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| Clouds at Berry-au-Bac |
Sunny with a chilly breeze, warming up later. Mike went for bread before we set off. The guy off a British cruiser, Tynne Toy, who had been moored above the lock, came to ask if we knew if the Sambre was open. We thought it was closed in France as far as the Belgian border and had been so for a couple of years. He’d got a stoppage list that said there was a bridge at Landrecies which would be reopened in October. Mike went with him to ask the lock keeper. A new lady keeper was on duty today. She had the same info he had. He said he would try it and see how far he got. Meanwhile a hotel boat (called Adrienne, a converted péniche - very square with no wheelhouse – the steerer stood out on the back at the top in all weathers) came up the lock and it took priority – a bad move for us. We had to wait while it ponderously turned into Berry Marne lock and it took ages to get in, rope up and activate the lock, then ages more to leave it before the keeper at Berry Aisne could reset it for us. Lock 1 Berry (2.85m) emptied, we went in, I lifted the blue rod and the lock refilled. Sadly, the lock cottage (which used to have a lovely garden and was occupied when we knew it first by an elderly couple who used to run a péniche) was slowly decaying, its roof tiles now starting to slip. Above the lock there were three empty boats waiting to load at the silo quay, pusher pair St Laurent and Ti Laurent and Marie-Lou from Janville. 1.15kms to lock 2 Moulin de Sapigneul (2.67m) The hotel boat was still in the lock when we arrived. I turned the pole and we had to wait for the hotel boat to clear before the lock emptied for us. 1.1kms to the next, which was linked. I made tea and toasted some crumpets as we crawled up the pound slowly to lock 3 Sapigneul (2.67m) which emptied and we went up. 2.36kms to lock 4 Alger (2.67m) past the cement pipe works. We heard the hotel boat in front chatting on channel ten with another hotel boat called Majesty, they said they were stopping at Courcy. They were just leaving as we arrived below lock 4, but then we had to wait while the other hotel boat came down the lock. What a sight! Majesty was called Majesty of the Seas and had been built as a replica of an ocean liner and it had loads of tiny windows. The lockhouse at Alger was still lived in. 1.2kms to the next. The hotel boat in front was just leaving lock 5 Gaudart (2.58m). The house was lived in and had a beautiful garden. They had tomatoes in boxes for sale which I didn’t spot until we were leaving. 3.5kms to the next set of locks. It was 12.50 p.m. The sun came out as we had lunch on the long pound up to lock 6 Loivre (2.62m). An old houseboat called Antony was moored in the layby below the lock. The hotel boat had just left the lock. I turned the pole and it emptied for us. Next to the lock there was a tour bus parked, empty except for the driver who came to speak to us. He’d noticed that we hadn’t put any ropes on and said that some of the locks were a bit lively. We informed him that we’d been locking without ropes for a long, long time and knew what we were doing. (In a 40m x 5.50m lock we can easily stay at the back of the chamber while the lock fills very gently, it would be a different case if we had to share with another boat - THEN we would use ropes, unless it was with another narrowboat) 700m to the next. The hotel boat was still in lock 7 Fontaines (2.81m) so we motored very slowly up the pond. The layby for the silo was encircled with fishermen and graffiti had sprouted all along the walls. Eventually the lock emptied for us and we went up. There were two lock houses next to the lock. The hotel boat’s tour bus went past on the road and a VNF van sped off up the towpath. 1.1kms to the next lock 8 Noue-Gouzaine (2.51m) There was a yellow hammer perched on the topmost twig of a large conifer, singing away loudly from his perch. The old lockhouse with bricked up windows was almost completely hidden by the fir trees. As we came up in lock 8 we could see that the hotel boat still hadn’t completed the 800m pound to the next lock. We had to wait while he went up and cleared then lock 9 Courcy (2.3m) the last one of the flight, emptied for us. A man in a 4x4 stopped to watch us lock through from the bridge over the tail end of the lock. We couldn’t decide if the lock house was lived in or not. It was 2.40 p.m. when we left the top, no more locks until Reims, a long pound of 12.45kms. Adrienne hadn’t moored where the péniches moor in Courcy, just beyond the lock on the concrete-edged towpath where it’s deep - he had two lines ashore and was wriggling himself sideways into the space under the trees where the village of Courcy had put picnic tables etc for passing small boats. He was very close to a splendid varnished yacht called Maiko (no nationality flag or registration number showing that we could see). There was a Stars and Stripes flag on the bow of the hotel boat and the clients were standing out on the fore deck as the crew moored the boat. Mike shouted hello to them in English and none of them seemed keen to answer, just looked at our boat as we went past. Into the cutting before La Neuvillette a suburb of Reims and at KP14 we passed empty péniche Sebastien, whose smiling skipper slowed down to go past us. That was nice, not many of them do that these days. We had tea and biscuits as we went into the city. Pa-Ma an empty péniche was moored at the beginning of the quay by PUM, the crew busily painting the coamings a lovely shade of cornflower blue. There were new fences all along the back of the quay and a gate into the quayside belonging to PUM steel works. The whole of their quay was empty. Beyond the gate at the far end there was a bunch of empty boats, Minerva, El Paso (more painting), St Joseph, Edison (from Antoing), Dahlia and Canberra. In the arm there was an old converted tug and an empty smart Dutch péniche which had no name on its stern. We passed a Dutch cruiser called Leijo, heading downhill, as we passed the site of the old fuel stationin the outskirts of Reims. On into the city centre. There were three boats in the Port de Plaisance in Reims, a large Dutch cruiser called Jakaranda from Den Bosh, an American yacht and another cruiser, the rest of the moorings were empty but the quay beyond was full of péniches and Dutch barges converted to houseboats all the way to the road bridge and a few beyond. It was 2.45 p.m. when we arrived at the flight of three locks in the city. The weirs on all three were flowing well, right across the entrance to each lock as usual. I pointed out to Mum, who was sitting out in the sunshine, the battered state of the wall where the boats had hit it after being shoved over sideways by the weir. We had no problem being much narrower than the width of the lock. There was a young lady on duty at the bottom lock, her scooter standing on the lockside ready for any false manoeuvres made when locking through any of the three locks in her charge. (We didn’t disturb her) We went up lock 10 Fléchambault (2.87m) then 750m to lock 11 Château d’Eau (2.01m) 650m to lock 12 Huon (2.36m) without any problems. All along the bank were horse chestnut trees, whose leaves were turning brown, alternating with what looked like walnuts but not quite, we looked them up in my field guide for trees and came to the conclusion that they were American trees called a butter nut. Wonder if you could eat them – there were certainly lots of nuts on them. As we left lock 12, loaded péniche Risque from Thuin was waiting to go down. The British steel boat we’d seen at Maizy, called Ferrous, was moored just above the lock, not a pleasant mooring right next to a busy road, maybe they stopped to go shopping. 7.55kms to Sillery. Past the new VNF offices (they moved out of the city centre a few years ago into a new set of offices and workshops) and into the industrial area stretching along the banks for the next 5kms or so. There were lots of people fishing, walking or cycling the canal towpath and Mum saw her first taggers – a bunch of youths preparing a wall to do graffiti and judging by the rest of the wall they were pretty good at it too. We moored before the turn pole below the lock at Sillery where it’s quiet. It was 6.35 p.m. The journey had taken us about two hours longer than normal after being stuck behind that very slow hotel boat.
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