Thursday 14th April 2011 Champigny – Rolampont. 10kms 7 locks

VNF staff at lock 4 Jorquenay

Chilly, sunny spells between banks of white cloud. Mike refilled the water tank then went to La Poste, still no package. He rang the supplier. A guy called Jeff took details and said he would investigate. Mike asked if he would check that they had actually sent the parcel to Langres, because previously it was supposed to go to St Jean. Jeff asked him to email him and gave an address which we did. Packed up and set off at 11.30 a.m. The breeze was chilly. Zapped, the lock filled and we went into 3 Moulin-Rouge (3,40m). Two cyclists paused to watch us lock through. Mike zapped and the lock emptied. The guy who lived in the lock house returned in his car with a loaf for lunch. 1.9kms to lock 4 Jorquenay (3.9m) Whoah! No zapping post – it was manual! And it was 11.50 a.m. 

Manually operated swingbridge below Jorquenay

We knocked a couple of pegs in the bank – the boat was on the mud – and Mike went off to get a loaf from a bread van he heard hooting (bread was 1,15€) and had spotted down by the lock. A man had come out of the lock house when Mike was on his way back to the boat so Mike asked if he was the lock keeper. No, end of conversation. I made lunch then rang VNF at the top lock at 1.00 p.m. Madame said only the first three locks were automatic and you had to book a keeper to accompany you for the rest. She would ring someone for us. It would be an hour and a half. At 2.00 p.m. a lady arrived in a VNF cement mixer powered car. She told me there was a gross bateau (péniche) coming down and we could follow on after it. There was a flurry of VNF on mopeds. Two lads worked the lock and filled it. 

Passing through the swingbridge at Jorquenay

It stood there with top end gates open, waiting. At 3.00 p.m. we were told there was a yacht coming and we could go in first with it before the péniche. OK. We untied and an Eau Claire cruiser followed us into the lock. The two lads worked the lock. Another lady in a cement mixer car arrived. I asked if there was a phone number to ring to get a lock keeper to continue down the canal as we were stopping a few days at Rolampont. The younger of the two women gave me the number to ring – the day before we want to go, she added. We thought the plastic boat was a hireboat but the crew, a man and woman in their sixties were experienced boaters. Dropped down lock 4, noting that the house was lived in and the occupier kept budgies in a big cage in front of the house. A woman watched us through the curtains. 

Sheds above lock 6 Pouillot

The youths worked the manual swingbridge just below the lock. It had an electric motor underneath, obviously not in use as it was wound from the centre of the deck until it was parallel to the bank with peniche-sized gaps either side of it. 1.9kms between locks 4 and 5. The cruiser’s skipper was in a hurry, he went past and kept going, leaving us behind. When we arrived at lock 5 Hume (3,90m) he was waiting above the lock as there was now just one youth working the lock. He had to walk all the way around the lock to open the far side gate, so when we were in the chamber I stepped off to wind the towpath side gate closed for him. More budgies in a cage outside the lockhouse. The skipper off the cruiser came to ask us to go quicker as there was an empty péniche behind us and he didn’t want to hold it up. Mike said he doubted it would catch us as we lock quicker than a péniche, be it loaded or empty, and we’re getting there before the kid has the lock ready anyway so it was pointless to go quicker and have to wait longer for the lock to be prepared. 

Rope grooves lock 6 Pouillot

A short pound 800m to lock 6, Pouillot (3,60m) which was mechanised. The cruiser had gone down the pound at top speed and was now turning in the wind as the lock was still filling. We’d noted that all the locks now had padlocks on the paddles, which the lad had to unlock and relock after use. He did what the hire boaters used to do in the UK – locked the top paddles while waiting for the lock to empty. Bad practise, if there was an emergency (a boat stern stuck on the cill for instance) he would have to unlock the paddle before re-opening it, costing valuable minutes. The lockhouse was empty but it had a nice shed in the garden. 1.4kms to lock 7, Chanoy (3,80m). The skies had turned grey and the wind very chilly, rain had been forecast. Back to manually operated locks. A VNF van was down by the lock and someone had filled the lock ready for our youth. This time the cruiser had to wait in the lock chamber a few minutes for us to catch up. I hopped off and wound a gate shut again. The lockhouse was empty. Water running down the pound was pouring over the gates on lock 7 making it hard for our lad to open the bottom end gates. 1.8kms to lock 8, St Menge (3,80m). We’d noted when we came through in 2003 that this lock and the one before were automatic, they weren’t now, our youth wound the gates and paddles. The cruiser was waiting under the A31 motorway bridge as the next lock wasn’t ready. He was still running at full speed. We followed him in. Another empty lockhouse. I wound the gate closed and the guy off the cruiser wound a bottom end paddle up for the youth. 1.2kms to our last lock, 9 Rolampont (3,40m) A couple of fishermen waved as we passed by. The house was lived in. The older lady keeper went past in her cement mixer powered car, she waved. Our lad worked the lock for us and wished us a good journey. The mooring was a few hundred metres below the lock. As we went under the road bridge in Rolampont two small boys on bikes stopped and one started swearing, then asked if we could speak French, when I said yes they ran off with their bikes then threw stones. Most unusual for French kids! The cruiser was also staying at Rolampont and had moored at the downhill end of the roof-high quay on the right hand side of the canal. Mike winded so we had the side doors on the outside and the guy off the cruiser came out to chat and take a rope, which I didn’t give him because (from past experience) people always pull on ropes and that’s not how we do it – pulling the bow in pushes the stern out – Mike brings the stern along side the bank and a touch of reverse so we’re parallel to the bank and I dropped the bow rope around a bollard. We’d finished tying up and were chatting with the couple (who were both retired VNF, she used to be lock keeper at lock 22), when the empty péniche came down the lock. The cruiser skipper said the péniche skipper on Go-Ri usually drives it very hard but after we’d put extra ropes on he went past slowly. Turned out he had put a hole in the hull and they were on their way to get it fixed in Douai. The cruiser was a hire boat, belonging to the Association de la Maladerie at Chaumont, run by our retired VNF man, who take kids on holidays and also hire out two other “English” boats (ex-Broads cruisers by the sound of it). Mike set the TV up and connected the electric, then he ran the moped straight off the roof on to the bank and went to get the car.