better than facing the juggernauts and racing cars on the road.
The day before our planned departure for Paris we had a bit
of excitement as a huge commercial moored up in front of us. So far so good, but while the family went off
shopping, the barge managed to slip its rear mooring line – Madame had merely
attached the rope with a large hook to the armaco of the quayside, very low
down. We were sitting quietly in the
wheelhouse, sudoku-ing and crossword-ing when Louise looked up and spotted the
back end of the barge gently floating out into the river. We shot to the barge and Louise shouted to
anybody who might still be on board but to no avail. So Alex ran all the way down the quay to the
front end (still attached) and then back down the full length of the boat -
80m+, threw their rope to Louise who secured it round a bollard. Then we bowsered the boat back in and made it
properly secure.
An hour later Madame and the children returned and Alex
explained to a mystified Madame what had happened. She then phoned hubby (who had apparently
been on board the whole time!) and gave Alex a rather curt ‘Merci’. Perhaps she was embarrassed. Oh well, you can’t win them all!
As well as local government spending on Pontoise, a couple
of building firms are about to build several blocks of modern flats along the
banks of the river. The temporary sales
office for one of these was right next to our mooring. After two days Alex could stand it no
longer. Here was a good, strong, but
locked wifi signal – so he braved the tall chic lady salesperson who ‘manned’
(‘womaned’) the office each day and asked ever-so-politely, if she could give
us the code. ‘Mais oui’ she said. Fantastic!
Definitely worth the little prezzie of a pack of choc nibbles we had
ready for her, but we had to leave them in a plastic carrier bag on her office
door with a note as she didn’t open up before it was time for us to leave for
Paris.
The trip to our next mooring at Rueil Malmaison took far
longer than we remembered and when we got there at 5.30pm, thank goodness it
was empty, unlike 5 years ago when it was packed with cruisers. But then we noticed the sign, erected since
our last visit, which said, ‘NO MOORING BETWEEN 9am AND 6pm!’ What a swizz!
Well, with just half an hour to go, we reckoned it was OK and if we
slept in in the morning – bad luck!
We arrived at the first lock on the St Denis Canal at 11.45
am but for some reason the radio wasn’t transmitting our request to the
lockkeeper to go up the flight, or at least we were getting no response from
him, so Alex tried the hand-held radio to which the response was – about a 20
minute wait. 4 hours later we
started the flight! Every time we
thought this is it, another commercial appeared. Finally after two and a half hours and seven
locks, we managed to moor up in the ‘circulating basin’ as they call it at the
top of the flight. We were unable to get
to La Villette as the temporary passerelle (pedestrian) bridge they have
installed while the automatic lift bridge is repaired, had stopped operating
for the day.
The next day we went as far up the Canal de l’Ourcq as a
barge of our size can, about 11kms, just to have a look at it and the bankside
improvement works. Then we returned to
pass the temporary passarelle into the port of La Villette, where we now
discovered that it only opened at pre-determined times of day (mainly to let
the trip boats through actually). So we
moored up and had lunch while we waited.
Finally we got into La Villette, which now has a total of 250 metres of
mooring spread over three different areas, allocated to plaisance boats over
15m where you are allowed to moor for up to 7 days.
Our last trip to La Villette (2009) had cost us around €17
for the use of the 7 up and 4 down locks and nothing for the overnight mooring,
so we sort-of-assumed it wouldn’t be too far off that, allowing for inflation and
so stayed for 4 nights. We did a bit of
sightseeing, as you do, met up with Stewart and Lesley of ENDELLION who were
moored in the Arsenal Port for a coffee and a catch up, then the next day went
to pay the bill at the Paris office (rather than let it be sent to our home
address, where we aren’t!!)
Well!!! Inflation or
what?! €52 for a Paris vignette (lasts a
year but we are unlikely to be back this year) and the first night free to
moor, then €14.75 per night thereafter, so nigh on €100. Bit of a shock to the system, but actually I
suppose, an average of €25 per night for central Paris is not too bad!
The trip down the St Martin Canal was a bit slow, what with
waiting for the trip boats and not getting started as early as we had hoped
(paying the bill had taken ages) but we got to our hoped-for little mooring at
the junction with the Marne in time for lunch.
Then it was onto entirely new ground, or should I say ‘water’ as we
travelled up the Seine.
We managed to find pretty good moorings at the locks for a
couple of nights, then in Melun, a very good long quay with water and leccy at
one end. We decided to make full use of the
facilities and were charged €12 the next morning. However, the capitaine said the downstream
end of the quay was free to moor (no facilities) so, as the éclusiers were on
strike yet again, we moved there for the next night. Melun itself was a nice town: 13th
century church, numerous other monuments of antiquity, a very helpful Tourist
Information Office and a working prison!
A few days on, and we are now in Sens, which has good
mooring, free water and leccy and very few big commercials blasting past. Peter (Mastenbrook) lives here on what
appears to be a variety of vessels so he came for lunch with us when we arrived
and we had a good catch up chat. Peter
seems to know everything about the barging world and is a positive mine of
interesting information so we had lots to talk about. The last time we saw him was when we were in
dry dock a year ago. Regular readers may
remember that we kept being floated, even when we still had holes in the bottom
of the boat, so we were rather pre-occupied when Peter dropped by, expecting an
inundation any minute. It was a shame we
couldn’t do justice to his visit on that occasion, but have made up for it in
his home town we hope.
We have decided to stay here in Sens for the weekend. It’s a really fine town and Alex needs to
service the engine anyway. We are in no
hurry to move along but we could do with some better weather. When it’s sunny, it’s lovely and warm, but
then we keep getting these torrential showers!
. . .
