It’s impossible to
separate the words “The Somme” from thoughts of mayhem and
slaughter, but now the Somme is a (generally) quiet, leisurely river
which makes for a very pleasant cruise.
The Somme meanders in,
through and round old peat workings, now reedy pools, such that the
whole area is one marshland. The canal is now run and maintained by
the ‘county council’ and as such it is thoroughly
service-oriented. The lockkeepers are unfailingly polite, helpful
and often can manage a smattering of English, which with our
smattering of French, goes a long way to ensuring effective
communication. It is, however, still necessary to ring to arrange
passage through locks and bridges and there is no doubt that
operation would be easier, and enjoyment enhanced, if the whole
system were made automatic. Of course, many redundancies would
result and that is NOT the French way!
Anyway enough! Our
trip downstream from the main line the Canal du Nord, was without
incident. Moorings were reasonably plentiful and by and large empty
at this early stage of the season. There were two notable
exceptions: at Cappy, where we needed to moor for the lunchtime
‘fermeture’ from 12.30 to 1.30, the only possible space was taken
by a fisherman – not at one end or other of the 30m gap, but bang
slap in the middle. He showing no inclination to move along, Louise
let fly her best (or worst) French! We managed to tie up to an
English-owned, Dutch boat of similar dimensions to RICCALL to save
the day.
Onward to our first
overnight mooring, which we approached as luck would have it, in the
teeth of the worst storm we’d had on the Somme to date, and there
had been a few. Louise did her best in the downpour to get a rope
onto a bollard already tangled up with the washing line small boats
tend to use when mooring, but this was a really bad example of
mooring, and by a work boat at that. Eventually we managed to
attract the attention of the adjacent council gardener, resolutely
strimming through thick and thin, or wet and wetter, and got him to
attach our rear line, which we had NO hope of doing, being 2m off the
shallow bank.
Louise got wetter and
wetter herself, with Alex saying “There’s no point in me getting
soaked as well!” which may have been true but . . . anyway,
laughter ensued and photos were taken to prove Louise’s magnum
opus!
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| The drowned rat!! |
Our friends Mike and
Sally, moored up some 50kms away on the St Quentin Canal, drove over
for a lovely catch up and overnight stay. They’d been hoping to
paint the roof on their boat but had been stopped by the stormy
weather, so were happy to drive over for a bit of R & R.
And then we were off
again. Stopping briefly at Chippily, we again cycled the 3 kms uphill to visit the 'Belvedere' overlooking the Valley of the Somme, scene of that most horrendous fighting. But next to the little car park was a meadow in the old style:
On the way to Corbie
and our next mooring, hoping to top up our tanks and have a night’s
electricity, Louise heard a bang from somewhere below, as of a door
slamming shut, but on investigation she discovered water pouring
out of our filter cupboard, fortunately straight into the bath and
away. One of our filter housings for our sterilised water system had
cracked and come apart. Alex shut off water to that part of the
system and on we went, space at the quay in Corbie having just become
more urgent. But no! Totally packed! : one boat taking advantage of
cheap water and electricity for, as they freely admitted and in the
face of a 2 day limit, for 2 weeks. ASLAUG, also moored,
offered for us to moor alongside but by that time, we were well past
her so we moored a little further on and considered our options!
In the end we
discovered from Nick on ONDERNEMING (apologies if that’s not quite
the right spelling Nick) that there were now more water points along
the canal than had been there in 2013. So, it was decided, we’d
move on next morning to the next possibility for topping up the
tanks.
LES CHARMES – a 39m
hotel barge arrived shortly before we left to use the lock and
followed us in the next locking. Once we were safely moored up at
Lamotte-Brebiere and taking water, LES CHARMES passed us on its way
down to Amiens. Lamotte-Brebiere is a lovely mooring with an
invisible railway line alongside on the starboard side and a fast-
flowing river on the port side. At the lock there is the strangest
set-up. The former lockhouse is now a cafe of sorts, but in its
grounds are its other ‘attractions’: a night in a tepee at €50,
a night in a gypsy caravan €70, in a yuurt €80, hire a pedallo
€10 for half an hour, a canoe €8 etc etc. All of the above were
in a precarious state of dereliction. Bizarre!
So, we got our fill of
water and Alex replaced the broken filter housing with a spare we
happened to have putting us back to a normal situation, and then it
was on to Amiens. We had intended mooring not on the quay for the
‘port’ but round the corner above Amiens Lock and we spotted that
LES CHARMES was moored on the quay, but with its engine running.
Were they going back upstream, or following us downstream? In the
event they passed us once again, RICCALL now happily moored up above the lock,
and proceeded into the lock. The lock operated as normal until they
needed to exit. And then there was a problem. At 1.15pm they hit
something underwater on exit from the lock and had to abort. So
there they stayed all afternoon,
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| LES CHARMES in the lock - spot the diver! |
till a diver from Paris
arrived at 4pm or so. We watched for a short time, while the diver
retrieved several stone blocks from the bottom of the lock and then
we went into town looking for a post box.
This endeavour failed,
but at least we had a nice wine and beer with Amiens Cathedral in
full view.
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| A cool day but still a nice apero! |
Returning to RICCALL, we discovered LES CHARMES moored on
us, above the lock of course!
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| 39 metres moored on 19, but it worked! |
They’d been raised in the lock and
had exited it backwards so that the diver could fully investigate the
depths and retrieve whatever he could find. The rocks so retrieved
had been thrown in no doubt by some malcontents, but it must surely
have served as a warning to the lockkeepers that storing blocks of
stone just 5 metres from a lock in the centre of a city, was asking
for trouble! Eventually at around 7pm all was declared clear and the
hotel barge moved cautiously back into the lock and downstream, their
intended cruise all the way to St Valery – 60kms west –
curtailed. Concerned though we were at their wasted and fraught day,
we were glad it had all been sorted before we used the lock. And
that was the mission for next day.
Well, the lock was
safely negotiated the next morning, and after a further foray for
supplies, we set off downstream for Pont Remy, 40kms and 6 locks.
We (sensibly) decided
to grab a mooring some distance upstream of the lock at Ailly, as we
had doubts as to the likelihood of adequate mooring closer to it, and
were glad we’d done so. The pathetic little 3m pontoon at the lock
would have been no use to us and then what? However, it was early in
the day and needing to send a birthday card, we went into the local
village. Card duly posted (yes, we know there are other ways to send
cards now via the internet!) we investigated the village of Ailly,
and there came across without doubt the WORST church in all of
France. Photo follows:
Hugh Mc Knight in his
book ‘Cruising the Waterways of France’, says
“Ailly’s church is
an unusual modernistic structure, its roof looking like a ship’s
sail.”
That is NOT what it looked like to us: now redundant, it
has had but a short life.
Compared with the thousands of amazing
religious buildings in France from earlier centuries, it is an
aberration, but has now clearly outlived its usefulness. Thank
goodness!
And then at 12am it
started! The worst storm either of us has ever seen. We had
constant lightning, thunder and then RAIN you wouldn’t believe!
All very exciting, yes, but, the downside was evident the following
morning.
Once again, uncertain
of the moorings available at the next lock, we moored at a former
silo quay; still working, but no longer using the canal. This trade
ceased long ago. The silo receives grain from local farms and stores
it for onward distribution which of course, is effected by lorry.
The rain had made some
difference to the current but it was after Breilloire Lock that we
were onto a fast flowing stream and once the River Nièvre had joined
the Somme, we were in the thrust of a really swollen river. The
Nièvre cascaded out from under what would normally be an
inconspicuous opening in the bank, but on this occasion a
terracotta-brown eruption joined the Somme! Conscious that the
écluse at Long was the next obstacle, as it is round a very left
hand bend, we were a little concerned but in the event made it safely
enough. We’d have liked to moor up at Long, but there was simply
no possibility, with the river running as fast as it was.
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| Long flashes by - no chance to moor up |
Apparently, the lock
had been originally destined for another site on the river, but the
local mayor and chateau owner had it moved to its present position so
that he could watch the boats from his chateau! How 39m fully laden
barges ever made the turn into the lock with a downstream current
drawing them sideways onto the weir beggars belief.
Having been swept along
for the next 2 kms, we decided that enough was probably enough,
certainly for that day. We moored up with a little difficulty at
Cocquerel and heaved sighs of relief. What had been a swift descent
would on our return be a slog. With Alex’s family due to arrive in
a day or two, we needed to find ourselves a good spot to meet them.
A 4km ride down to Pont
Remy convinced us (well Louise at least) that onward progress was
pointless. So the decision was made to turn tail in readiness for an
early start upstream the next morning. Alex assessed the width of
the river at that point, declared it wide enough (just) and the turn
went surprisingly well.
The brown river was
flashing by as we went off early to bed, small logs, greenery of all
kinds and highly topical – plastic drinks bottles – all on their
way out to sea at St Valery - and you get the picture! but our
mooring was solid and we passed a comfortable enough night.
We’d hoped the river
would have calmed down by morning but no, so we spent a long day, for
us, of 19kms and 3 locks (travelling upstream at just 5kph) and
reached our destination to meet our visitors. With them we aimed to
cruise to Amiens, just 15kms and 2 locks, with hopefully a little
less flow against us!
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| All ready for visitors . . . |
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| . . . and the sun out for once |
Well the flow was still
in evidence, but Amiens soon appeared. The afternoon was spent by
Richard in retrieving the car, a little food shopping, an ice cream at the little cafe in Long, a quick peek at Long Chateau (through the railings!) and later a
lovely meal prepared by Alice and Richard.
Then it was the morning
in Amiens – unfortunately the cathedral tower wasn’t available
for climbing until much later in the day, so instead we had a
leisurely lunch in one of the many restaurants on the St Leu
waterfront. (The St Leu area was once the living area of the working
people and is like a mini Venice dissected by many small canals. The
small houses are built in terraces, and many are wooden fronted.
Looking a little down-trodden now, it is a gem and surely the
burghers of Amiens must see its potential!)
It was a pretty cold
day so we chose the restaurant which had its terrace heaters on! We
generally think that it is madness to heat the great outdoors, but on
this occasion . . .!
So off we went after
lunch to our final mooring with Alice, Richard and Bea
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| Bea keeping Grandad right |
but were
disappointed to find a little boat hogging the middle of 3 mooring
platforms and the electricity and water bourne too of course. There
are two other quays at this lock, but both were too shallow, so we
moved on another 2kms only to find that mooring too was even
shallower. Ah well, it was only sand under the boat so it would do:
after all, hardly any other boats were around to shuggle us on and
off the sand.
Our visitors had to
have an early start next day for their ferry, so we waved them off
and moved on slowly to Corbie where the éclusier kindly drove up the
canal to ensure there was enough space for us on the pontoon and yes!
We could have a few hours electricity and fill up with water.
We’ve looked at most
of the places of interest on the Somme in the past, so decided just
to move on and get out of this still fast flowing river.
But we didn’t expect
quite the problem we encountered with weed in the canal though. At
several points, our speed was down to 3kph, and our lock keepers had
probably been waiting some time for our arrival, but such is the
quietness at this time of year – boat-wise- they didn’t seem to
mind, mostly.
We’d had unfailingly
pleasant, kind and polite éclusiers every day for the previous two
weeks and on our penultimate and last days, we got M. Glum! We
couldn’t get a smile from him at all and that’s such a shame.
We‘d donated a 12 pack of beers and a box of nice biscuits to the
éclusiers’ depot in Amiens, but clearly M. Glum hadn’t been
invited to the party!
Ah well. All in all it
had been another interesting 2 week trip – good and bad in parts!
And so we move
eastwards, to our next pick-up of visitors.
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| We do get gongoozlers - just not usually this many at once! |
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| Perfect unused lock cottage |
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| A sweet little house, but just for fishermen!! |
