Eventually the wind dropped and we set off for Frontignan – the last stop before the Etang du Thau. No-one should cross the Etang (a shallow inland sea) if winds are above Force 3 on the Beaufort Scale, so we had had to wait for several days while very strong winds abated.
Frontignan has a road bridge under which almost nothing can pass (except little open fishing boats) and which lifts twice a day – 8.30am and 4pm, to allow ‘proper’ boats through. We got there at about 12 o’clock thinking we would go through at 4 pm, but when 4pm arrived and we saw the plethora of hire boats etc jostling for position to pass through, we decided that as we had a good mooring where we were, we would wait till 8.30am the next morning and use that as our set-off time for the Etang du Thau.
So the 8.30am morning scrum was not as bad as the 4pm the day before, but it was made more complicated by a commercial vessel coming ‘upstream’ towards us (generally downstream traffic has priority) but commercials take priority over plaisance, so who should go first? The commercial appeared to wave us forward, but at that very moment a hire boat darted in front of the commercial and came through upstream, flouting all the conventions. Obviously it was driven by a French crew for whom not playing the game is ‘de rigeur’. (I have it on good authority that all young French kids are taught how to cheat at all games and it is not only expected of them, but encouraged!)
The 2 hour journey over the Etang was uneventful but interesting as the channel is 150m from the oyster beds which are huge and on the north side. We got to the first lock on the Canal du Midi at about midday and, as there was a lovely place to moor, we stopped there for the day and night. The young student working on the lock was quite happy for us to be there and so were we. We celebrated this first achievement with a bottle of fizz (any excuse!). We had finally reached not the end of our quest, nor the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning. (I think that may be a Churchillian misquote!)
We navigated the round lock of Agde, passed under the first of the many arched bridges typical of the Canal du Midi and found our next mooring at Vias – a good spot with a rather complicated system of acquiring electricity and water.
On our way into the old town the next day we heard a lot of car horns tooting and spotted a group of people up on the raised embankment of the bypass, so we joined them to see what was going on. This turned out to be a Harley Davidson rally consisting of some 650 bikes. We had missed at least half but the remaining 300 or so were quite enough of a spectacle as they motored past waving at us as we waved to them. What a sight! And of course, as usual, we stumble on these things with total ignorance and were glad of an English family who could fill us in with what was going on!
In the Saturday market we bought lovely olives, local wine, tapenade and half price paella. In these local markets there is always a seller of paella who cooks the meal in a HUGE paella pan in front of your very eyes. As we had turned up at the end of the market, he was trying to get rid of the last of his paella at half price. So that did us for two evening meals, and very nice it was too!
This mooring at Vias is taken up by several British boats which have been here for some time and all know each other well. But this has the advantage that they are all really friendly to us newcomers to the Canal du Midi and we have been given lots of useful advice regarding these moorings and others further on down the line. Barry of Balestra has been most helpful in this respect.
We passed through the tightest bridge so far at Villeneuve-les-Béziers: only about 6" to spare on the handrails, and moored up in the shade of the plane trees at the upstream end of a row of long-term péniches. This part of the Canal du Midi from the Etang du Thau was upgraded to take full 40m barges in the 1970s, but only as far as Béziers, so there are still a few around, though almost entirely non-commercial now. When the decrease in commercial barge traffic occurred it meant that it would not be cost effective to upgrade the rest of the Midi. This is a great relief to the pleasure boater, as the original nature of Jean-Paul Riquet’s canal is still maintained for the great majority of the canal’s length. It also means that from here on the maximum length of barges is only 30m.
In Béziers, which I am afraid is a very unappealing town, we did another of our epic rides to an Aldi which we knew was in the north of the town. While there, Alex saw that they still had their ‘retro velos’ for sale and he and Louise had a good look at them. Although Louise’s lovely Dutch bike is great in many respects, the hub brakes hardly work now and it is impossible to get spare parts. Here in the south of France, we find ourselves on far more hilly terrain than we did further north (and of course none at all in Holland) and the lack of brakes is becoming an issue! Alex has been looking out for a replacement bike for some time and these at Aldi looked as though they would do the job.
So we returned to the boat with all the shopping and Alex had a suss of the buses and determined to travel back to Aldi the next day by bus, and ride back on a new bike.
Of course, the next day the French government sector workers were on strike! So – no lock keepers, no refuse collection, no BUSES!! And all because they were going to be asked to retire at 62 instead of 60! I mean, I ask you. In Britain we already work to 65 and know that that may be increased to 67 soon. What’s all the fuss about? I think they should think themselves lucky. No sympathy for them at all, especially as Alex had to walk all the way to Aldi to get the bike (all 5km of it mostly uphill) all the while negotiating his way through and round the hordes of marching demonstrators waving banners, blowing trumpets, letting off bangers etc. He kept muttering quietly in English, “No sympathy! No sympathy!” as he struggled past them.
Still it was an easy ride back! A few adjustments to seat and handlebar height and it looked as if the bike might be OK.
However, a ride round to look at the old locks onto and off the River Orb, now superseded by an aqueduct, demonstrated that this bike was perhaps not for Louise after all. So after a night of cogitation and discussion, we decided to return it for our money back (one of the joys of shopping at Aldi – a no-quibble returns policy) so we cleaned all trace of our test ride off the new bike and carefully rode back up to Aldi with Alex on it and Louise on Alex’s bike. Then leaving the old bike round the corner we pushed the new bike the last 50 yards to the shop (Have we ridden it? Of course not!) But a brief explanation that the bike was too big for Louise was fully accepted and the refund given – in cash, in fact, meaning that Alex got cash without a transaction charge from his bank!
The buses were running again that day, so Louise caught the bus back to the centre of town and walked the rest of the long way, while Alex rode the old bike back to the moorings! And onward goes the search for a replacement bike for Louise, but in the meantime, we have swapped bikes. (Both brakes work well on Alex’s Ricardo bike and he reckons he can manage better with poor brakes than Louise can on her old machine! But Louise is very sad; she loved her old Gazelle Dutch bike.)
Saturday, 11 September 2010
Saturday, 4 September 2010
Avignon - Palavas-les-Flots
We decided we had to give Avignon two nights despite the noisy road past the moorings and the cost of those moorings – even after Alex had managed to negotiate a reduced rate if we took no water and electricity!
But the town itself was great - lots of narrow winding streets in amongst the tall ancient housing in which it was more than easy to get lost. Alex set off on his bicycle to circumnavigate the protective wall, which, still largely intact, protects the town. Only two short sections had been closed to the general public: one a private block of flats, and the other the University of Avignon, which was closed for the summer recess. The rest was available, extant and impressive.
The Pont d’Avignon is not available without cost - €3.50 per person to walk out upon the remaining 4 arches and look into the remains of the burial chapel (in arch number 3) of ? responsible for its construction.
There is some confusion about the words of the song which celebrates the Pont c’Avignon. Some say it is ‘sur le Pont d’Avignon’, and some say it is ‘sous le Pont d’Avignon’. We decided it was cheaper to danse SOUS le Pont d’Avignon, and that’s what we did on one of our many bicycle trips under its first arch!
We also looked at many of the historical buildings and squares, which make up this intriguing city.
Eventually we cast off (and as usual the helping current flow had all but ceased!) and made our way down the last few kilometres of the Rhone before entering the ‘Petite Rhone’ and our hoped-for next mooring.
On the way we were amazed when the first lock waited at least ten minutes for us to arrive, forcing a commercial in the lock to wait for little us. Our surprise was only increased when on exiting the lock we saw that two enormous commercials were waiting to come up and were too big to go in together. So one minute they red-light us as we arrive and a couple of days later they hold the lock for 10 minutes to let us in. Weird!
We turned off onto the Petite Rhone and the first possible mooring had just been taken by a hire boat. We hadn’t downloaded the DBA mooring guide for this small section so were working on our own initiative at this point, but from a couple of sources we had been assured that we could moor on the banks of the Petite Rhone in several places. We spotted one such place which was a high commercial quay in front of which appeared to be a family of coypu swimming against the current. We made to turn round and a speedboat immediately appeared coming towards us so we waited while he went past then started again. Another speedboat appeared from the other direction so we aborted again. Typical! Nothing for hours then two at once when you least want them!
Meanwhile the strong current was taking us further and further away from the potential mooring, but eventually we turned and made our way back to the quay. Alex approached gingerly and suddenly it became apparent to Louise at the bow that the family of coypu were in fact the tops of a nasty set of steel posts set into the river to act as groynes. We backed off sharpish and continued on our way.
In fact, these groynes were just above, or worse, just below the surface all the rest of the way down this short section, but we did eventually spot a short official pontoon 2kms before the lock onto the Canal du Rhone à Sete, where we moored for a couple of nights: we were joined on the second night by GERMINAL with Rose-marie and Claude on board.
While there we rode into St Gilles town to restock and have a looksee. We hated it! Dirty, unkempt, slummy is what we thought, but on the plus side we found NOORDSTER moored there and had a cup of tea and a chat with Judith and Simon.
We set off hoping to moor at Aigues-Mortes but before we got there, Rose-marie phoned ahead for us and then texted to warn us that there was no room, so we took the Aigues-Mortes canal bypass and moored onto a short lightweight wooden pontoon with no obvious method of securing ourselves. Our lines eventually were tied to a stout bush, the structure of the pontoon and one ground anchor screwed into the soft ground but actually, despite numerous passing trip boats and commercial carriers, our mooring held remarkably well, though we did find ourselves aground a few times as the water level went up and down by some 20cms. We speculated that perhaps the Mediterranean tide was having an effect, there being no lock between us and the sea.
This whole area is amazing: water stretches everywhere on either side of the canal which is built right across the shallow inland seas or étangs. On either side of the canal is a ribbon of slightly raised land with a road on one side. A crumbling stone and earth wall on the other side denotes where the canal ends and the étang begins! Here and there there are ‘entrances’ into the étangs which only the tiny fishing boats are allowed to use. The étangs, canal and the Mediterranean are all linked, so as the small tide in the Med rises and falls, there is a slight flow into and out of the canal and the étangs. It is a most odd area and we have seen nothing quite like it, not even in Holland where some canals are built right across inland seas, but they are on a much bigger scale and usually there is no view as you cross because the banks are much higher than the boat.
Next we reached Palavas-les-Flots which is something of a ‘refined’ seaside resort: no kiss-me-quick hats, no amusement arcades, candy floss or fish and chips – at least not on the sea front, which is all good looking apartment blocks set in gardens! The canal is one kilometre from the sea front and we moored up ahead of a converted Dutch barge – MR PIP – which had gone past us on our moorings on the Petite Rhone. Philip, his ex wife Therese, daughter Stephanie and her boyfriend Andy all came for drinks that night and we had a return match the following night. Phil et al set off next day but he has booked his winter moorings in Buzet sur Baise, same as us, so hopefully we will see him again.
Being just a kilometre from the sea front a bike ride to it and a swim in the Med was a must. It was actually a bit colder than we expected but once we became acclimatised it was great fun.
Then a visit to the Abbaye de Maguelone, 5kms ahead of us and on the only ‘high’ ground in the area, proved to be well worth the effort and we also bought 4 bottles of its own domaine wine.
Brian Wall, a friend of many years, who now lives near Gaillac (4 hours away) happened to be passing our vicinity when we rang him, so he came for the night and we all enjoyed a bottle or three of the abbey wine, good food and chat.
The high winds over the last few days, whilst giving us the blessing of a bit of coolth, have also meant that we cannot proceed to cross the Etang du Thau, so we have just had to wait at Palavas-les-Flots until they die down. One of the plus sides of this is that we are at one of the few wide and deep spots on the canal and all the really big barges (up to 100m x 11m) stop here to let opposing barges pass. It makes for a great sight and although we will be glad to move on in due course, we will, no doubt, miss seeing these big boys doing their stuff. Once onto the Canal du Midi there will be no commercial craft at all.
We have also taken the opportunity, while stuck here, to catch the bus into Montpellier. Having lived in Harrogate the name ‘Montpellier’ is very familiar to us (it denotes a very chic part of town) and we found ourselves curious to know what the eponymous city itself was like. And it came up to expectations – a fabulous city with a mix of ancient and modern architecture any city would be proud of. The old part - narrow twisting streets and buildings with typical French frontages and cast iron balconies - was really intriguing, but even the newer parts have largely been built with a grandeur and style that perfectly complements what went before, with only a few 1960/70s horrors cropping up here and there. We really loved it – enough to treat ourselves to moules frites on the terrace of an upmarket restaurant in the main square, followed, after a ‘Petite Train’ ride round the old town, by the cheapest coffee in all France so far, just €2 for two cups! Brill!
Today we will ‘finish off’ Palavas by visiting the ‘old’ fortress, which many years ago was surrounded (literally) by a water tower. In recent times the water tower was dismantled, the fortress moved stone by stone to a new site and a magnificent, iconic tower (or carbuncle depending on your viewpoint) incorporating a conference centre, panoramic gallery and revolving restaurant was built on the old site.
By the time we have done all that, we will have been stuck here for nearly a week, so we are hoping sincerely that tomorrow the wind will have died down and we can get on. After all, the Canal du Midi is now only one day’s travel away!
But the town itself was great - lots of narrow winding streets in amongst the tall ancient housing in which it was more than easy to get lost. Alex set off on his bicycle to circumnavigate the protective wall, which, still largely intact, protects the town. Only two short sections had been closed to the general public: one a private block of flats, and the other the University of Avignon, which was closed for the summer recess. The rest was available, extant and impressive.
The Pont d’Avignon is not available without cost - €3.50 per person to walk out upon the remaining 4 arches and look into the remains of the burial chapel (in arch number 3) of ? responsible for its construction.
There is some confusion about the words of the song which celebrates the Pont c’Avignon. Some say it is ‘sur le Pont d’Avignon’, and some say it is ‘sous le Pont d’Avignon’. We decided it was cheaper to danse SOUS le Pont d’Avignon, and that’s what we did on one of our many bicycle trips under its first arch!
We also looked at many of the historical buildings and squares, which make up this intriguing city.
Eventually we cast off (and as usual the helping current flow had all but ceased!) and made our way down the last few kilometres of the Rhone before entering the ‘Petite Rhone’ and our hoped-for next mooring.
On the way we were amazed when the first lock waited at least ten minutes for us to arrive, forcing a commercial in the lock to wait for little us. Our surprise was only increased when on exiting the lock we saw that two enormous commercials were waiting to come up and were too big to go in together. So one minute they red-light us as we arrive and a couple of days later they hold the lock for 10 minutes to let us in. Weird!
We turned off onto the Petite Rhone and the first possible mooring had just been taken by a hire boat. We hadn’t downloaded the DBA mooring guide for this small section so were working on our own initiative at this point, but from a couple of sources we had been assured that we could moor on the banks of the Petite Rhone in several places. We spotted one such place which was a high commercial quay in front of which appeared to be a family of coypu swimming against the current. We made to turn round and a speedboat immediately appeared coming towards us so we waited while he went past then started again. Another speedboat appeared from the other direction so we aborted again. Typical! Nothing for hours then two at once when you least want them!
Meanwhile the strong current was taking us further and further away from the potential mooring, but eventually we turned and made our way back to the quay. Alex approached gingerly and suddenly it became apparent to Louise at the bow that the family of coypu were in fact the tops of a nasty set of steel posts set into the river to act as groynes. We backed off sharpish and continued on our way.
In fact, these groynes were just above, or worse, just below the surface all the rest of the way down this short section, but we did eventually spot a short official pontoon 2kms before the lock onto the Canal du Rhone à Sete, where we moored for a couple of nights: we were joined on the second night by GERMINAL with Rose-marie and Claude on board.
While there we rode into St Gilles town to restock and have a looksee. We hated it! Dirty, unkempt, slummy is what we thought, but on the plus side we found NOORDSTER moored there and had a cup of tea and a chat with Judith and Simon.
We set off hoping to moor at Aigues-Mortes but before we got there, Rose-marie phoned ahead for us and then texted to warn us that there was no room, so we took the Aigues-Mortes canal bypass and moored onto a short lightweight wooden pontoon with no obvious method of securing ourselves. Our lines eventually were tied to a stout bush, the structure of the pontoon and one ground anchor screwed into the soft ground but actually, despite numerous passing trip boats and commercial carriers, our mooring held remarkably well, though we did find ourselves aground a few times as the water level went up and down by some 20cms. We speculated that perhaps the Mediterranean tide was having an effect, there being no lock between us and the sea.
This whole area is amazing: water stretches everywhere on either side of the canal which is built right across the shallow inland seas or étangs. On either side of the canal is a ribbon of slightly raised land with a road on one side. A crumbling stone and earth wall on the other side denotes where the canal ends and the étang begins! Here and there there are ‘entrances’ into the étangs which only the tiny fishing boats are allowed to use. The étangs, canal and the Mediterranean are all linked, so as the small tide in the Med rises and falls, there is a slight flow into and out of the canal and the étangs. It is a most odd area and we have seen nothing quite like it, not even in Holland where some canals are built right across inland seas, but they are on a much bigger scale and usually there is no view as you cross because the banks are much higher than the boat.
Next we reached Palavas-les-Flots which is something of a ‘refined’ seaside resort: no kiss-me-quick hats, no amusement arcades, candy floss or fish and chips – at least not on the sea front, which is all good looking apartment blocks set in gardens! The canal is one kilometre from the sea front and we moored up ahead of a converted Dutch barge – MR PIP – which had gone past us on our moorings on the Petite Rhone. Philip, his ex wife Therese, daughter Stephanie and her boyfriend Andy all came for drinks that night and we had a return match the following night. Phil et al set off next day but he has booked his winter moorings in Buzet sur Baise, same as us, so hopefully we will see him again.
Being just a kilometre from the sea front a bike ride to it and a swim in the Med was a must. It was actually a bit colder than we expected but once we became acclimatised it was great fun.
Then a visit to the Abbaye de Maguelone, 5kms ahead of us and on the only ‘high’ ground in the area, proved to be well worth the effort and we also bought 4 bottles of its own domaine wine.
Brian Wall, a friend of many years, who now lives near Gaillac (4 hours away) happened to be passing our vicinity when we rang him, so he came for the night and we all enjoyed a bottle or three of the abbey wine, good food and chat.
The high winds over the last few days, whilst giving us the blessing of a bit of coolth, have also meant that we cannot proceed to cross the Etang du Thau, so we have just had to wait at Palavas-les-Flots until they die down. One of the plus sides of this is that we are at one of the few wide and deep spots on the canal and all the really big barges (up to 100m x 11m) stop here to let opposing barges pass. It makes for a great sight and although we will be glad to move on in due course, we will, no doubt, miss seeing these big boys doing their stuff. Once onto the Canal du Midi there will be no commercial craft at all.
We have also taken the opportunity, while stuck here, to catch the bus into Montpellier. Having lived in Harrogate the name ‘Montpellier’ is very familiar to us (it denotes a very chic part of town) and we found ourselves curious to know what the eponymous city itself was like. And it came up to expectations – a fabulous city with a mix of ancient and modern architecture any city would be proud of. The old part - narrow twisting streets and buildings with typical French frontages and cast iron balconies - was really intriguing, but even the newer parts have largely been built with a grandeur and style that perfectly complements what went before, with only a few 1960/70s horrors cropping up here and there. We really loved it – enough to treat ourselves to moules frites on the terrace of an upmarket restaurant in the main square, followed, after a ‘Petite Train’ ride round the old town, by the cheapest coffee in all France so far, just €2 for two cups! Brill!
Today we will ‘finish off’ Palavas by visiting the ‘old’ fortress, which many years ago was surrounded (literally) by a water tower. In recent times the water tower was dismantled, the fortress moved stone by stone to a new site and a magnificent, iconic tower (or carbuncle depending on your viewpoint) incorporating a conference centre, panoramic gallery and revolving restaurant was built on the old site.
By the time we have done all that, we will have been stuck here for nearly a week, so we are hoping sincerely that tomorrow the wind will have died down and we can get on. After all, the Canal du Midi is now only one day’s travel away!
Friday, 27 August 2010
Vienne - Avignon
At Vienne Alex asked the man at the bike shop, where he was buying a new brake cable, ‘How do I get up to the ancient chateau on the hill?’ ‘Oh’ he replied, ‘Right at the roundabout, then next right at the hospital and up you go.’ So Alex set off and 40 minutes later he had reached the end of the road at a large hospital – but nowhere near the chateau, so it was back down the hill – only 5 minutes to get down, and back to the McDonald’s where Louise was still trying – unsuccessfully - to get all her emails answered. The link had just irredeemably failed!
We both gave up and went back to supper on Riccall.
The following day we discovered that the château on the hill was in private ownership and not possible to visit anyway! But the Roman amphitheatre was spectacular (though it had been renovated in the 1940s) and the views from the church on the adjacent hill were impressive. The Saturday market spread through most of the town (the 2nd largest in France apparently) and was well worth a couple of hours perusal as was the Saint Maurice Cathedral with its spectacular entrance stonework.
We left next morning at about 8.30 and ended that day’s cruise moored up on a high ex-sand quay with slipway adjacent down into the water. This turned out to be an excellent mooring for us, despite the ever present fishermen, and at about 6.40pm we were joined by VAGABOND a Swedish sailing boat with Lars and Ingrid on board who we invited to moor on us.
Next day the couple of provisional moorings we had in mind were either full or impossible, and so we eventually came upon a Port de Commerce quay, and after a very quick late lunch, Louise went off to ask the Chef du Port if we could stay the night. ‘Oui’, he said, ‘pour un nuit’. But later in the evening, long after he and the other workers had left, and 10 minutes before our supper was ready, ARTEMIS – 110m x 10m – arrived to moor up behind us. Blimy! Are we OK? Do we need to move? Or what?
Alex went up to ask. ‘Well, we are going to load up in the morning at 7am and will need to move forward into your position, so it might be better if you moved behind us now’. ‘OK, OK anything you want. We know this is a commercial quay and we are just so grateful for somewhere to spend the night’. So a quick manoeuvre to moor behind with their Polish crewmen helping with our ropes and all is well again – we hope! But we are now right under the sign that says ‘Port de Commerce. Stopping forbidden. All pleasure boats to go 3 kms up the river to the Port de Plaisance’. Funny though, but having the agreement of the ’Chef du Port’ gives one a certain confidence . . .!
The following day while waiting for a huge commercial to come out of a lock, we realised it was one we had seen a couple of times before and the captain actually came out of his wheelhouse to give us an enthusiastic wave of greeting as he went past. How nice!
That evening we moored up behind GERMINAL (a boat we had met in a lock) on a hugely high quay (about 6m to the top). The ‘girls’ did the climbing up the vertiginous ladders to place all the ropes while the men manoeuvred the boats into place against a strong current, but although it was a very high quay indeed and not usually recommended, it gave us a reasonable night.
We set off first thing in the morning and later moored as arranged on a rather lightweight pontoon at St Etienne des Sorts early that afternoon with GERMINAL alongside. Not a marvellous stop, but the village did have a good wine co-op and a wonderful, close view of passing TGV (high speed) trains! Later, a Canadian sailing boat, which we had also seen a number of times, called DO-LITTLES, insisted on trying to moor on the last 5ft of the pontoon. Alex moved Riccall a few feet off the end of the pontoon to give them some more room and they squeezed in with a tangle of ropes and a loud American-sounding woman barking instructions, all above the background barking of 3 dogs and shouting of 3 other people! A small boat, four people, 3 huge dogs – Phew! Alex joked with Rose-marie of GERMINAL that he was glad we were upwind of their boat! They were desperate to moor there, and it became evident why - to take on crates of wine from the co-operative, which were delivered by van.
So after another uncomfortable night with hotel barges and large commercials passing at irregular intervals, we decided that day to turn up an arm of the old Rhone, which ended in a couple of commercial quays and a Port de Plaisance ‘Port 2’ to see if the mooring up there in the protected ‘dead-end’ might give us a quiet night.
The current against us up the 6 km of the old arm was amazingly high – about 4-5 kph. This meant we were only making 5.5 – 6 kph ourselves, but eventually we got there and booked a night’s mooring at €24 including wi-fi, water and electricity – not too bad for hereabouts! The capitaine-ess explained that the river level had been up by nearly one metre that morning and the powers that be were draining it all off through the weirs, which was why the current was so strong. So we settled down for a peaceful night - no motorway, no trains, nearby factory closed down at 9.30 – bliss. Then at 4 o’clock in the morning the heavens opened. The rain lashed down – we both shot up to ensure that all portholes and roof openings were firmly closed, and then the sheet lightning lit the sky above our heads in a continual series of flashes, with an almost continuous rumble and crash of thunder to go with them. Then suddenly, Alex, who was up in the wheelhouse marvelling at all this, saw a single spear of lightning about 1000ft high strike behind the trees on the opposite bank with simultaneously the most incredible clap of thunder. What a show of energy! So much for a peaceful night.
Avignon is another port up an old arm of the river and they were still running off excess water so our trip up it next day was very slow, not made any easier by firstly a trip boat racing down river just as we made our turn and giving us more rock and roll than we had had on the sea crossing (everything flying everywhere) and secondly a hotel cruise ship which pulled out behind us and harried us towards the remains of the Pont d’Avignon, of children’s song fame. We were nearly flat out and only making 3kph against the flow. Well, he just had to follow in our slow wake! and as it transpired he was going only as far as the famous bridge so that his passengers could have a bird’s eye view of it for their photographs before he turned round!
Here at Avignon the sound of the road right next to the expensive mooring means we shall only stay one or two nights. Amazingly, there are five other boats here which we either know well or have exchanged pleasantries with!
We have also discovered that Ken and Rhonda of SOMEWHERE (now off the Canal du Midi and onto the Canal Lateral de la Garonne beyond Toulouse) have been following our progress down the Rhone on a website called www.inforhone.fr. Each lock logs the names and times of passing of all the boats going up and down the Rhone (commercial and plaisance). This information is open to anyone who looks at the site. So Ken and Rhonda know pretty well to the nearest lock where we are in real time. The powers of the internet!
We both gave up and went back to supper on Riccall.
The following day we discovered that the château on the hill was in private ownership and not possible to visit anyway! But the Roman amphitheatre was spectacular (though it had been renovated in the 1940s) and the views from the church on the adjacent hill were impressive. The Saturday market spread through most of the town (the 2nd largest in France apparently) and was well worth a couple of hours perusal as was the Saint Maurice Cathedral with its spectacular entrance stonework.
We left next morning at about 8.30 and ended that day’s cruise moored up on a high ex-sand quay with slipway adjacent down into the water. This turned out to be an excellent mooring for us, despite the ever present fishermen, and at about 6.40pm we were joined by VAGABOND a Swedish sailing boat with Lars and Ingrid on board who we invited to moor on us.
Next day the couple of provisional moorings we had in mind were either full or impossible, and so we eventually came upon a Port de Commerce quay, and after a very quick late lunch, Louise went off to ask the Chef du Port if we could stay the night. ‘Oui’, he said, ‘pour un nuit’. But later in the evening, long after he and the other workers had left, and 10 minutes before our supper was ready, ARTEMIS – 110m x 10m – arrived to moor up behind us. Blimy! Are we OK? Do we need to move? Or what?
Alex went up to ask. ‘Well, we are going to load up in the morning at 7am and will need to move forward into your position, so it might be better if you moved behind us now’. ‘OK, OK anything you want. We know this is a commercial quay and we are just so grateful for somewhere to spend the night’. So a quick manoeuvre to moor behind with their Polish crewmen helping with our ropes and all is well again – we hope! But we are now right under the sign that says ‘Port de Commerce. Stopping forbidden. All pleasure boats to go 3 kms up the river to the Port de Plaisance’. Funny though, but having the agreement of the ’Chef du Port’ gives one a certain confidence . . .!
The following day while waiting for a huge commercial to come out of a lock, we realised it was one we had seen a couple of times before and the captain actually came out of his wheelhouse to give us an enthusiastic wave of greeting as he went past. How nice!
That evening we moored up behind GERMINAL (a boat we had met in a lock) on a hugely high quay (about 6m to the top). The ‘girls’ did the climbing up the vertiginous ladders to place all the ropes while the men manoeuvred the boats into place against a strong current, but although it was a very high quay indeed and not usually recommended, it gave us a reasonable night.
We set off first thing in the morning and later moored as arranged on a rather lightweight pontoon at St Etienne des Sorts early that afternoon with GERMINAL alongside. Not a marvellous stop, but the village did have a good wine co-op and a wonderful, close view of passing TGV (high speed) trains! Later, a Canadian sailing boat, which we had also seen a number of times, called DO-LITTLES, insisted on trying to moor on the last 5ft of the pontoon. Alex moved Riccall a few feet off the end of the pontoon to give them some more room and they squeezed in with a tangle of ropes and a loud American-sounding woman barking instructions, all above the background barking of 3 dogs and shouting of 3 other people! A small boat, four people, 3 huge dogs – Phew! Alex joked with Rose-marie of GERMINAL that he was glad we were upwind of their boat! They were desperate to moor there, and it became evident why - to take on crates of wine from the co-operative, which were delivered by van.
So after another uncomfortable night with hotel barges and large commercials passing at irregular intervals, we decided that day to turn up an arm of the old Rhone, which ended in a couple of commercial quays and a Port de Plaisance ‘Port 2’ to see if the mooring up there in the protected ‘dead-end’ might give us a quiet night.
The current against us up the 6 km of the old arm was amazingly high – about 4-5 kph. This meant we were only making 5.5 – 6 kph ourselves, but eventually we got there and booked a night’s mooring at €24 including wi-fi, water and electricity – not too bad for hereabouts! The capitaine-ess explained that the river level had been up by nearly one metre that morning and the powers that be were draining it all off through the weirs, which was why the current was so strong. So we settled down for a peaceful night - no motorway, no trains, nearby factory closed down at 9.30 – bliss. Then at 4 o’clock in the morning the heavens opened. The rain lashed down – we both shot up to ensure that all portholes and roof openings were firmly closed, and then the sheet lightning lit the sky above our heads in a continual series of flashes, with an almost continuous rumble and crash of thunder to go with them. Then suddenly, Alex, who was up in the wheelhouse marvelling at all this, saw a single spear of lightning about 1000ft high strike behind the trees on the opposite bank with simultaneously the most incredible clap of thunder. What a show of energy! So much for a peaceful night.
Avignon is another port up an old arm of the river and they were still running off excess water so our trip up it next day was very slow, not made any easier by firstly a trip boat racing down river just as we made our turn and giving us more rock and roll than we had had on the sea crossing (everything flying everywhere) and secondly a hotel cruise ship which pulled out behind us and harried us towards the remains of the Pont d’Avignon, of children’s song fame. We were nearly flat out and only making 3kph against the flow. Well, he just had to follow in our slow wake! and as it transpired he was going only as far as the famous bridge so that his passengers could have a bird’s eye view of it for their photographs before he turned round!
Here at Avignon the sound of the road right next to the expensive mooring means we shall only stay one or two nights. Amazingly, there are five other boats here which we either know well or have exchanged pleasantries with!
We have also discovered that Ken and Rhonda of SOMEWHERE (now off the Canal du Midi and onto the Canal Lateral de la Garonne beyond Toulouse) have been following our progress down the Rhone on a website called www.inforhone.fr. Each lock logs the names and times of passing of all the boats going up and down the Rhone (commercial and plaisance). This information is open to anyone who looks at the site. So Ken and Rhonda know pretty well to the nearest lock where we are in real time. The powers of the internet!
Thursday, 19 August 2010
Macon - Lyon - Vienne
We left Macon, still on the River Saône, not knowing exactly what the scene was with John and Martha and arrived at Port de Belleville where we hailed one of the English boats on the pontoon. Vic told us he was leaving within the hour, so we hung onto some hotel barge Duc D’Albes (huge mooring piles) until he did, then snuck in to the space provided.
We did a quick suss of the town, found the McDonalds with free wifi and thereafter posted the blog. The link was so slow it took 2 hours to upload the photos – what we do for you readers!
We decided that the mooring, safe, free, and with water and electricity, would be a good place to leave the boat while we caught the train into Lyon for a bit of sightseeing and to look at the mooring possibilities. Occasionally, our mooring guides are somewhat confusing and a proper look-see seems the best way to proceed.
We also decided it would be a good idea to take our bikes!
The ticket office cashier said the bikes go free, and we even got a reduction ‘pour le vieux homme’ – Alex who could prove he was over – shush!! 60! The ticket man assured us that there was no problem with bikes on the train and as it turned out, the door by which we boarded the train had a bicycle (or velo as they call them now) logo on it and with a lot of huffing and puffing, we managed to get the bikes on board and hung by the front wheels to the ceiling hooks.
Getting off at Lyon was more of a problem as lots of people were getting off at this stop and a full contingent of passengers were waiting to board for their onward travel to Grenoble. But we managed and got ourselves out of the huge and heavily crowded station to look for a Tourist Information Office or at least a town map showing where we were. No luck in either department, so while Alex watched the bikes next to a local map showing the nearest 100 metres of streets, Louise returned to the station where she found a station assistant who could manage a bit of English. This didn’t help in fact, as she had no idea of even which direction the city centre was in. Can you believe it? (Her best suggestion was that we take a further train from this outlying station – Part-Dieu – to the city centre station - Perrache.)
While he was there an American sounding couple consulted the map to try to find their hotel. They had no luck either, and so we all four consulted to find a way forward. The couple said (when asked) that yes, indeed, they were American but sometimes they pretended to be Canadian, depending on where they were and who they were talking to! We let you draw your own conclusions to that; but we think that maybe, at last, some Americans are realising that they might not be as popular as they had always imagined themselves to be.
We eventually found the Tourist Information Centre (no thanks to the station staff) got a map and were advised that the old quarter was the best part to visit. This we did, then Alex was approached by an enthusiastic operative who showed him how to get tickets for the funicular railway up to the basilica overlooking the town and said yes we could take the bikes and we could later ride down by the footpath. Load of rubbish! Louise nearly demolished a young family on the escalator as her bike slid back down into them, the carriage of the funicular was far too small for large bikes like ours but fortunately was nearly empty, and the ‘footpath’ back banned rollerblades, skateboards and bikes and had steps on it! However, at least the basilica was amazing and the road down was OK.
We returned to the station and spent our time waiting for the train to arrive by worrying if the incoming train would deposit a ‘velo’ carriage near where we were standing. By this time, we had realised that we had been really lucky coming into town as there only seem to be a very few carriages with bicycle facilities. As it turned out, we were standing right opposite the 1st class carriage when the train stopped and it did have a velo sign on the door. So we hopped on, loaded the bikes into the rack and dashed off into the 2nd class carriage to find a seat for the return journey! (Easy! No-one else travelling 1st class.)
We are now at the moorings at Lyon which are a bit busy with trip boats, water taxis, hotel cruise ships etc but having moved to a new position all is well. (We discovered after mooring up in the first position, that there was an underwater shelf 900 mm below the water which stuck out 500mm from the quay, just waiting to punch a hole in our turn of the bilge if a large boat went past.)
So, satisfied that the boat was now on much safer moorings, we did the usual stock up of items from Lidl and then had lunchtime drinks with a very nice English couple, Nick and Gail, on MAGELLAN, just prior to their setting off south. NOORDSTER pulled in during our chat – and we haven’t seen Judith and Simon since we all set off three years ago from Goole! We warned them about the underwater cill and they too moved to a safer spot. So then we were free for the remainder of the day. What to do?
Alex pulled out all the maps we had and said ‘Look! I don’t think it’s too far to Aldi after all’. We already had the address and had asked in the T.I.O. just where it was. The assistant there had been appalled that we thought we might go by bicycle and was unprepared to give us any info to help.
So we set off on the scenic route – at first along the river bank road which turned out to have been blocked by a mini avalanche which had landed slap bang on top of an unsuspecting car, now a completely flattened wreck – judging by the lack of blood we assumed there had been nobody in it and later learned it had occurred at 2.00am – phew!
So we climbed the bikes over the barriers and proceeded on our way. At least there was almost no traffic!
Eventually we got to the Saone/Rhone junction and started on our way to Aldi – up and up, and up and then some more up and up . . . At long last and at altitude of about 2000ft (!), having asked directions from 6 different people, we found the Aldi store. Now although the principle aims were cashew nuts and tonic, Alex did have another agenda. He had in mind that a replacement camera now being imperative, Aldi was without doubt the cheapest place to get one in France, prices being what they are here. And sure enough, there was a choice of 5 different cameras reduced to under €50. And the assistant was an Anglophile! – loves England and spoke excellent English. She was happy to help us choose the best value for money camera. Magic!!
So after a short up-and-up bit, it was down, down, down, back into Lyon and our moorings. The whole journey only took three hours (and about 5000 calories) – a mere nothing! And you should see our leg muscles!
We set off from Lyon, taking on fuel at one of the very few bunker barges in France on the way, and joined the mighty Rhone: wide river, variable flow, not much traffic (yet) and beautiful panoramic views!
After 3 to 4 hours, we arrived at Vienne: plenty of space to moor and a town with interesting heritage. We had only planned to spend one night here but immediately felt so beguiled that we decided to make it two. The Roman amphitheatre beckons, as does the ancient castle on the highest point of the hill. Alex has already made one unsuccessful foray in that direction – courtesy of misdirection by the bike shop proprietor, so another try tomorrow.
PS Latest news!!!! Have finally found out that John and Martha’s car blew a heater hose on the motorway and had to be towed off! Car not repaired until mid week but are enjoying their stay in Cap d’Antibes anyway. Phew!
We did a quick suss of the town, found the McDonalds with free wifi and thereafter posted the blog. The link was so slow it took 2 hours to upload the photos – what we do for you readers!
We decided that the mooring, safe, free, and with water and electricity, would be a good place to leave the boat while we caught the train into Lyon for a bit of sightseeing and to look at the mooring possibilities. Occasionally, our mooring guides are somewhat confusing and a proper look-see seems the best way to proceed.
We also decided it would be a good idea to take our bikes!
The ticket office cashier said the bikes go free, and we even got a reduction ‘pour le vieux homme’ – Alex who could prove he was over – shush!! 60! The ticket man assured us that there was no problem with bikes on the train and as it turned out, the door by which we boarded the train had a bicycle (or velo as they call them now) logo on it and with a lot of huffing and puffing, we managed to get the bikes on board and hung by the front wheels to the ceiling hooks.
Getting off at Lyon was more of a problem as lots of people were getting off at this stop and a full contingent of passengers were waiting to board for their onward travel to Grenoble. But we managed and got ourselves out of the huge and heavily crowded station to look for a Tourist Information Office or at least a town map showing where we were. No luck in either department, so while Alex watched the bikes next to a local map showing the nearest 100 metres of streets, Louise returned to the station where she found a station assistant who could manage a bit of English. This didn’t help in fact, as she had no idea of even which direction the city centre was in. Can you believe it? (Her best suggestion was that we take a further train from this outlying station – Part-Dieu – to the city centre station - Perrache.)
While he was there an American sounding couple consulted the map to try to find their hotel. They had no luck either, and so we all four consulted to find a way forward. The couple said (when asked) that yes, indeed, they were American but sometimes they pretended to be Canadian, depending on where they were and who they were talking to! We let you draw your own conclusions to that; but we think that maybe, at last, some Americans are realising that they might not be as popular as they had always imagined themselves to be.
We eventually found the Tourist Information Centre (no thanks to the station staff) got a map and were advised that the old quarter was the best part to visit. This we did, then Alex was approached by an enthusiastic operative who showed him how to get tickets for the funicular railway up to the basilica overlooking the town and said yes we could take the bikes and we could later ride down by the footpath. Load of rubbish! Louise nearly demolished a young family on the escalator as her bike slid back down into them, the carriage of the funicular was far too small for large bikes like ours but fortunately was nearly empty, and the ‘footpath’ back banned rollerblades, skateboards and bikes and had steps on it! However, at least the basilica was amazing and the road down was OK.
We returned to the station and spent our time waiting for the train to arrive by worrying if the incoming train would deposit a ‘velo’ carriage near where we were standing. By this time, we had realised that we had been really lucky coming into town as there only seem to be a very few carriages with bicycle facilities. As it turned out, we were standing right opposite the 1st class carriage when the train stopped and it did have a velo sign on the door. So we hopped on, loaded the bikes into the rack and dashed off into the 2nd class carriage to find a seat for the return journey! (Easy! No-one else travelling 1st class.)
We are now at the moorings at Lyon which are a bit busy with trip boats, water taxis, hotel cruise ships etc but having moved to a new position all is well. (We discovered after mooring up in the first position, that there was an underwater shelf 900 mm below the water which stuck out 500mm from the quay, just waiting to punch a hole in our turn of the bilge if a large boat went past.)
So, satisfied that the boat was now on much safer moorings, we did the usual stock up of items from Lidl and then had lunchtime drinks with a very nice English couple, Nick and Gail, on MAGELLAN, just prior to their setting off south. NOORDSTER pulled in during our chat – and we haven’t seen Judith and Simon since we all set off three years ago from Goole! We warned them about the underwater cill and they too moved to a safer spot. So then we were free for the remainder of the day. What to do?
Alex pulled out all the maps we had and said ‘Look! I don’t think it’s too far to Aldi after all’. We already had the address and had asked in the T.I.O. just where it was. The assistant there had been appalled that we thought we might go by bicycle and was unprepared to give us any info to help.
So we set off on the scenic route – at first along the river bank road which turned out to have been blocked by a mini avalanche which had landed slap bang on top of an unsuspecting car, now a completely flattened wreck – judging by the lack of blood we assumed there had been nobody in it and later learned it had occurred at 2.00am – phew!
So we climbed the bikes over the barriers and proceeded on our way. At least there was almost no traffic!
Eventually we got to the Saone/Rhone junction and started on our way to Aldi – up and up, and up and then some more up and up . . . At long last and at altitude of about 2000ft (!), having asked directions from 6 different people, we found the Aldi store. Now although the principle aims were cashew nuts and tonic, Alex did have another agenda. He had in mind that a replacement camera now being imperative, Aldi was without doubt the cheapest place to get one in France, prices being what they are here. And sure enough, there was a choice of 5 different cameras reduced to under €50. And the assistant was an Anglophile! – loves England and spoke excellent English. She was happy to help us choose the best value for money camera. Magic!!
So after a short up-and-up bit, it was down, down, down, back into Lyon and our moorings. The whole journey only took three hours (and about 5000 calories) – a mere nothing! And you should see our leg muscles!
We set off from Lyon, taking on fuel at one of the very few bunker barges in France on the way, and joined the mighty Rhone: wide river, variable flow, not much traffic (yet) and beautiful panoramic views!
After 3 to 4 hours, we arrived at Vienne: plenty of space to moor and a town with interesting heritage. We had only planned to spend one night here but immediately felt so beguiled that we decided to make it two. The Roman amphitheatre beckons, as does the ancient castle on the highest point of the hill. Alex has already made one unsuccessful foray in that direction – courtesy of misdirection by the bike shop proprietor, so another try tomorrow.
PS Latest news!!!! Have finally found out that John and Martha’s car blew a heater hose on the motorway and had to be towed off! Car not repaired until mid week but are enjoying their stay in Cap d’Antibes anyway. Phew!
Sunday, 8 August 2010
St Jean de Losne to Macon
We set off from St Jean de Losne with a set of several moorings places in mind as we travelled down the Saône.
The first, at Ecluse Ecuelles, was as we suspected, completely impossible, as was the second at Seurre. Before the next, at Verdun sur le Doubs, were a couple of obsolete locks upriver of the town and as we passed them we thought, ‘Oh well, they might do’. We turned up the old river Doubs but the Port de Plaisance was packed and the only moorings left were impossible for us. We turned back up onto the main river, to look at the old locks but at the approach to the first one we immediately ran aground in the build up of silt, and realised this was going to be impossible as well. Luckily we managed to abort just before we became completely stuck.
We had one more unlikely possibility of a mooring on a pontoon at a place called Gergy, and failing that, it would be another three hours to the Canal du Centre and what was said to be a good spot about 8 kms and one lock up it! By this time we had decided a diversion onto the Canal du Centre would be a good idea anyway and it would also put in a bit of time so we would get to the Canal du Midi after the worst of the bumper boats had gone.
As we rounded the bend in the River Saône above Gergy, we could see the pontoon - and there was only one small boat on it! Halleluiah! Somewhere to moor and it’s still only 3.30 pm. There must be a god after all!
We moored up – plenty of depth – on a good solid pontoon: the other boat was moving off in an hour: it seems to be free. What ‘s the snag? No snag, it appears, apart from early morning fishermen clattering up and down the access ramp at 6.00 am!
One day further down the Saône and the mooring 7kms up the Canal du Centre at Fragnes is excellent – €6.20 per night including the all-important water and electricity and a free wi-fi connection. We decided to stay here for a few days and visit Chalon-sur-Saône by bicycle – a good decision as it turned out, as the moorings were again impossible for us.
The first day we ventured into Chalon at was at the weekend and there was a street festival taking place: hundreds of scruffy fans thronged the streets with their tents lining the banks of the river as far as the grass would allow. Stages were set up in all the squares and any other open space and people were milling about in anticipation. It was a colourful scene, but we had no idea what was going off where and when, and felt we would rather see Chalon when everything had calmed down. We had a drink on the waterfront and people-watched for a bit. This included watching a hotel barge come in to moor – amazing, all 110m of it, and all controlled by the captain standing outside his wheelhouse using a tiny joystick to control his monster.
We were sitting on the back deck having tea when a French couple stopped by to have a chat. Pierre spoke quite good English, Aveline his wife could understand English but not speak it. She did, however, speak French to us very slowly and clearly and we could understand most of what she was saying. They invited us to have a drink at their house and said they would collect us at 11.30 (it was then 10.30). Then Pierre said, ‘You have two hours to learn French”! So we wondered if he or we had the time wrong, but sure enough he arrived to collect us at 11.30 sharp and off we went for Premier Cru wine and nibbles for a couple of hours.
We, of course, invited them back for a return visit the next day and agreed on douze heure (12 o’clock’. Well, 12 o’clock came and went and we had lunch, assuming they had forgotten or something had cropped up. Then at 2 o’clock – deux heure they arrived!! Lost in translation evidently.
We also met a great couple called John and Hilary from the barge ISKRA (Russian for something but unfortunately we can’t remember what it was!). They had bought it as a sailaway and then fitted it out themselves. We had drinks and a meal together and found we had a lot in common. They come from the Nottingham area and of course, wouldn’t you guess – John knew our friend Brian Holdsworth who together with his wife Jill are the only people we know in Nottingham!
ISKRA and Riccall left Fragnes to cruise up the Canal du Centre to Chagny separately, we leaving a bit before them. We had decided to take two days to get there, stopping en-route. As we passed under the motorway bridge, Alex noticed that there was about 4" to spare above the height marker at the front of the boat. But as the boat travelled under the bridge he could see that the gap was reducing – the bridge was cambered. He knocked the boat into reverse to slow down, but knew it wouldn’t be possible to stop completely before the wheelhouse roof reached the lowest part of the bridge, so it was ram it into full ahead (which digs the stern in) and duck!
The front edge of the PV panel on the wheelhouse roof just grazed the white salts off the bottom of the concrete lintel of the bridge. No further damage, thank goodness, but it was close. The bridges on that as with every canal are all given a specific height clearance, but this one was lower. We did, of course, remove the roof for the rest of the journey to Chagny and back a couple of days later.
Back in Fragnes a couple from New Zealand Raelene and Malcolm Arthur who are touring France by car, bicycle and tent stopped for a chat. We invited them on board for tea and cakes while the heavens opened for the most tremendous storm. We only hope that their tent, which had been left at their campsite some 5 miles away with the flap open, had survived the tempest!
Our next stop was in the town of Tournus, which Rhonda on SOMEWHERE had said was a lovely town, worth a visit, and she was right. We did the usual town circuit but were quite enchanted by its medieval streets and the truly lovely Eglise Saint Philibert. Napoleon awarded the town the Legion d’Honneur for its success in seeing off the Austrians in 1814!
So it has been a very sociable time this last week or so, with a bit of tourism thrown in for good measure, with more to come. Martha and John from DE GROENE LEEUW (The Green Lion) are hoping to drop by and stay over with us on Friday, and we are now moored up in Macon which is a good place for them to find us and park their car.
And find us they did: we had a fantastic evening with them and were entertained by the Charles Aznavour sound-alike performing on a stage on the quay. Not only that, but we watched the comings and goings of several hotel cruise ships, and we had a ringside view of the 14th century bridge as it was lit up.
The following morning we said goodbye to John and Martha, and started to prepare to leave ourselves. Just a few minutes later, they reappeared in some agitation, to tell us that their car had been towed away. It appeared that it had been parked in a space reserved for the Saturday market which we could now see spreading in every direction on the quayside.
Louise went with them to the Tourist Information Office as a first port of call for help, the Police Station being closed. They were told to take a taxi to the holding compound out of town to pay for it and pick it up. So we waved goodbye again as they left in the taxi and got back to Riccall to resume leaving, which we did.
Alex fired off a quick text to Martha to check progress, and we set off. A few minutes later, we received a reply text to say that the tourist office information was all wrong and they had had to return to town to go to the police station first. Poor John and Martha were in the police station going through endless documentation, along with huge amounts of fines and recovery costs, not to mention all the taxi fares.
Then much later we learnt, to cap it all, that having got away at 11 am, a water hose on the car had blown and they were being towed off the motorway! What a catalogue of disasters for them, poor things. We hope they arrived eventually at their daughter’s rented villa at Cap d’Antibes, but at the time of writing, we haven’t had confirmation of that!
The first, at Ecluse Ecuelles, was as we suspected, completely impossible, as was the second at Seurre. Before the next, at Verdun sur le Doubs, were a couple of obsolete locks upriver of the town and as we passed them we thought, ‘Oh well, they might do’. We turned up the old river Doubs but the Port de Plaisance was packed and the only moorings left were impossible for us. We turned back up onto the main river, to look at the old locks but at the approach to the first one we immediately ran aground in the build up of silt, and realised this was going to be impossible as well. Luckily we managed to abort just before we became completely stuck.
We had one more unlikely possibility of a mooring on a pontoon at a place called Gergy, and failing that, it would be another three hours to the Canal du Centre and what was said to be a good spot about 8 kms and one lock up it! By this time we had decided a diversion onto the Canal du Centre would be a good idea anyway and it would also put in a bit of time so we would get to the Canal du Midi after the worst of the bumper boats had gone.
As we rounded the bend in the River Saône above Gergy, we could see the pontoon - and there was only one small boat on it! Halleluiah! Somewhere to moor and it’s still only 3.30 pm. There must be a god after all!
We moored up – plenty of depth – on a good solid pontoon: the other boat was moving off in an hour: it seems to be free. What ‘s the snag? No snag, it appears, apart from early morning fishermen clattering up and down the access ramp at 6.00 am!
One day further down the Saône and the mooring 7kms up the Canal du Centre at Fragnes is excellent – €6.20 per night including the all-important water and electricity and a free wi-fi connection. We decided to stay here for a few days and visit Chalon-sur-Saône by bicycle – a good decision as it turned out, as the moorings were again impossible for us.
The first day we ventured into Chalon at was at the weekend and there was a street festival taking place: hundreds of scruffy fans thronged the streets with their tents lining the banks of the river as far as the grass would allow. Stages were set up in all the squares and any other open space and people were milling about in anticipation. It was a colourful scene, but we had no idea what was going off where and when, and felt we would rather see Chalon when everything had calmed down. We had a drink on the waterfront and people-watched for a bit. This included watching a hotel barge come in to moor – amazing, all 110m of it, and all controlled by the captain standing outside his wheelhouse using a tiny joystick to control his monster.
We were sitting on the back deck having tea when a French couple stopped by to have a chat. Pierre spoke quite good English, Aveline his wife could understand English but not speak it. She did, however, speak French to us very slowly and clearly and we could understand most of what she was saying. They invited us to have a drink at their house and said they would collect us at 11.30 (it was then 10.30). Then Pierre said, ‘You have two hours to learn French”! So we wondered if he or we had the time wrong, but sure enough he arrived to collect us at 11.30 sharp and off we went for Premier Cru wine and nibbles for a couple of hours.
We, of course, invited them back for a return visit the next day and agreed on douze heure (12 o’clock’. Well, 12 o’clock came and went and we had lunch, assuming they had forgotten or something had cropped up. Then at 2 o’clock – deux heure they arrived!! Lost in translation evidently.
We also met a great couple called John and Hilary from the barge ISKRA (Russian for something but unfortunately we can’t remember what it was!). They had bought it as a sailaway and then fitted it out themselves. We had drinks and a meal together and found we had a lot in common. They come from the Nottingham area and of course, wouldn’t you guess – John knew our friend Brian Holdsworth who together with his wife Jill are the only people we know in Nottingham!
ISKRA and Riccall left Fragnes to cruise up the Canal du Centre to Chagny separately, we leaving a bit before them. We had decided to take two days to get there, stopping en-route. As we passed under the motorway bridge, Alex noticed that there was about 4" to spare above the height marker at the front of the boat. But as the boat travelled under the bridge he could see that the gap was reducing – the bridge was cambered. He knocked the boat into reverse to slow down, but knew it wouldn’t be possible to stop completely before the wheelhouse roof reached the lowest part of the bridge, so it was ram it into full ahead (which digs the stern in) and duck!
The front edge of the PV panel on the wheelhouse roof just grazed the white salts off the bottom of the concrete lintel of the bridge. No further damage, thank goodness, but it was close. The bridges on that as with every canal are all given a specific height clearance, but this one was lower. We did, of course, remove the roof for the rest of the journey to Chagny and back a couple of days later.
Back in Fragnes a couple from New Zealand Raelene and Malcolm Arthur who are touring France by car, bicycle and tent stopped for a chat. We invited them on board for tea and cakes while the heavens opened for the most tremendous storm. We only hope that their tent, which had been left at their campsite some 5 miles away with the flap open, had survived the tempest!
Our next stop was in the town of Tournus, which Rhonda on SOMEWHERE had said was a lovely town, worth a visit, and she was right. We did the usual town circuit but were quite enchanted by its medieval streets and the truly lovely Eglise Saint Philibert. Napoleon awarded the town the Legion d’Honneur for its success in seeing off the Austrians in 1814!
So it has been a very sociable time this last week or so, with a bit of tourism thrown in for good measure, with more to come. Martha and John from DE GROENE LEEUW (The Green Lion) are hoping to drop by and stay over with us on Friday, and we are now moored up in Macon which is a good place for them to find us and park their car.
And find us they did: we had a fantastic evening with them and were entertained by the Charles Aznavour sound-alike performing on a stage on the quay. Not only that, but we watched the comings and goings of several hotel cruise ships, and we had a ringside view of the 14th century bridge as it was lit up.
The following morning we said goodbye to John and Martha, and started to prepare to leave ourselves. Just a few minutes later, they reappeared in some agitation, to tell us that their car had been towed away. It appeared that it had been parked in a space reserved for the Saturday market which we could now see spreading in every direction on the quayside.
Louise went with them to the Tourist Information Office as a first port of call for help, the Police Station being closed. They were told to take a taxi to the holding compound out of town to pay for it and pick it up. So we waved goodbye again as they left in the taxi and got back to Riccall to resume leaving, which we did.
Alex fired off a quick text to Martha to check progress, and we set off. A few minutes later, we received a reply text to say that the tourist office information was all wrong and they had had to return to town to go to the police station first. Poor John and Martha were in the police station going through endless documentation, along with huge amounts of fines and recovery costs, not to mention all the taxi fares.
Then much later we learnt, to cap it all, that having got away at 11 am, a water hose on the car had blown and they were being towed off the motorway! What a catalogue of disasters for them, poor things. We hope they arrived eventually at their daughter’s rented villa at Cap d’Antibes, but at the time of writing, we haven’t had confirmation of that!
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Corre to St Jean de Losne
We had barely seen another boat for miles (kilometres) and we had decided that our end of day mooring would be at Fontenoy le Chateau. Imagine our surprise to find the place pretty well packed. But there was a space just beyond the boat hire company finger moorings which looked possible. Will and Mike helped us to moor. They were, it turned out, an Englishman and an Australian (no, no joke follows – rather the contrary) in a little wooden yacht which Will had bought last year and which he had left in the ‘capable’ hands of the hire boat company while he returned to the UK for 6 weeks paying for his mooring of course. Meanwhile the hire boat company had ignored his boat (despite requests to keep an eye on it) and it had sunk!!
So having started to pump the boat out and got it afloat, the chaps had removed everything from the interior and put it all on the bank side in the sun to dry out, and were doing their best to complete the pumping of all the excess water and drying everything out before setting off on the rest of their journey to the Med! We sympathised and gave them drinks and nibbles, but as we still had no cooking gas on board we couldn’t offer much more and off they went to eat. Later we met a land-based partnership, Oscar and Marie-Laura who had late evening drinks with us until well after our bedtime. Oscar was the son of an English mother and a Dutch bargee father, so his English was superb.
A couple of days later, we arrived at Corre where, at last, we were able to replenish our gas bottles and much else at the local Intermarché, 1km from the mooring. We actually made three trips in all with Alex wobbling dangerously on his bike with 15kg of gas bottle on the back – twice!
The following day we stopped for lunch on a mooring which we knew was a mere 400 metres from an Aldi where we stocked up on all our favourite bits that we couldn’t get from the bigger supermarket then travelled on to a mooring at Conflanday.
We decided that an early start and finish (in the cool of the morning) was better for Alex, still in a rather feeble condition, so we set off at 8am and moored up near Soing at 12.30. During the rest of the day, the wind got up and at least one tree was blown down across the road to the village, but by the time we cycled past, it had been moved off the road. We could see several other trees which had suffered the same fate either that day or within the very recent past. The village was rather nice and had, of all things, a miniature Eiffel Tower on the camping/playground area: when we rode through at 3pm, they were in the midst of celebrating Bastille Day with games for the children and a barbeque in preparation. Much later, after dark, Louise (Alex was asleep) had a fine view of the fireworks from our moorings.
We ultimately arrived at Gray where we were hoping to take on fuel. Our first attempt to stop above the lock to enquire of VNF where we could get it, was on a quay reserved for commercial craft but the only possible space for our boat. And of course a fisherman who was unloading his car ready to start fishing there gave us such a mouthful of abuse. For once Alex got cross himself and said in French – “Look, you have all day everyday to fish here: we are only here for 5 minutes! What is your problem?” He just couldn’t manage to find the French for, “You nasty little man”!
VNF told us where to moor and where to get the fuel so we moved below the lock onto the town moorings. Depth is a problem in pretty well all moorings on the Petite Saône but we managed OK until our fuel was delivered by tanker the next morning: then we were able to move across to the long quay where we also got free water and electricity. Bliss! But still very shallow – having to hold ourselves off some 2 metres at the stern.
Louise went off to top up fresh veg supplies but on her way she spotted the Tourist Information Office and dropped by to get a town map – the usual. The lady in charge, Claudine, was a real boat enthusiast, loving barges in particular, and Louise promised to call by later with photos of Riccall. When she saw our pictures, she said she would like to take some photos herself for her monthly magazine and we arranged for her to drop by at 8.15 am the following morning (!) before we left and before her 9 am appointment, as later in the day she would be travelling north to visit a sick friend.
So that visit all went well, we said goodbye and off she went at 8.50 am. We started to prepare to leave: we even had our first ropes off, when a lady boater spoke to us, warning us that the moorings we were aiming for that night were closed for the village fête and in any case the noise would be appalling, even if we could get in. Change of plan – we will stay another day. We re-moored ourselves and a few minutes later Claudine re-appeared with her husband Christoph, and they both came aboard for coffee and more chat. When she learned that we were staying she invited us to their home for lunch – they weren’t leaving for the north until 3pm and would have to travel back through Gray anyway, so it was no trouble to drop us back. They were both so keen for us to go, so we accepted the invitation. A light salad for lunch was promised, which suits us fine. So off we went to their house in the countryside.
Having greeted their son Armand and Claudine’s mother, who sadly spoke no English at all, we all sat down to lunch – couscous, bread, tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, gherkins and radishes. Not perhaps what we might have offered but we thought, just perfect, our size of lunch. We should have known! Suddenly fried white sausages (veal) and apple slices appeared, with boiled rice and more bread. Having partaken of a token helping of that, out came the cheese and more bread. Then finally (you’ve guessed it) the dessert arrived! - a huge bowl of fresh fruit salad with cold semolina. At this point Alex said, “Non Merci” patting his already full tummy. (He doesn’t do fruit, and he certainly doesn’t do cold semolina!!) Finally coffee. How can anyone fail to become overweight with meals like that?
Claudine’s father had run a cheese manufacturing operation employing 15 people, at this very place for many years before the rise of the supermarkets made it no longer viable. They sent lorry loads of their cheese – Le Charmeur – to Paris twice a week. The old factory was crumbling away next to the house but Claudine still had great pride in what it had been. She gave us a cheese wrapper from the old business with the name of the company and the cheese. (We wondered how many wrappers she had left!) But Christoph, who gave us a tour of the quite extensive grounds, said that Claudine’s father had died only two years ago and the whole subject of what to do with the old creamery was still very much up in the air.
Some time after our return to Riccall we were delighted to see Will and Mike going past in their once-sunken sailing boat, having dried it all out and got it working again. Lots of waves and hellos and goodbyes as they went.
We left Gray the next day and still couldn’t moor where we had hoped, because although the fête had finished, today it was Brocante Day – car boot sale!!! and the mooring was still cordoned off. But we did find a very good spot not much further on – our size and depth, quiet and peaceful.
Much later that night a Danish sailing boat appeared and asked to moor on us. Of course – not a problem. Susanne and Per were heading for the Med then the Atlantic to explore the islands of Madeira and the Canaries and at 1.8m deep, they really struggled to find suitable moorings. Having done 24 locks and twice as many kilometres that day, they were very tired indeed and more than ready to moor up. They were hugely grateful and we managed a bit of chat after their meal before we all turned in.
When we got to St Jean de Losne the place was packed, but we had noticed a couple of boats moored up in the trees just north of the town, so we headed back to them and managed to nestle in to the shallow bank ourselves, with a boater’s help tying to one bollard and three trees, our new gang plank being just long enough to reach the shore.
Last year we had bought two big plastic torpedo-shaped fenders in case we needed them, at Pont à Bar, and had been disappointed when one of then had developed a leak after about a month. The plastic seemed to have a fault in it. Then a month ago the second one developed a leak in the same way. Neither of these fenders has ever actually been used, so we felt a bit cheesed off about it. As we can’t possibly return them to Pont à Bar which is hundreds of kms away, we went into St Jean de Losne which has two chandleries (one the expensive H2O, and one the more reasonable Blanquarts). Not unreasonably we went to Blanquarts and explained about the fenders and our problem.
The assistant was very nice and said they had had a number of the self-same fenders last year with the same fault, and she would exchange them for us and send them back, even though we hadn’t bought them from her. Really kind of her. Alex had also felt different types of fender called ‘glissoires’ would be better for Riccall anyway to replace our worn-out wooden ones, and she was quite happy to sell us 4 of those and take off the value of the faulty plastic fenders.
What she never actually asked was how much we had originally paid for the fenders at Pont à Bar! She essentially refunded us what Blanquarts charge - nearly twice the price of Pont à Bar, and charged us for the four plastic ‘glissoires’ which were on special offer!
So all in all we did very well on the deal, and we also managed to buy the next two canal books we need, both of which were in stock.
On the way back to Riccall we spotted ‘Cinclus’ moored up on the passenger boat quay. They can do this as they are indeed a passenger boat, licensed as such. We had met Sasja and Ekko twice last year and when we appeared by their boat they were delighted to see us and asked us aboard for drinks and a catch-up chat. They were having a week’s ‘holiday’ from paying guests and had family there instead: children swimming in the river, adults relaxing. Lovely people, lovely boat.
So here we are, sitting in a (so far) 18 hour deluge of rain, but we are now ready for the next stage in our journey south – onto the Basse Saône to Lyon.
Tales of few moorings, huge commercial traffic and locks, fast river etc etc. (Louise- Aarghhh)
So having started to pump the boat out and got it afloat, the chaps had removed everything from the interior and put it all on the bank side in the sun to dry out, and were doing their best to complete the pumping of all the excess water and drying everything out before setting off on the rest of their journey to the Med! We sympathised and gave them drinks and nibbles, but as we still had no cooking gas on board we couldn’t offer much more and off they went to eat. Later we met a land-based partnership, Oscar and Marie-Laura who had late evening drinks with us until well after our bedtime. Oscar was the son of an English mother and a Dutch bargee father, so his English was superb.
A couple of days later, we arrived at Corre where, at last, we were able to replenish our gas bottles and much else at the local Intermarché, 1km from the mooring. We actually made three trips in all with Alex wobbling dangerously on his bike with 15kg of gas bottle on the back – twice!
The following day we stopped for lunch on a mooring which we knew was a mere 400 metres from an Aldi where we stocked up on all our favourite bits that we couldn’t get from the bigger supermarket then travelled on to a mooring at Conflanday.
We decided that an early start and finish (in the cool of the morning) was better for Alex, still in a rather feeble condition, so we set off at 8am and moored up near Soing at 12.30. During the rest of the day, the wind got up and at least one tree was blown down across the road to the village, but by the time we cycled past, it had been moved off the road. We could see several other trees which had suffered the same fate either that day or within the very recent past. The village was rather nice and had, of all things, a miniature Eiffel Tower on the camping/playground area: when we rode through at 3pm, they were in the midst of celebrating Bastille Day with games for the children and a barbeque in preparation. Much later, after dark, Louise (Alex was asleep) had a fine view of the fireworks from our moorings.
We ultimately arrived at Gray where we were hoping to take on fuel. Our first attempt to stop above the lock to enquire of VNF where we could get it, was on a quay reserved for commercial craft but the only possible space for our boat. And of course a fisherman who was unloading his car ready to start fishing there gave us such a mouthful of abuse. For once Alex got cross himself and said in French – “Look, you have all day everyday to fish here: we are only here for 5 minutes! What is your problem?” He just couldn’t manage to find the French for, “You nasty little man”!
VNF told us where to moor and where to get the fuel so we moved below the lock onto the town moorings. Depth is a problem in pretty well all moorings on the Petite Saône but we managed OK until our fuel was delivered by tanker the next morning: then we were able to move across to the long quay where we also got free water and electricity. Bliss! But still very shallow – having to hold ourselves off some 2 metres at the stern.
Louise went off to top up fresh veg supplies but on her way she spotted the Tourist Information Office and dropped by to get a town map – the usual. The lady in charge, Claudine, was a real boat enthusiast, loving barges in particular, and Louise promised to call by later with photos of Riccall. When she saw our pictures, she said she would like to take some photos herself for her monthly magazine and we arranged for her to drop by at 8.15 am the following morning (!) before we left and before her 9 am appointment, as later in the day she would be travelling north to visit a sick friend.
So that visit all went well, we said goodbye and off she went at 8.50 am. We started to prepare to leave: we even had our first ropes off, when a lady boater spoke to us, warning us that the moorings we were aiming for that night were closed for the village fête and in any case the noise would be appalling, even if we could get in. Change of plan – we will stay another day. We re-moored ourselves and a few minutes later Claudine re-appeared with her husband Christoph, and they both came aboard for coffee and more chat. When she learned that we were staying she invited us to their home for lunch – they weren’t leaving for the north until 3pm and would have to travel back through Gray anyway, so it was no trouble to drop us back. They were both so keen for us to go, so we accepted the invitation. A light salad for lunch was promised, which suits us fine. So off we went to their house in the countryside.
Having greeted their son Armand and Claudine’s mother, who sadly spoke no English at all, we all sat down to lunch – couscous, bread, tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, gherkins and radishes. Not perhaps what we might have offered but we thought, just perfect, our size of lunch. We should have known! Suddenly fried white sausages (veal) and apple slices appeared, with boiled rice and more bread. Having partaken of a token helping of that, out came the cheese and more bread. Then finally (you’ve guessed it) the dessert arrived! - a huge bowl of fresh fruit salad with cold semolina. At this point Alex said, “Non Merci” patting his already full tummy. (He doesn’t do fruit, and he certainly doesn’t do cold semolina!!) Finally coffee. How can anyone fail to become overweight with meals like that?
Claudine’s father had run a cheese manufacturing operation employing 15 people, at this very place for many years before the rise of the supermarkets made it no longer viable. They sent lorry loads of their cheese – Le Charmeur – to Paris twice a week. The old factory was crumbling away next to the house but Claudine still had great pride in what it had been. She gave us a cheese wrapper from the old business with the name of the company and the cheese. (We wondered how many wrappers she had left!) But Christoph, who gave us a tour of the quite extensive grounds, said that Claudine’s father had died only two years ago and the whole subject of what to do with the old creamery was still very much up in the air.
Some time after our return to Riccall we were delighted to see Will and Mike going past in their once-sunken sailing boat, having dried it all out and got it working again. Lots of waves and hellos and goodbyes as they went.
We left Gray the next day and still couldn’t moor where we had hoped, because although the fête had finished, today it was Brocante Day – car boot sale!!! and the mooring was still cordoned off. But we did find a very good spot not much further on – our size and depth, quiet and peaceful.
Much later that night a Danish sailing boat appeared and asked to moor on us. Of course – not a problem. Susanne and Per were heading for the Med then the Atlantic to explore the islands of Madeira and the Canaries and at 1.8m deep, they really struggled to find suitable moorings. Having done 24 locks and twice as many kilometres that day, they were very tired indeed and more than ready to moor up. They were hugely grateful and we managed a bit of chat after their meal before we all turned in.
When we got to St Jean de Losne the place was packed, but we had noticed a couple of boats moored up in the trees just north of the town, so we headed back to them and managed to nestle in to the shallow bank ourselves, with a boater’s help tying to one bollard and three trees, our new gang plank being just long enough to reach the shore.
Last year we had bought two big plastic torpedo-shaped fenders in case we needed them, at Pont à Bar, and had been disappointed when one of then had developed a leak after about a month. The plastic seemed to have a fault in it. Then a month ago the second one developed a leak in the same way. Neither of these fenders has ever actually been used, so we felt a bit cheesed off about it. As we can’t possibly return them to Pont à Bar which is hundreds of kms away, we went into St Jean de Losne which has two chandleries (one the expensive H2O, and one the more reasonable Blanquarts). Not unreasonably we went to Blanquarts and explained about the fenders and our problem.
The assistant was very nice and said they had had a number of the self-same fenders last year with the same fault, and she would exchange them for us and send them back, even though we hadn’t bought them from her. Really kind of her. Alex had also felt different types of fender called ‘glissoires’ would be better for Riccall anyway to replace our worn-out wooden ones, and she was quite happy to sell us 4 of those and take off the value of the faulty plastic fenders.
What she never actually asked was how much we had originally paid for the fenders at Pont à Bar! She essentially refunded us what Blanquarts charge - nearly twice the price of Pont à Bar, and charged us for the four plastic ‘glissoires’ which were on special offer!
So all in all we did very well on the deal, and we also managed to buy the next two canal books we need, both of which were in stock.
On the way back to Riccall we spotted ‘Cinclus’ moored up on the passenger boat quay. They can do this as they are indeed a passenger boat, licensed as such. We had met Sasja and Ekko twice last year and when we appeared by their boat they were delighted to see us and asked us aboard for drinks and a catch-up chat. They were having a week’s ‘holiday’ from paying guests and had family there instead: children swimming in the river, adults relaxing. Lovely people, lovely boat.
So here we are, sitting in a (so far) 18 hour deluge of rain, but we are now ready for the next stage in our journey south – onto the Basse Saône to Lyon.
Tales of few moorings, huge commercial traffic and locks, fast river etc etc. (Louise- Aarghhh)
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Thaon to Corre
When we had come in to moor at Charmes a guy from a large Dutch barge called WILLIAM helped us with our ropes. He had helped us at the end of last year in the Port de France in Toul as well. It seems he sort of takes over as the ‘mooring commandant’ wherever he moors, but very helpful with it. He said he was staying at Charmes for 6 months, and we commiserated with him over the QUADRUPLING of the mooring costs at Port de France, Toul (the main reason he moved on).
He warned us that ahead in Thaon there was a rat run of 4 commercials through 4 locks between a gravel source and a gravel distribution depot/port, 4 kilometres apart on the canal. He also warned us that the depth on the branch canal to Epinal a few kilometres beyond Thaon was very limited.
He was dead right in both respects – we met three of the commercials returning unladen and followed a laden one through two locks. But what he didn’t warn us about was that one of the lock bridges in Thaon had a variable water level giving a clear air draught of between 3.5 m and 3.7 m. With our roof on we are 3.6 m and as we arrived at this bridge our height marker on our bow showed we couldn’t get under without removing the roof!
Emergency stop! Back off! and lower the wheelhouse roof. This is not a problem, only a surprise, as our book tells us that that all the bridges on this canal have a clear height of 3.7m.
Alex couldn’t believe this particular one and, after we moored up, he walked back to it, with a measuring tape. When he arrived, his first measurement showed 3.7 m. What’s going on? But as he took subsequent readings over the next 15 minutes or so, the water level rose till the air draught was down to 3.5 m. Scary!
We later spent a very interesting time at our mooring, observing the water level rise and fall by as much as 20 cms as these monsters passed through the locks.
A couple of days later and the branch canal to Epinal was signed at 1.6m depth but we could see that the water level was at least 300mm below normal: therefore the depth was actually 1.3 m. At our draught of 1.4 m we would surely have struggled. We had the same advice from VNF at their office at the junction where we moored up, and from the harbourmaster when we cycled into Epinal to have a looksee.
As we cycled past the moored boats there we suddenly saw a name we recognised - ‘VLINDER’, and on close inspection there were Rita and Eloy under their snazzy new canopy on top of their cabin roof. We had not seen them since our winter stay in Ghent Centrum, so it was great to be asked aboard, given drinks and snacks and to catch up with all that had been going on for the last year and a half, and most importantly, exchange mooring information.
We eventually left to ride back to Riccall just as it started to pour with rain. It stopped about half way back and though we were thoroughly soaked by this time, the weather was so warm that we had dried out by the time we got back to the boat.
While we were moored outside the VNF office we saw several boats pass this way and that – one of which stopped to moor on the VNF work boat next to us: a 15ft canoe with a small outboard! Ganot, a German, was spending 4-6 weeks cruising the Canal des Vosges and hoped to end up back at his home moorings on the Lahn River, off the Rhine near Koblenz in that time. He had everything he needed in his small canoe: tent, primus stove, food, plastic chair to sit in while steering or on the bank, plus leeboards for stability: altogether a simple but efficient way to travel and so easy to moor! He also managed a far faster speed than we can do!
He came for a drink with us in the evening and we learned how, with such a small boat, he paid no French licence fee, but because of this, the VNF were not always keen to let him use the locks unless there was another boat going too (a waste of water for such a small boat they said). We were going the next day so agreed that he was welcome to accompany us in the locks. It made a peculiar sight – us at the front of the lock towering over this tiny canoe tucked in behind with Ganot holding onto the lock ladder to keep his vessel in place. Some of the locks here are in such poor shape that here and there, there is no cement left between the stones which make up the walls, and they look as though they could fall out altogether at any time. In two locks, some of the teetering stones had been removed altogether and put on the lock side! Equally some of the lock ladders (there are at least two in every lock) to which Ganot was clinging, were only held on by the last two bolts at the top!
We found a place to moor on the summit level at a short new wooden quay with good rings. This was opposite a house on the other side of the canal which had a swimming pool in the garden. We were forced to listen as all the teenagers and adults kept leaping into the pool to cool down while we sweltered in the hot sun – temperature 36C. However, the following day Alex had a treat as Madame emerged and wandered around topless (and almost bottomless) for most of the morning!
Alex decided that this would be a good place to do a spot of painting on the back deck. We have, for some time, realised that the dark green paint absorbed the heat of the sun and radiated it off again – often too hot to touch, just when we wanted to sit there for our supper. So we set about painting a large proportion of it cream. (Good excuse to stay another day or so – you never know your luck – Alex!)
Our next mooring was just through the first lock down from the summit level. As the bottom gates started to open we could see a laden peniche about to enter! He was more than a little surprised to see us, as VNF had told him there was nobody coming through. (They had obviously forgotten all about us, as we’d been stopped for so long!)
The péniche jiggled about a bit and eventually signalled us to come past him on the ‘wrong’ side, which we started to do, but half way past we went aground. So there we were, locked hard up against Madame and Monsieur’s péniche ALAIN, with all of us pushing and pulling to get us past and off the bottom while protecting both boats. We would have been in real trouble if we had met him in the narrows above the lock. Up there it was like a tunnel but without a roof, for about one and a half miles, very twisty and only one and a half barges wide. One of us (US) would have had to back off!
However, this mooring allowed us to put on the first top coat of paint on the back deck and at a poor quality small supermarket, euphemistically named Ecomarché, the opportunity to stock up.
The next few locks, from 3 down to 8 are manually operated by VNF staff, (mostly student labour drafted in during the summer). As we reached the last of these Louise popped into the bedroom for something and spotted water all over the floor. Having to get back up on board to man the ropes, she assumed at first glance that the air con unit we have just installed was leaking. As it happened, a mooring which we had been looking out for was available just through Lock 8 so we stopped to investigate. When Alex got down to the bedroom he realised very quickly that it was not the air con leaking, but that water had been directed clean through the open porthole from one of the fountains of water that you often get from the leaky sides of a lock when it has recently been emptied (or in this case as we were descending).
So another trap for small children – always remember to close all the portholes when travelling through leaky locks.
However, the plus side was that the mooring was so idyllic, peaceful and remote, that we decided to stay the rest of the day. And . . . within an hour two cyclists turned up at the adjacent picnic table, then a cruiser to join them, and then the whole VNF mowing team – 6 men and machines - turned up to cut the grass. Goodbye peace and tranquillity! (but happily not for too long).
We set off again descending the locks and as we were about to emerge from one, Alex noticed our height marker on the front of Riccall showed lack of clearance under the bridge. He stopped, we looked again and it looked OK, so we started slowly forward. But the wave of water which happens when the lock empties must have been reflected back into the lock and raised the level again and the roof just started to catch – back off, and off with it, and two nasty scratches in the paint. When will we learn? And today we ran out of gas! We have a spare bottle of course but it too was empty. How did that happen? Someone said that gas can evaporate when it is hot, but we can’t believe that’s what happened!
To make up for it we found one of the most rural and ‘away from it all’ moorings so far; pity a German sailing boat decided to moor up in front of us an hour after we stopped there! But you can’t have it all!
We have meandered on, stopping where the mooring look nice, and have at last reached Corre, though not before another unexpected roof removal! We have restocked with gas, wine beer, and food ready for the trip south down the Saône. We have also realised that we need to get a bit more of a move on – after all, we’ve recently had a text from Paul and Diane saying they have just met Ganot in his canoe – 300kms ahead of us!!
He warned us that ahead in Thaon there was a rat run of 4 commercials through 4 locks between a gravel source and a gravel distribution depot/port, 4 kilometres apart on the canal. He also warned us that the depth on the branch canal to Epinal a few kilometres beyond Thaon was very limited.
He was dead right in both respects – we met three of the commercials returning unladen and followed a laden one through two locks. But what he didn’t warn us about was that one of the lock bridges in Thaon had a variable water level giving a clear air draught of between 3.5 m and 3.7 m. With our roof on we are 3.6 m and as we arrived at this bridge our height marker on our bow showed we couldn’t get under without removing the roof!
Emergency stop! Back off! and lower the wheelhouse roof. This is not a problem, only a surprise, as our book tells us that that all the bridges on this canal have a clear height of 3.7m.
Alex couldn’t believe this particular one and, after we moored up, he walked back to it, with a measuring tape. When he arrived, his first measurement showed 3.7 m. What’s going on? But as he took subsequent readings over the next 15 minutes or so, the water level rose till the air draught was down to 3.5 m. Scary!
We later spent a very interesting time at our mooring, observing the water level rise and fall by as much as 20 cms as these monsters passed through the locks.
A couple of days later and the branch canal to Epinal was signed at 1.6m depth but we could see that the water level was at least 300mm below normal: therefore the depth was actually 1.3 m. At our draught of 1.4 m we would surely have struggled. We had the same advice from VNF at their office at the junction where we moored up, and from the harbourmaster when we cycled into Epinal to have a looksee.
As we cycled past the moored boats there we suddenly saw a name we recognised - ‘VLINDER’, and on close inspection there were Rita and Eloy under their snazzy new canopy on top of their cabin roof. We had not seen them since our winter stay in Ghent Centrum, so it was great to be asked aboard, given drinks and snacks and to catch up with all that had been going on for the last year and a half, and most importantly, exchange mooring information.
We eventually left to ride back to Riccall just as it started to pour with rain. It stopped about half way back and though we were thoroughly soaked by this time, the weather was so warm that we had dried out by the time we got back to the boat.
While we were moored outside the VNF office we saw several boats pass this way and that – one of which stopped to moor on the VNF work boat next to us: a 15ft canoe with a small outboard! Ganot, a German, was spending 4-6 weeks cruising the Canal des Vosges and hoped to end up back at his home moorings on the Lahn River, off the Rhine near Koblenz in that time. He had everything he needed in his small canoe: tent, primus stove, food, plastic chair to sit in while steering or on the bank, plus leeboards for stability: altogether a simple but efficient way to travel and so easy to moor! He also managed a far faster speed than we can do!
He came for a drink with us in the evening and we learned how, with such a small boat, he paid no French licence fee, but because of this, the VNF were not always keen to let him use the locks unless there was another boat going too (a waste of water for such a small boat they said). We were going the next day so agreed that he was welcome to accompany us in the locks. It made a peculiar sight – us at the front of the lock towering over this tiny canoe tucked in behind with Ganot holding onto the lock ladder to keep his vessel in place. Some of the locks here are in such poor shape that here and there, there is no cement left between the stones which make up the walls, and they look as though they could fall out altogether at any time. In two locks, some of the teetering stones had been removed altogether and put on the lock side! Equally some of the lock ladders (there are at least two in every lock) to which Ganot was clinging, were only held on by the last two bolts at the top!
We found a place to moor on the summit level at a short new wooden quay with good rings. This was opposite a house on the other side of the canal which had a swimming pool in the garden. We were forced to listen as all the teenagers and adults kept leaping into the pool to cool down while we sweltered in the hot sun – temperature 36C. However, the following day Alex had a treat as Madame emerged and wandered around topless (and almost bottomless) for most of the morning!
Alex decided that this would be a good place to do a spot of painting on the back deck. We have, for some time, realised that the dark green paint absorbed the heat of the sun and radiated it off again – often too hot to touch, just when we wanted to sit there for our supper. So we set about painting a large proportion of it cream. (Good excuse to stay another day or so – you never know your luck – Alex!)
Our next mooring was just through the first lock down from the summit level. As the bottom gates started to open we could see a laden peniche about to enter! He was more than a little surprised to see us, as VNF had told him there was nobody coming through. (They had obviously forgotten all about us, as we’d been stopped for so long!)
The péniche jiggled about a bit and eventually signalled us to come past him on the ‘wrong’ side, which we started to do, but half way past we went aground. So there we were, locked hard up against Madame and Monsieur’s péniche ALAIN, with all of us pushing and pulling to get us past and off the bottom while protecting both boats. We would have been in real trouble if we had met him in the narrows above the lock. Up there it was like a tunnel but without a roof, for about one and a half miles, very twisty and only one and a half barges wide. One of us (US) would have had to back off!
However, this mooring allowed us to put on the first top coat of paint on the back deck and at a poor quality small supermarket, euphemistically named Ecomarché, the opportunity to stock up.
The next few locks, from 3 down to 8 are manually operated by VNF staff, (mostly student labour drafted in during the summer). As we reached the last of these Louise popped into the bedroom for something and spotted water all over the floor. Having to get back up on board to man the ropes, she assumed at first glance that the air con unit we have just installed was leaking. As it happened, a mooring which we had been looking out for was available just through Lock 8 so we stopped to investigate. When Alex got down to the bedroom he realised very quickly that it was not the air con leaking, but that water had been directed clean through the open porthole from one of the fountains of water that you often get from the leaky sides of a lock when it has recently been emptied (or in this case as we were descending).
So another trap for small children – always remember to close all the portholes when travelling through leaky locks.
However, the plus side was that the mooring was so idyllic, peaceful and remote, that we decided to stay the rest of the day. And . . . within an hour two cyclists turned up at the adjacent picnic table, then a cruiser to join them, and then the whole VNF mowing team – 6 men and machines - turned up to cut the grass. Goodbye peace and tranquillity! (but happily not for too long).
We set off again descending the locks and as we were about to emerge from one, Alex noticed our height marker on the front of Riccall showed lack of clearance under the bridge. He stopped, we looked again and it looked OK, so we started slowly forward. But the wave of water which happens when the lock empties must have been reflected back into the lock and raised the level again and the roof just started to catch – back off, and off with it, and two nasty scratches in the paint. When will we learn? And today we ran out of gas! We have a spare bottle of course but it too was empty. How did that happen? Someone said that gas can evaporate when it is hot, but we can’t believe that’s what happened!
To make up for it we found one of the most rural and ‘away from it all’ moorings so far; pity a German sailing boat decided to moor up in front of us an hour after we stopped there! But you can’t have it all!
We have meandered on, stopping where the mooring look nice, and have at last reached Corre, though not before another unexpected roof removal! We have restocked with gas, wine beer, and food ready for the trip south down the Saône. We have also realised that we need to get a bit more of a move on – after all, we’ve recently had a text from Paul and Diane saying they have just met Ganot in his canoe – 300kms ahead of us!!
Thursday, 1 July 2010
Wasps in the warps and ants ‘n deck
So at last we set off for this year’s cruising season: a farewell to all our neighbours at Port Mansuy and off into the unknown. Before we left, Alex discovered a wasps’ nest under the spare rope up forward and in the absence of anti-wasp powder, picked the whole thing up with a boathook and hurled it onto the bank and thereafter decimated it!
Two days into our cruise up the Moselle and Louise suddenly finds ants crawling up the doorframe in the en-suite bathroom! On inspection they are all over the place: in the bedroom, under the carpet, around the skirting boards, up the walls, under the floor. HELP!
We are moored at the junction of the Canal des Vosges and the Nancy Embranchment and we decide to cycle the 15 kms to Nancy via the closed embranchment canal to get anti-ant powder and also the next guide for the canals we are about to experience. (We forgot to order it over our long winter lay-up!)
So out with the trusty bikes and off we go. We soon find out why the embranchment canal has been closed for the last couple of years, but can’t understand why it’s going to take another year to re-open it! There has been a landslip and 100m of canal has been filled in by the adjoining hillside. Even BW could tackle that and get the canal going in a couple of months! In Nancy we buy copious amounts of ‘fourmis’ killer powder and ‘honey pot’ killer traps, together with the map (not the favoured series, but beggars can’t be choosers), have lunch in Stanislas Square and finally wend our way back to the boat.
Then we tackle the ants: traps, powder, stamp, crush, kill for a couple of hours.
But the question remains: how did they get in? Alex keeps puzzling over this for some boringly long time. There were a few on the back deck but there is no way down from there except by the stairs, and there were none there. Then suddenly the possible solution comes to him. The previous night we had moored with some difficulty to a VNF ‘Press your zapper here’ sign, a tree at height to avoid the towpath and a stake hammered into the unyielding ground. We reckoned there would be little or no traffic till late morning as we had passed the point at which all nearby barges disgorged their scrap steel cargoes, and the locks were now back down to Freycinet size (39m x 5.10m). Of course as you would expect, a commercial Freycinet passed us going slowly (bless him) at 7.20am, just 20 minutes after the locks re-opened for the new day, and dragged the stake out. We didn’t see another boat of any sort until well into the afternoon1
This mooring was hard up against a lot of grass and vegetation nearly as high as the decks, and Alex realised that there was one route down to the underfloor that he hadn’t at first thought of. At the rear end of the main part of the boat, under the bedroom floor, is a bilge pump for the unimaginable prospect of inundation of water in the central part of Riccall. This pump is a centrifugal type and has no non-return valve in the outlet pipe, which exits high up near the stern. Alex’s conclusion is that the ants found this interesting hole in the side of the boat and crawled all the way down it, out past the pump impellor into the underfloor of the bedroom and thence up to everywhere else!
As this is a boat and everything is supposed to be waterproof (and therefore, ant-proof) this is the only explanation we can arrive at, and when Alex looked in the outlet hole, there was an ANT in it!! It’s not nice being invaded though, and while the various anti-ant stuffs do their stuff we will sleep in the guest bedroom up forward.
On the plus side, the bike ride was fun: the embranchment canal is lovely and Nancy, particularly Stanislas Square, is brilliant.
We set off, reluctantly, from our mooring and proceeded on our way. The first lock was fine but somewhere at the next lock we failed to see the zapper post which meant that the lock couldn’t operate. Louise disembarked and walked back down the towpath pressing the button every 10 metres or so still unable to visually locate the sign post. Suddenly the green light on the lock was illuminated and the lock began to operate. Alex got on the walkie-talkie and let Louse know she had (somehow) set it off! We still have no idea where the receiving post was but at last we are on our way.
Half an hour later it is time for Louise’s morning cup of coffee for which everything stops, and by chance a mooring is in sight, so we moor up. It happens to be such an idyllic spot that we decide to stay on for that night as well, with an interesting bike ride after lunch to boot. There are a few weekend cottages around but the loudest noise is from the local birdsong: the sun shines and we enjoy supper on the back deck in the cooling setting rays.
Charmes is our next stop and charming it ain’t! But to stock up at the local supermarket we pay our €7 for mooring and electricity and moor adjacent to the hoards of campervans which have congregated at this spot – obviously a popular road rest.
The following day, we have our hopes set on a mooring at Nomexy/Chatel, which according to our DBA information, has a guided tour of a local castle, much of which is below ground! We arrive at the first appointed time of 3 pm to be met by an elderly couple who are in the process of opening up for business.
The lady speaks quite good English, which is encouraging, but suddenly we discover we have both left our money on the boat! Sacré bleu! But Madame says, ‘No problem – pay after the tour’. So Alex, Louise and a decrepit Frenchman start being shown the sights by Madame. We begin in the museum artefacts display rooms and everything is explained in English (short version) and French (minute detail) for about 45 minutes. How long is this tour? Then we go outside and start looking at some of the actual remains: diving into rooms here, down precipitous stairs there, in and out of everywhere. It is huge site and it has been excavated by many thousands of international archaeologists amidst and amongst the later private dwellings. Our fellow tourist is only about 65 but is less steady on his feet than our guide who turns out to be 80! Yes, actually 80 years old. So they help each other up and down the steep steps with Louise and Alex chipping in where appropriate.
At 5.30 we are joined by 3 other tourists who had missed the start of the tour, but eventually sometime after 6 it was all over.
Our guide had been on her feet, explaining everything in French and English for over 3 hours, and WE were exhausted!!! Alex congratulated her on a command performance, left a huge (for him) tip and even bought a postcard, which Louise had particularly liked.
The castle dated back to the 11th century and had been added to over the centuries. It has been a very important point in the history of the region as it was at the crossroads of early Roman and later French, Prussian, Dutch and German major arteries. It was an important stronghold in the region and our guide had been involved in its excavation almost from the beginning in the 1970s.
She LIVED that castle - both for it, in it and around it. It was her life. She was even hoping for the local hospital to be demolished so she could unearth more of the remains underneath it – at 80! She herself had removed tons of rubbish that had been used to fill in the fabric of the castle interior at the behest of Louis 15th, who had felt it was a stronghold against his power, so he annihilated it. She pointed to a rather scruffy row of garage type buildings, rejoicing that they were about to be demolished and she would be excavating further parts of the castle as soon as they had disappeared!
Her whole family were involved: she, her husband, her children and her grandchildren were all a part of it. Incredible! What a bizarre scene!
The next day, we visited the local 15th Century church in the same village. Alex had seen a man enter, so we knew the church was open. As we stood at the back however, we could see and hear a couple of fellows near the altar chatting away 19 to the dozen. Alex decided to go up to have a closer look at the altar area, but as he approached the two men, he noticed a woman at one of the side chapels in floods of tears. He beat a hasty retreat and we sat quietly at the back, not sure quite what to do. A few minutes later one of the of the men escorted the woman (still sobbing) from the premises and the other man approached us and introduced himself. He was clearly the Father or ‘curate’, and he gave us a brief history of the church, and then we all came out and he locked the door behind us! But why all the tears? What had happened? We felt we had stumbled into some significant personal tragedy and hoped we hadn’t made things worse by our presence. But the young woman’s misfortune was our good luck – a chance to look inside what would normally have been a locked church!
Two days into our cruise up the Moselle and Louise suddenly finds ants crawling up the doorframe in the en-suite bathroom! On inspection they are all over the place: in the bedroom, under the carpet, around the skirting boards, up the walls, under the floor. HELP!
We are moored at the junction of the Canal des Vosges and the Nancy Embranchment and we decide to cycle the 15 kms to Nancy via the closed embranchment canal to get anti-ant powder and also the next guide for the canals we are about to experience. (We forgot to order it over our long winter lay-up!)
So out with the trusty bikes and off we go. We soon find out why the embranchment canal has been closed for the last couple of years, but can’t understand why it’s going to take another year to re-open it! There has been a landslip and 100m of canal has been filled in by the adjoining hillside. Even BW could tackle that and get the canal going in a couple of months! In Nancy we buy copious amounts of ‘fourmis’ killer powder and ‘honey pot’ killer traps, together with the map (not the favoured series, but beggars can’t be choosers), have lunch in Stanislas Square and finally wend our way back to the boat.
Then we tackle the ants: traps, powder, stamp, crush, kill for a couple of hours.
But the question remains: how did they get in? Alex keeps puzzling over this for some boringly long time. There were a few on the back deck but there is no way down from there except by the stairs, and there were none there. Then suddenly the possible solution comes to him. The previous night we had moored with some difficulty to a VNF ‘Press your zapper here’ sign, a tree at height to avoid the towpath and a stake hammered into the unyielding ground. We reckoned there would be little or no traffic till late morning as we had passed the point at which all nearby barges disgorged their scrap steel cargoes, and the locks were now back down to Freycinet size (39m x 5.10m). Of course as you would expect, a commercial Freycinet passed us going slowly (bless him) at 7.20am, just 20 minutes after the locks re-opened for the new day, and dragged the stake out. We didn’t see another boat of any sort until well into the afternoon1
This mooring was hard up against a lot of grass and vegetation nearly as high as the decks, and Alex realised that there was one route down to the underfloor that he hadn’t at first thought of. At the rear end of the main part of the boat, under the bedroom floor, is a bilge pump for the unimaginable prospect of inundation of water in the central part of Riccall. This pump is a centrifugal type and has no non-return valve in the outlet pipe, which exits high up near the stern. Alex’s conclusion is that the ants found this interesting hole in the side of the boat and crawled all the way down it, out past the pump impellor into the underfloor of the bedroom and thence up to everywhere else!
As this is a boat and everything is supposed to be waterproof (and therefore, ant-proof) this is the only explanation we can arrive at, and when Alex looked in the outlet hole, there was an ANT in it!! It’s not nice being invaded though, and while the various anti-ant stuffs do their stuff we will sleep in the guest bedroom up forward.
On the plus side, the bike ride was fun: the embranchment canal is lovely and Nancy, particularly Stanislas Square, is brilliant.
We set off, reluctantly, from our mooring and proceeded on our way. The first lock was fine but somewhere at the next lock we failed to see the zapper post which meant that the lock couldn’t operate. Louise disembarked and walked back down the towpath pressing the button every 10 metres or so still unable to visually locate the sign post. Suddenly the green light on the lock was illuminated and the lock began to operate. Alex got on the walkie-talkie and let Louse know she had (somehow) set it off! We still have no idea where the receiving post was but at last we are on our way.
Half an hour later it is time for Louise’s morning cup of coffee for which everything stops, and by chance a mooring is in sight, so we moor up. It happens to be such an idyllic spot that we decide to stay on for that night as well, with an interesting bike ride after lunch to boot. There are a few weekend cottages around but the loudest noise is from the local birdsong: the sun shines and we enjoy supper on the back deck in the cooling setting rays.
Charmes is our next stop and charming it ain’t! But to stock up at the local supermarket we pay our €7 for mooring and electricity and moor adjacent to the hoards of campervans which have congregated at this spot – obviously a popular road rest.
The following day, we have our hopes set on a mooring at Nomexy/Chatel, which according to our DBA information, has a guided tour of a local castle, much of which is below ground! We arrive at the first appointed time of 3 pm to be met by an elderly couple who are in the process of opening up for business.
The lady speaks quite good English, which is encouraging, but suddenly we discover we have both left our money on the boat! Sacré bleu! But Madame says, ‘No problem – pay after the tour’. So Alex, Louise and a decrepit Frenchman start being shown the sights by Madame. We begin in the museum artefacts display rooms and everything is explained in English (short version) and French (minute detail) for about 45 minutes. How long is this tour? Then we go outside and start looking at some of the actual remains: diving into rooms here, down precipitous stairs there, in and out of everywhere. It is huge site and it has been excavated by many thousands of international archaeologists amidst and amongst the later private dwellings. Our fellow tourist is only about 65 but is less steady on his feet than our guide who turns out to be 80! Yes, actually 80 years old. So they help each other up and down the steep steps with Louise and Alex chipping in where appropriate.
At 5.30 we are joined by 3 other tourists who had missed the start of the tour, but eventually sometime after 6 it was all over.
Our guide had been on her feet, explaining everything in French and English for over 3 hours, and WE were exhausted!!! Alex congratulated her on a command performance, left a huge (for him) tip and even bought a postcard, which Louise had particularly liked.
The castle dated back to the 11th century and had been added to over the centuries. It has been a very important point in the history of the region as it was at the crossroads of early Roman and later French, Prussian, Dutch and German major arteries. It was an important stronghold in the region and our guide had been involved in its excavation almost from the beginning in the 1970s.
She LIVED that castle - both for it, in it and around it. It was her life. She was even hoping for the local hospital to be demolished so she could unearth more of the remains underneath it – at 80! She herself had removed tons of rubbish that had been used to fill in the fabric of the castle interior at the behest of Louis 15th, who had felt it was a stronghold against his power, so he annihilated it. She pointed to a rather scruffy row of garage type buildings, rejoicing that they were about to be demolished and she would be excavating further parts of the castle as soon as they had disappeared!
Her whole family were involved: she, her husband, her children and her grandchildren were all a part of it. Incredible! What a bizarre scene!
The next day, we visited the local 15th Century church in the same village. Alex had seen a man enter, so we knew the church was open. As we stood at the back however, we could see and hear a couple of fellows near the altar chatting away 19 to the dozen. Alex decided to go up to have a closer look at the altar area, but as he approached the two men, he noticed a woman at one of the side chapels in floods of tears. He beat a hasty retreat and we sat quietly at the back, not sure quite what to do. A few minutes later one of the of the men escorted the woman (still sobbing) from the premises and the other man approached us and introduced himself. He was clearly the Father or ‘curate’, and he gave us a brief history of the church, and then we all came out and he locked the door behind us! But why all the tears? What had happened? We felt we had stumbled into some significant personal tragedy and hoped we hadn’t made things worse by our presence. But the young woman’s misfortune was our good luck – a chance to look inside what would normally have been a locked church!
Thursday, 17 June 2010
More changes of plan
So back to the UK for a second time to drop off the engine bits in Manchester for expert correction and for us hopefully a relaxing and gentle cruise on the narrowboat.
The idea was to go up to Huddersfield, meet up with friends there for a few days, then carry on up the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, through the Standege Tunnel (this time under our own power) and finally drop down to the Ashton Canal returning by the Rochdale Canal.
All went well as far as Huddersfield, but when we walked up to investigate the first lock on the Huddersfield Narrow the pound beyond was empty! Where had we seen this before? – in 2000 when, as one of the first boats to use the newly opened canal, the water simply disappeared leaving us high and dry – literally!) Added to that, a couple of boaters who had just come down said “Never again”. So we thought “Well, we’re good at Plan B: we’ll give it a miss, and just go up the Rochdale instead.”
Huddersfield’s Aspley Basin has always had moored craft, but the area outside Sainsbury’s – a long quay of about 500 metres – was deserted when last we used it a few years ago. Now it has been turned into long-term moorings by British Waterways and there were boats nose to tail, or should we say bow to stern, all along – some narrowboats, some wide beam ‘narrowboats’, the occasional plastic cruiser. We managed to moor opposite the long-termers (in lovely weather) and stayed a couple of days while we had friends visit us for lunch and supper. As we left we eased slowly past the moored boats outside Sainsbury’s and were greeted with the inevitable response from one boater ‘Hey what do you think this is? The M1 or something? It’s not a race track you know!” or words to that effect. We were on tickover, we couldn’t go any slower if we tried: we must have been doing all of 2 mph, and of course wouldn’t you know it? The offensive boat was a ratty old plastic dustbin that hadn’t moved for years and would probably sink if he untied the ropes! Typical! “Get a life” we say.
So we were off back down the Huddersfield Broad to join the Calder and Hebble at Cooper Bridge and then up to the start of the Rochdale Canal at Sowerby Bridge. We had a lovely trip up the canal, popping onto the river from time to time, still in super weather, then through the 6 metre Tuel Lock in Sowerby Bridge, the deepest in the United Kingdom, and onto the Rochdale proper.
This canal winds its way through the steep sided Calder valley with stone built dwellings clinging to the valley sides most of the way up. At last the houses peter out a bit and the valley sides draw back as you approach the summit.
Use of the summit pound itself is, of course, restricted due to lack of water and we were told it would be three days before we could go through.
Well, we had to go back the way we had come anyway, so stopping just before the summit pound was no great hardship and we could walk the summit just as well as boat it, especially as the weather had been lovely up to now. So we did that and later walked the old bridle path up the valley side to see where it took us, and eventually after it had degenerated into a post-marked footpath, we found the nearly empty reservoir on high ground near the top of the ridge. This explained the lack of water for the summit level.
The weather was deteriorating by this time, but we did manage to get back to the boat before the heavens opened.
Some more friends had arranged to have supper with us but they came by car. (We had hoped to make it to their lockside cottage at Slattocks Lock, but this is beyond Rochdale and down the other side of the summit but the delay for the summit passage made that impossible). However, they brought an Indian takeaway with them, so that was perfect!
The following day we set off back down the Rochdale with a torrent of water to help us. How come? Well, BW had decided to drain the pound we had been moored in, in order to repair a ground paddle on the lock. There was so much water following us now that it was cascading over the upper gates of the locks behind us and causing minor flooding of the canal paths below.
And the next day it rained! We contemplated staying put for a day in the hope of better weather, but that is not our style. “Carry on regardless” we say. So by the end of that day we were two drowned rats! Drenched through and through, despite the wet weather gear. And of course the fire decided to sulk when we lit it to dry out our clothes, but that’s boating, isn’t it?
A couple of days later, we were back on the Calder and Hebble, approaching one of our favoured moorings when we came across the aftermath of a fishing competition. The competition had finished and a couple of competitors still had their catch to be weighed, so we slowed down, of course, but that didn’t stop such a witty comment from the usual acerbic fisherman, “Where’s the water skier then?” I guess they wouldn’t have felt they had had a good day unless they had mouthed off at a few boaters.
We moored at these once commercial moorings and Alex tested the depth. (He’s always trying to see how far Riccall could get, it we really pushed it!) Yes, we could definitely moor Riccall here and the locks up to this point (but strangely no further) are inexplicably big enough to take a Sheffield sized barge, but nowhere to turn round to go back which seems a bit odd.
The next day we reached Wakefield in good time for lunch in the basin just off the river. We were sitting there quietly having our alfresco meal when a narrowboat came through the basin heading for the river, at top speed. We have seldom seen anything like it. He shot out into the river like a bullet from gun (well, not quite, a touch of fisherman exaggeration there I think!) but very, very fast for a boat, and with NO visibility onto the river. He then proceeded to turn the wrong way with a 270-degree turn to head off down the river towards the weir. He had been going so fast he had failed to notice the direction indicator telling him which way to go.
So we waited a few minutes and sure enough, past he went again, this time going up the river in the correct direction still at a ridiculous pace. Mad fools!
In the final few hours as we headed back to our boatyard at Methley Bridge, we saw more boats cruising about than we had seen in the previous two weeks! Good for them.
When we got back we decided the narrowboat needed a bit of TLC so between the showers of rain we managed to paint the whole of the topside (cream) and Alex constructed a new rear entry hatch made entirely from Perspex. He wanted steel; Louise favoured wood, which Alex wouldn’t have again (too much maintenance) so Perspex seemed a great compromise.
This might sound a bit unorthodox, naff even, compared to the original constructed of mahogany, but it does have some distinct advantages:
1. It never needs to be painted
2. It lets in the light like an extra roof light
3. It doesn’t shrink
4. It doesn’t expand
5. It doesn’t crack then leak
6. Its lightweight
It bonded together with quick acting chemical glue, and it took only 4 hours to make, but it has one disadvantage: because it is totally transparent, you can’t tell instinctively if it is open or closed, so it’s very easy to bump your head on it when going out of the door but we can overcome that minor inconvenience – use a tell-tale.
Alex’s daughter Emily’s wedding to Ric in Somerset was next on the agenda. The wedding with a difference! The ceremony took place in a glade in the wood, the reception in a lovely and very different marquee, later drinks and canapés were in a ‘secret garden’ complete with statuary and a small lake followed by a hog roast. The weather was exactly right – sunny most of the time, no rain and not too hot. The whole event, which was catered for by the guests, each being given responsibility for a part of the meal or drinks, proceeded perfectly. An amazing amount of preparation for Ric and Emily, with help from family and friends to make it a success. And it was: a resounding success! We’ve included some pictures to satisfy our lady readers.
We are now back in Toul, travelling by air and train this time, and with no hassle whatsoever. The engine is back together again and although still not perfect, it is liveable-with, so let’s hope that finally it’s the start of our 2010 cruising season!
The idea was to go up to Huddersfield, meet up with friends there for a few days, then carry on up the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, through the Standege Tunnel (this time under our own power) and finally drop down to the Ashton Canal returning by the Rochdale Canal.
All went well as far as Huddersfield, but when we walked up to investigate the first lock on the Huddersfield Narrow the pound beyond was empty! Where had we seen this before? – in 2000 when, as one of the first boats to use the newly opened canal, the water simply disappeared leaving us high and dry – literally!) Added to that, a couple of boaters who had just come down said “Never again”. So we thought “Well, we’re good at Plan B: we’ll give it a miss, and just go up the Rochdale instead.”
Huddersfield’s Aspley Basin has always had moored craft, but the area outside Sainsbury’s – a long quay of about 500 metres – was deserted when last we used it a few years ago. Now it has been turned into long-term moorings by British Waterways and there were boats nose to tail, or should we say bow to stern, all along – some narrowboats, some wide beam ‘narrowboats’, the occasional plastic cruiser. We managed to moor opposite the long-termers (in lovely weather) and stayed a couple of days while we had friends visit us for lunch and supper. As we left we eased slowly past the moored boats outside Sainsbury’s and were greeted with the inevitable response from one boater ‘Hey what do you think this is? The M1 or something? It’s not a race track you know!” or words to that effect. We were on tickover, we couldn’t go any slower if we tried: we must have been doing all of 2 mph, and of course wouldn’t you know it? The offensive boat was a ratty old plastic dustbin that hadn’t moved for years and would probably sink if he untied the ropes! Typical! “Get a life” we say.
So we were off back down the Huddersfield Broad to join the Calder and Hebble at Cooper Bridge and then up to the start of the Rochdale Canal at Sowerby Bridge. We had a lovely trip up the canal, popping onto the river from time to time, still in super weather, then through the 6 metre Tuel Lock in Sowerby Bridge, the deepest in the United Kingdom, and onto the Rochdale proper.
This canal winds its way through the steep sided Calder valley with stone built dwellings clinging to the valley sides most of the way up. At last the houses peter out a bit and the valley sides draw back as you approach the summit.
Use of the summit pound itself is, of course, restricted due to lack of water and we were told it would be three days before we could go through.
Well, we had to go back the way we had come anyway, so stopping just before the summit pound was no great hardship and we could walk the summit just as well as boat it, especially as the weather had been lovely up to now. So we did that and later walked the old bridle path up the valley side to see where it took us, and eventually after it had degenerated into a post-marked footpath, we found the nearly empty reservoir on high ground near the top of the ridge. This explained the lack of water for the summit level.
The weather was deteriorating by this time, but we did manage to get back to the boat before the heavens opened.
Some more friends had arranged to have supper with us but they came by car. (We had hoped to make it to their lockside cottage at Slattocks Lock, but this is beyond Rochdale and down the other side of the summit but the delay for the summit passage made that impossible). However, they brought an Indian takeaway with them, so that was perfect!
The following day we set off back down the Rochdale with a torrent of water to help us. How come? Well, BW had decided to drain the pound we had been moored in, in order to repair a ground paddle on the lock. There was so much water following us now that it was cascading over the upper gates of the locks behind us and causing minor flooding of the canal paths below.
And the next day it rained! We contemplated staying put for a day in the hope of better weather, but that is not our style. “Carry on regardless” we say. So by the end of that day we were two drowned rats! Drenched through and through, despite the wet weather gear. And of course the fire decided to sulk when we lit it to dry out our clothes, but that’s boating, isn’t it?
A couple of days later, we were back on the Calder and Hebble, approaching one of our favoured moorings when we came across the aftermath of a fishing competition. The competition had finished and a couple of competitors still had their catch to be weighed, so we slowed down, of course, but that didn’t stop such a witty comment from the usual acerbic fisherman, “Where’s the water skier then?” I guess they wouldn’t have felt they had had a good day unless they had mouthed off at a few boaters.
We moored at these once commercial moorings and Alex tested the depth. (He’s always trying to see how far Riccall could get, it we really pushed it!) Yes, we could definitely moor Riccall here and the locks up to this point (but strangely no further) are inexplicably big enough to take a Sheffield sized barge, but nowhere to turn round to go back which seems a bit odd.
The next day we reached Wakefield in good time for lunch in the basin just off the river. We were sitting there quietly having our alfresco meal when a narrowboat came through the basin heading for the river, at top speed. We have seldom seen anything like it. He shot out into the river like a bullet from gun (well, not quite, a touch of fisherman exaggeration there I think!) but very, very fast for a boat, and with NO visibility onto the river. He then proceeded to turn the wrong way with a 270-degree turn to head off down the river towards the weir. He had been going so fast he had failed to notice the direction indicator telling him which way to go.
So we waited a few minutes and sure enough, past he went again, this time going up the river in the correct direction still at a ridiculous pace. Mad fools!
In the final few hours as we headed back to our boatyard at Methley Bridge, we saw more boats cruising about than we had seen in the previous two weeks! Good for them.
When we got back we decided the narrowboat needed a bit of TLC so between the showers of rain we managed to paint the whole of the topside (cream) and Alex constructed a new rear entry hatch made entirely from Perspex. He wanted steel; Louise favoured wood, which Alex wouldn’t have again (too much maintenance) so Perspex seemed a great compromise.
This might sound a bit unorthodox, naff even, compared to the original constructed of mahogany, but it does have some distinct advantages:
1. It never needs to be painted
2. It lets in the light like an extra roof light
3. It doesn’t shrink
4. It doesn’t expand
5. It doesn’t crack then leak
6. Its lightweight
It bonded together with quick acting chemical glue, and it took only 4 hours to make, but it has one disadvantage: because it is totally transparent, you can’t tell instinctively if it is open or closed, so it’s very easy to bump your head on it when going out of the door but we can overcome that minor inconvenience – use a tell-tale.
Alex’s daughter Emily’s wedding to Ric in Somerset was next on the agenda. The wedding with a difference! The ceremony took place in a glade in the wood, the reception in a lovely and very different marquee, later drinks and canapés were in a ‘secret garden’ complete with statuary and a small lake followed by a hog roast. The weather was exactly right – sunny most of the time, no rain and not too hot. The whole event, which was catered for by the guests, each being given responsibility for a part of the meal or drinks, proceeded perfectly. An amazing amount of preparation for Ric and Emily, with help from family and friends to make it a success. And it was: a resounding success! We’ve included some pictures to satisfy our lady readers.
We are now back in Toul, travelling by air and train this time, and with no hassle whatsoever. The engine is back together again and although still not perfect, it is liveable-with, so let’s hope that finally it’s the start of our 2010 cruising season!
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Another Change of Plan
The day dawned bright and cheery. We said ‘au revoir’ to all the other boaters at our moorings in Toul, and set off to meander up to Chalons en Champagne and back over the next six weeks or so. Or so we thought!
As we entered the first lock, Alex put the boat into reverse and opened the throttle a bit for some power braking. NO response! Well not for three or four seconds, then at last the engine revs responded and we started to slow down.
This delay on the throttle response had been apparent last year, but only once at the start of each day.
As we motored on through the lift bridge and next lock we found the same thing happening every time we let the engine tick over for a few minutes: a delay in the throttle response.
We stopped above the lock out of the Port de France and Alex went into the engine room to see what might be done to effect some sort of repair. Nothing appeared to be sticking: all the relevant parts of the throttle control seemed to be OK. Copious squirtings of WD40 had no effect. So with reluctance we decided to return to base at Lorraine Marine.
Easier said than done, as the canal was too narrow to turn round in! The VNF lock keepers appeared beside the boat to ask whether we had a problem. We explained, and with their kind help, reversed Riccall back down the canal, into the lock, backwards out of the lock and into the Port de France. Riccall normally doesn’t ‘do’ reverse: the prop walk always pulls her off line and the front swings about wherever it wants.
But this time, we did a perfect reverse back into the Port de France round the end of the jetty, the front end swung round in a beautiful arc and we set off forwards back down the canal, AND NOBODY WAS WATCHING. Typical!
Shortly, to the surprise of our friends at the boat yard, we arrived back less than three hours after we had left.
After stripping covers and caps off the control mechanism and checking everything in sight, as suggested by a Gardner expert, we came to the conclusion that the whole injector mechanism would have to be taken off the engine and taken back to Walsh’s near Manchester to be re-conditioned.
Fortunately we had the car at the boat yard ready for our trip back to the UK in June so we booked a ferry for the following week and Alex set about removing the injector/governor box.
The next day we heard about all the planes being cancelled due to ash from the Iceland eruption, and we thanked our lucky stars that we had already booked the ferries. We were also able to offer Sue, a visiting friend of Derek and Fran of ‘Tess’, a lift back home as her flight was one of those cancelled.
We were lucky at Calais too, as we arrived early and the ticket office said we could go on an earlier ferry (which was not listed on our timetable) and we drove virtually straight onto it without stopping. But, though the ferry was pretty full with cars and coaches, it was packed with foot passengers, all being charged about €80 or €100 instead of the more usual less than €20! And we were three adults and a car for €35!
We dropped Sue off in Bishops Stortford, spent the night at Julia’s at Bedford, then dropped the ‘lump’ off at Walsh’s, to be picked up, reconditioned and repainted and like new a week later. And sure enough the following week the whole thing in reverse, (except for Sue of course).
The engine was now back up and running and when at last the gale stopped blowing, we set off for a short trip to Liverdun despite the freezing cold 8oC temperature, to make sure the engine really was OK.
And. . . we also made another change of plan!
Because all these delays made it difficult to fit in a worthwhile cruise on Riccall before June, we decided to come back to the UK much earlier than planned and have a few weeks cruise on the narrowboat instead!!
And . . . we still had a problem with the engine! Just a different one! Now it was not ticking over as smoothly as it should or maintaining a steady rhythm at any revs unless under load. Once under load it behaved fine. So we debated whether we could live with this annoyance or not, and finally we decided as we had just spent a not inconsiderable sum of money on a reconditioned unit it should at least be RIGHT. As we still had the means of transportation in France, the decision was made to take the governor unit back to Manchester and have them look at it again.
Of course our planned return to Riccall, after the wedding, was by air and train, not by car and all was booked and paid for long ago, so the engine governor would have to be road transported back to France for us. Oh well, more expense but hopefully worth it.
So, with that decision made, we decided a short trip away from the moorings would be good, and (apart from the tickover problem) the trip to Liverdun was great. We went for a walk to find more of the route of the old canal we had investigated in the autumn, and hopefully, the other end of the tunnel. Having found it, Alex decided to actually go through the old canal tunnel this time as he thought it was a quicker way back to the boat. Louise, though, didn’t fancy it! ‘Chicken’ you may say, but as it turned out she was right! Alex didn’t have a torch with him (he doesn’t always carry one) and as he went deeper into the tunnel the light became progressively less, and although he could see the exit at the far end it was difficult to see what was directly ahead. So he was feeling his way along the old towpath, stumbling over rock falls from the roof, and wondering if at any minute he might stumble into a hole in the walkway and land up on the dry canal bed 3 metres below! Or if there might be another rock fall from the roof onto his bonce. In fact he felt pretty mad to have taken on the whole expedition, but it did turn out to be quicker even so, but only by a few minutes.
On the return trip on Riccall, on a good wide stretch of canal, Alex decided to do a short speed test to see if a good workout made any difference to the tickover problem and also to establish what she could do against a flowing Rhone. This amounted to just over 6 knots at about 1400 rpm. We still have another couple of hundred rpm available, but Alex doesn’t think it would make much difference to that speed.
What might make a difference would be removing all the weed and mussels covering the bottom of the boat, which have collected over the several months she has been sitting idly in Toul! And of course the speed test made no difference to the tickover problem, so it’s out with the injector box again and back to the UK with it!
As we entered the first lock, Alex put the boat into reverse and opened the throttle a bit for some power braking. NO response! Well not for three or four seconds, then at last the engine revs responded and we started to slow down.
This delay on the throttle response had been apparent last year, but only once at the start of each day.
As we motored on through the lift bridge and next lock we found the same thing happening every time we let the engine tick over for a few minutes: a delay in the throttle response.
We stopped above the lock out of the Port de France and Alex went into the engine room to see what might be done to effect some sort of repair. Nothing appeared to be sticking: all the relevant parts of the throttle control seemed to be OK. Copious squirtings of WD40 had no effect. So with reluctance we decided to return to base at Lorraine Marine.
Easier said than done, as the canal was too narrow to turn round in! The VNF lock keepers appeared beside the boat to ask whether we had a problem. We explained, and with their kind help, reversed Riccall back down the canal, into the lock, backwards out of the lock and into the Port de France. Riccall normally doesn’t ‘do’ reverse: the prop walk always pulls her off line and the front swings about wherever it wants.
But this time, we did a perfect reverse back into the Port de France round the end of the jetty, the front end swung round in a beautiful arc and we set off forwards back down the canal, AND NOBODY WAS WATCHING. Typical!
Shortly, to the surprise of our friends at the boat yard, we arrived back less than three hours after we had left.
After stripping covers and caps off the control mechanism and checking everything in sight, as suggested by a Gardner expert, we came to the conclusion that the whole injector mechanism would have to be taken off the engine and taken back to Walsh’s near Manchester to be re-conditioned.
Fortunately we had the car at the boat yard ready for our trip back to the UK in June so we booked a ferry for the following week and Alex set about removing the injector/governor box.
The next day we heard about all the planes being cancelled due to ash from the Iceland eruption, and we thanked our lucky stars that we had already booked the ferries. We were also able to offer Sue, a visiting friend of Derek and Fran of ‘Tess’, a lift back home as her flight was one of those cancelled.
We were lucky at Calais too, as we arrived early and the ticket office said we could go on an earlier ferry (which was not listed on our timetable) and we drove virtually straight onto it without stopping. But, though the ferry was pretty full with cars and coaches, it was packed with foot passengers, all being charged about €80 or €100 instead of the more usual less than €20! And we were three adults and a car for €35!
We dropped Sue off in Bishops Stortford, spent the night at Julia’s at Bedford, then dropped the ‘lump’ off at Walsh’s, to be picked up, reconditioned and repainted and like new a week later. And sure enough the following week the whole thing in reverse, (except for Sue of course).
The engine was now back up and running and when at last the gale stopped blowing, we set off for a short trip to Liverdun despite the freezing cold 8oC temperature, to make sure the engine really was OK.
And. . . we also made another change of plan!
Because all these delays made it difficult to fit in a worthwhile cruise on Riccall before June, we decided to come back to the UK much earlier than planned and have a few weeks cruise on the narrowboat instead!!
And . . . we still had a problem with the engine! Just a different one! Now it was not ticking over as smoothly as it should or maintaining a steady rhythm at any revs unless under load. Once under load it behaved fine. So we debated whether we could live with this annoyance or not, and finally we decided as we had just spent a not inconsiderable sum of money on a reconditioned unit it should at least be RIGHT. As we still had the means of transportation in France, the decision was made to take the governor unit back to Manchester and have them look at it again.
Of course our planned return to Riccall, after the wedding, was by air and train, not by car and all was booked and paid for long ago, so the engine governor would have to be road transported back to France for us. Oh well, more expense but hopefully worth it.
So, with that decision made, we decided a short trip away from the moorings would be good, and (apart from the tickover problem) the trip to Liverdun was great. We went for a walk to find more of the route of the old canal we had investigated in the autumn, and hopefully, the other end of the tunnel. Having found it, Alex decided to actually go through the old canal tunnel this time as he thought it was a quicker way back to the boat. Louise, though, didn’t fancy it! ‘Chicken’ you may say, but as it turned out she was right! Alex didn’t have a torch with him (he doesn’t always carry one) and as he went deeper into the tunnel the light became progressively less, and although he could see the exit at the far end it was difficult to see what was directly ahead. So he was feeling his way along the old towpath, stumbling over rock falls from the roof, and wondering if at any minute he might stumble into a hole in the walkway and land up on the dry canal bed 3 metres below! Or if there might be another rock fall from the roof onto his bonce. In fact he felt pretty mad to have taken on the whole expedition, but it did turn out to be quicker even so, but only by a few minutes.
On the return trip on Riccall, on a good wide stretch of canal, Alex decided to do a short speed test to see if a good workout made any difference to the tickover problem and also to establish what she could do against a flowing Rhone. This amounted to just over 6 knots at about 1400 rpm. We still have another couple of hundred rpm available, but Alex doesn’t think it would make much difference to that speed.
What might make a difference would be removing all the weed and mussels covering the bottom of the boat, which have collected over the several months she has been sitting idly in Toul! And of course the speed test made no difference to the tickover problem, so it’s out with the injector box again and back to the UK with it!
Thursday, 8 April 2010
Winter in Toul and UK
I am afraid that this may be rather a mundane addition to the blog updates as, of course, we haven’t started our cruising for 2010 yet, but due to popular demand (three this time!) …
We are on to our 4th master plan for the year ahead, and we think that as we have now actually booked our winter mooring on the Canal du Midi (well beyond actually, on the Canal Lateral à la Garonne) we are now committed to getting there!
We had been going to set off south early this year and perhaps leave Riccall somewhere for part of July and August to avoid the heat and hordes of ‘bumper boats’ otherwise known as hire boats, on the Midi, but as things turn out we have had to change to a late assault on the south. Apart from other family considerations in the UK in June, Louise has managed to break a tooth! So we are hitching a lift back to the UK with boating friend Sonia who is here in Toul for a couple of weeks de-winterising her and John’s boat, Chocolat. Louise will get her tooth fixed and then we will return in the car and keep our cruising to this north eastern area until June when we can return to UK again en voiture for Emily and Ric's wedding.
Finally we can get back here by rail and set off, meandering slowly south to arrive at the start of the Canal du Midi at the end of the July/August horror scene. Just in time (it now appears) for the onslaught by the Swiss holidaymakers!
That’s when the real fun begins for us, as we see how much we have to cut off Riccall’s superstructure in order to get through the bridges!
The weather here in Toul is warm and sunny (although we have had a couple of days of rain, with more to come). We have lunch on the back deck and evening drinks in the well deck, which gets the evening sunshine, giving us a glimmer of the summer to come.
While we were here with the car in January, Alex and friend Ben did indeed suss out two more forts in the vicinity: the first still had the remains of a mushroom-topped gun emplacement, whereby the whole thing could be raised up out of the ground, fire, with a very short 100mm barrel, then disappear back down again. Apparently it took about 5 minutes to get the gun raised, fire it and down again. But this one was rusted solid. The second fort we found was much bigger and very overgrown, but the main part was three storeys high which was quite impressive. Even Alex has now fought with enough forts to feel fraught at the thought of another sortie.
One of the features of our mooring here at Toul is the water (well I suppose as we are on a barge, water is something of a necessity!). But in this case, it is the cleanest water we have come across so far in Europe. It really is crystal clear and you can see right to the bottom where all the weeds are, and watch the fish swimming about. In fact it is lucky it is so clear, because our DBA burgee blew clean off the mast while we were away and was nowhere to be seen on the decks of our boat or any of the others around. But Alex noted the direction of the prevailing wind and peered carefully into the water, down the side of the boat. At last, a glimmer of red was seen amongst the weeds and out with the boat hook. Eureka! and out of the depths with the flag! More importantly, this clear water also gives a chance to make sure that all looks well with the propeller.
While we were in England we spent several spells with family and friends including a very pleasant few days with Alex’s cousin Mary and her husband Martin in the depths of Glen Prosen, including a super mid-winter barbecue with old friends Hector and Jeannie MacLean in their gazebo summerhouse on a hill in warm March sunshine with hills topped in snow. Then further north to renew our friendship with Pat and Graham, our erstwhile neighbours from Harrogate, now living the peaceful rural life in Scotland. We headed back south the next day with the sun glinting on the beautiful snow capped mountains and got out just in time, apparently, as Scotland had 80cms of snow that very night!
A few days later we popped down to Barrow on Humber to have an excellent evening and day with friends Paul and Diane, who had also dropped in for a night with us a few weeks before on their own way south from Scotland.
Our next adventure was a birthday surprise for Alex involving trains. We caught the Doncaster to Cleethorpes service, that Mecca of seaside resorts, where we had pensioners’ fish and chips! Then the really interesting one – Cleethorpes to Barton on Humber – a single carriage diesel running for much of its route on a single track through the intriguing countryside in that neck of the woods.
Paul and Diane met us at Barton station (its very close to where they live) where the train waits for 10 minutes before retracing its steps. So we had a bit of crack with them and before we knew it the whistle blew and we were off. Another change and then the Trans Pennine Express to Manchester Airport picked us up and took us back to Donny. Then off to Harrogate for an evening meal at our favourite restaurant, Quantro, and a night in the Harrogate Travelodge – which was booked well in advance by Louise (thinking ahead as usual) and thus only £19! More importantly it’s only a two minute walk from Quantro.
So all in all, we’ve been pretty busy with a lot of socialising in England, (being entertained by or entertaining Derran, Angela, Michael and Sylvia, Maurice and Judy, Mike and Jean and seen some if not all of the children) and then more socialising back here in Toul, but we’re now geared up for our first short trip when we get back from the UK after Easter.
We are on to our 4th master plan for the year ahead, and we think that as we have now actually booked our winter mooring on the Canal du Midi (well beyond actually, on the Canal Lateral à la Garonne) we are now committed to getting there!
We had been going to set off south early this year and perhaps leave Riccall somewhere for part of July and August to avoid the heat and hordes of ‘bumper boats’ otherwise known as hire boats, on the Midi, but as things turn out we have had to change to a late assault on the south. Apart from other family considerations in the UK in June, Louise has managed to break a tooth! So we are hitching a lift back to the UK with boating friend Sonia who is here in Toul for a couple of weeks de-winterising her and John’s boat, Chocolat. Louise will get her tooth fixed and then we will return in the car and keep our cruising to this north eastern area until June when we can return to UK again en voiture for Emily and Ric's wedding.
Finally we can get back here by rail and set off, meandering slowly south to arrive at the start of the Canal du Midi at the end of the July/August horror scene. Just in time (it now appears) for the onslaught by the Swiss holidaymakers!
That’s when the real fun begins for us, as we see how much we have to cut off Riccall’s superstructure in order to get through the bridges!
The weather here in Toul is warm and sunny (although we have had a couple of days of rain, with more to come). We have lunch on the back deck and evening drinks in the well deck, which gets the evening sunshine, giving us a glimmer of the summer to come.
While we were here with the car in January, Alex and friend Ben did indeed suss out two more forts in the vicinity: the first still had the remains of a mushroom-topped gun emplacement, whereby the whole thing could be raised up out of the ground, fire, with a very short 100mm barrel, then disappear back down again. Apparently it took about 5 minutes to get the gun raised, fire it and down again. But this one was rusted solid. The second fort we found was much bigger and very overgrown, but the main part was three storeys high which was quite impressive. Even Alex has now fought with enough forts to feel fraught at the thought of another sortie.
One of the features of our mooring here at Toul is the water (well I suppose as we are on a barge, water is something of a necessity!). But in this case, it is the cleanest water we have come across so far in Europe. It really is crystal clear and you can see right to the bottom where all the weeds are, and watch the fish swimming about. In fact it is lucky it is so clear, because our DBA burgee blew clean off the mast while we were away and was nowhere to be seen on the decks of our boat or any of the others around. But Alex noted the direction of the prevailing wind and peered carefully into the water, down the side of the boat. At last, a glimmer of red was seen amongst the weeds and out with the boat hook. Eureka! and out of the depths with the flag! More importantly, this clear water also gives a chance to make sure that all looks well with the propeller.
While we were in England we spent several spells with family and friends including a very pleasant few days with Alex’s cousin Mary and her husband Martin in the depths of Glen Prosen, including a super mid-winter barbecue with old friends Hector and Jeannie MacLean in their gazebo summerhouse on a hill in warm March sunshine with hills topped in snow. Then further north to renew our friendship with Pat and Graham, our erstwhile neighbours from Harrogate, now living the peaceful rural life in Scotland. We headed back south the next day with the sun glinting on the beautiful snow capped mountains and got out just in time, apparently, as Scotland had 80cms of snow that very night!
A few days later we popped down to Barrow on Humber to have an excellent evening and day with friends Paul and Diane, who had also dropped in for a night with us a few weeks before on their own way south from Scotland.
Our next adventure was a birthday surprise for Alex involving trains. We caught the Doncaster to Cleethorpes service, that Mecca of seaside resorts, where we had pensioners’ fish and chips! Then the really interesting one – Cleethorpes to Barton on Humber – a single carriage diesel running for much of its route on a single track through the intriguing countryside in that neck of the woods.
Paul and Diane met us at Barton station (its very close to where they live) where the train waits for 10 minutes before retracing its steps. So we had a bit of crack with them and before we knew it the whistle blew and we were off. Another change and then the Trans Pennine Express to Manchester Airport picked us up and took us back to Donny. Then off to Harrogate for an evening meal at our favourite restaurant, Quantro, and a night in the Harrogate Travelodge – which was booked well in advance by Louise (thinking ahead as usual) and thus only £19! More importantly it’s only a two minute walk from Quantro.
So all in all, we’ve been pretty busy with a lot of socialising in England, (being entertained by or entertaining Derran, Angela, Michael and Sylvia, Maurice and Judy, Mike and Jean and seen some if not all of the children) and then more socialising back here in Toul, but we’re now geared up for our first short trip when we get back from the UK after Easter.
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