Sillery and further, with changes

the itinerary we follow now

the original itinerary

As you can see on these two maps we made significant changes to our itinerary compared to the original one.

When, after our stay in Amsterdam, we continued on our journey we realised that we had made more cruising days and motor hours since leaving Amersfoort in March than we actually liked, had spent less time exploring the surroundings than wanted and had lost a bit of our sense of unwinding (which was what it is all about, isn’t it?).

Plus it was about the time that we had to arrange meeting points with our guests, in such a way that we can offer them a nice and interesting route and don’t run the risk of getting stuck somewhere because of problems on the waterways. 

Meanwhile we had been told that attending the rally on the Nivernais had to be cancelled. Because of heavy rains the Nivernais is closed to barges our size, just this season.

Size does matter and big is not always a good thing.

At the end of May the Canal du Centre was still blocked, due to a landslide caused by the abundant rain fall. Change was that the canal would be open again mid June, but we didn’t want to take the risk that it wouldn’t. And there were more stories going round about problems due to the rains. 

And last, but not least, we had discovered the Champagne region. Sloping hills, huge fields with rapeseed and with (small) vineyards and newly planted vines. So many colours!

still very low those vines

every field has a different colour, because of the ground or what grows on it

After the return trip from Amsterdam we had rented the car for another day and we made a tour of the region. That we wouldn’t mind extending by barge.

So we changed our plan to going to Toul and back (more about that later) then going South to Chaumont and back and then via the Marne to Paris where we will stay for a week at the end of August before heading for Holland.

After Sillery there was a tunnel again, this one well lit on the side so you could see where you were going.

here we are halfway the tunnel

Starting from Condé sur Marne we began with the leg that we will go up and down this season.

No problem to us because the return trip is always different from going up, plus you can visit all the nice spots that you sailed past in the first place.

In Châlons-en-Champagne we were moored opposite the tents where a festival took place.

Here we had to use our stakes for the first time, at least one of them, because our front spud pole wasn’t long enough and bollards were out of reach.

work to be done for Michel

Unfortunately all tickets to the circus were sold but we could eat at the restaurant tent, enjoying the atmosphere and also the crêpe, made to order on the spot, fresh as they come.

These are the best but you don’t find them too often, most times pre-baked.

really, really good!

a kind of circus in Chalons

In Vitry-le-François, not a very interesting place, but with a very nice brocante/vide grenier, we turned left, wanting to cruise to Toul and back then with our guests.

Not so!

Once we were on the canal, and unable to turn for a while, we were informed that a lock, just before Bar-le-Duc, was out of order and it would take some time before it would function again.

No problem, we are not in a hurry.

Two days later the “some time” turned out to be another week. No problem, we don’t go to Toul but we’ll make a turn just after Bar-le-Duc. That is also unwinding, no problem.

enough space left for us to move in the lock, watch those girders in the doors

with anchors like that it's a piece of cake to lift those doors

The damage was caused because a peniche (not the one in the picture) that had been rocking to and fro in the lock.
On the picture you can see that we have plenty of room ahead, and aft as well, but a peniche has virtually no give, neither lengthwise nor width. So it is very important that they tend to their lines; the swirling water rocks the boat.

Apparently something had gone wrong because the anchor – not from the ship in the pic – had come stuck underneath the girders of the door and lifted it as the barge came up in the lock. Just like that and then the lock is out of order.

The Marne Rhine Canal is situated in different surroundings, more hilly, more woods and more half-timbered houses, clearly we’re getting towards the Alsace.

From the beginning of the canal to Toul it numbers 70 locks, over a 85 Km distance, going uphill.

To Bar-le-Duc it is just 30, which alone brings down your cruising speed.

more green, more trees and most of all many more locks

We are crawling through the canal and have ample time for bicycle trips, also up and down hill!

Cute villages with lots of old houses and a spring for to fill the dogs canister. 

beautiful old villages

comes in handy, a well

Alongside the canal there are numerous streams, so also lots of Ponts Canal where they cross and a large area in between which is a bit swampy, the “marais”. Beautiful scenery and you can cycle if you’re prepared to dip your feet from time to time. For Panache it’s homecoming and he loves it.

who knows Michel is aware that here he acts like a hero, with bare feet in the cold water, he hááátes it

The sides in this canal are rather sloping so we cannot moor up to the side, getting stuck before we are there (we leave the few quays and jetties free for smaller craft).

We are rather good in swinging the ramp out with our crane and fixing it on our steps so we can moor a meter or so out.

After a few years experience we make sure we have all the right stuff handy and know how to use it.

Some things really make life easier.

almost a meter from the side and enough room for others (not that there are many)

Yesterday we made a beautiful trip on our bikes to the abbey in Trois Fontaines, at least the ruins of the abbey situated in a very nice and spacious park, where the former annexes surrounding the abbey are restored and are lived in.

Built in 1118 by Cistercian monks it was lived in until the French Revolution.

That is one of the things we look at with pleasure, all the villages with their old churches and nice buildings.

the entrance and annexes tot the abbey

these ruins are huge, three floors, so what do you think of the trees

Quite a jolt when at the next lock we saw the newly built houses, thrown in in a nice village.

It is so out of order you cannot call it ugly, it’s just amazing that someone made it up.

On the left the village on one side of the lock and on the right the former lock keepers house, behind it about 20 semi detached boxes, with their polished metal sheets.

sweet, lovely and rural on one side

just one more nice building on the other side and then those ugly metal boxes

We will continue our trip along this canal, next blog will be about the Marne Saône Canal.

Diemen to Sillery

Till now we had avoided cruising the Amsterdam-Rhine canal. Long time ago we once did a stretch onboard a friends barge and we remembered the canal as busy, choppy and with nasty waves.

And in later years other skippers shared this opinion, so we avoided it, rather taking the slightly longer route via de river Amstel (just as nice).

We now had no choice as the Amstel was blocked and, as waiting for the quiet of a Sunday was no option, off we went.

As is so often the case it’s fear for the unknown and it turned out not half bad.

It is not a very nice route, choppy indeed, but still fair cruising. We keep forgetting that we are not a small barge plus you can cruise at a fair speed.

 

After a short stay in Meerkerk we carried on to the quay at Thieu. We had made arrangements with different guests to tour the Belgian artefacts twice.

The trip South is known territory to us, not exciting anymore but still nice cruising.

And the first Belgian beer, in Willebroek this time, didn’t taste half bad.

But, Michel using the time it takes to go up at Ronquières for checking his email, is a bit blasé.

going up on the Inclined Plane of Ronquières

We were in Thieu in good time and put our time to good use; we cleaned the ship inside and out, we put fresh soil and flowers in the flower tubs and made a new tabletop.

We had not been up to that yet, after wintering and our trip to Groningen. It had been too cold and wet but now, mid April, the weather was fine.

We also had time to spare for a few jobs, like stripping all the paint from the side of the corridor to our sleeping quarters.

Ever since the conversion it is been house to a creepy kind of worm that only likes plywood.

We tried to fight them over the past years (look it up in the blog) but without much success. Now we go all the way, stripping and applying a nasty fluid to kill them. It’s a bit frustrating to remove paint you applied yourself.

quiet a bit to do here, but now it's done

Once the work was done we could go cruising again, both the old and the new lifts have been visited before but are still very impressive.

What adds to the fun is that it is new for our visitors. Plus we found different moorings to stay overnight, we visited new places and had to reroute because some lifts were out of order.

We stayed one night just off this illuminated lift and there landed a small crustacean on our deck, falling from the lift door.

an unexpected guest

before the lift

We wanted to do the Spiere-canal en route to Lille. We wanted to do it once more not only because it is a nice waterway but also because it has been reopened for a five-year period. If there are not enough boats using it they will let it silt up again, as was the case till 2011 (see my blog of August 2011) and we would like to prevent that from happening.

Unfortunately we could not go through it as there was – on the Belgian side – a stoppage that would take too long to repair. We now intent to go through on the way back.

We spent a few days in Antoing, there is a bunker boat where we filled up our tanks; 3000 litres diesel, 2000 litres of water. All our tanks were empty and it increased our water draught by 10 centimetres. 
We had so little gasoil left that in Thieu we had to take 4 jerry cans to the local fuel station.

Our bike trailer was strained to the limit getting the cans back.

Antoing on a photo

Antoing, artist's impression on a house

From Antoing we took the train to Tournai, we passed right through it two years ago but didn’t stop there then. It is a beauty, oldest town in Belgium, lots of history and beautiful buildings, a 276 steps high Belfroi

on top of the Belfroi, not bad for someone with vertigo

and a museum where this happy hippo was suspended over a field of sunflowers, each of them powered by a small solar panel.

 

Although here, like elsewhere in Europe, temperatures are too low and there is an amazing downpour there are also signs of spring.

We get more and more info on problems with high water levels causing stoppages on rivers and canals further South and East. Partly on our intended route, so we’re glad that we are not in a hurry. We know from past experience that these problems can easily and quickly change into problems due to low water levels!

We’ll see what happens, it is beyond our control anyway and if it affects our plans we just have to adapt.

trees in bloom in Tournai

the family swan

endless fields of bright yellow rapeseed

little ducks without their mother, they got away in time

So, we cruised via Valenciennes where we didn’t stop, saving it for next time.

We did spend a few days however in Cambrai, spending frustrated time watching out for the two SIM-cards we had ordered. It appeared afterwards that one of them had been delivered to the wrong mailbox and the other one is still out of our hands. It’ll be alright in due course.

Cambrai was host to people we knew, so we had a few get-togethers, touching up our contacts.

The canal Saint Quentin is very nice with little traffic. Here commercial barging has declined over the past years.

We crossed the beginnings of the Scheldt river and the Somme, both rivers we cruised; here they are but lovely, puny streams.

the Scheldt

the Somme

And then in this canal we reached the Tunnel of Macquincourt, the longest in France at 5,67 kilometres. We were a bit hesitant about going through it because of its length and because you cannot go under power but are being towed by an electrical tug.

Quite a few horror stories do the rounds and it is hard not to be influenced by them.

We had to be at the ready at 9:30 a.m. at the entrance so we moored just short of it the night before. Thus we had a perfect view of the overhead tram-like wires running from 1 kilometre before to 1 kilometre after the tunnel.

As said before, there being little traffic, we were the first and only tow which was nice as we had no one behind us and the tug runs a steady course.

They roll out a 30 metre tow line and at a snails pace we went through the tunnel. It takes time, almost two hours and it is cold in the tunnel.

Although it was easier going than expected we were relieved to reach the exit; it is extenuating.

waiting for he tug

de overhead wires

we won't fit in there

oh, not to bad

glad to see light at the end of the tunnel

This was one bump we managed successfully but there was another one on its way, the tunnel of Braye-en-Laonnois where we damaged our canopy quite a bit two years ago. Last year we had it repaired and we completely lost the canopy in a whirlwind in September; now we have a supersonic electrically operated new canopy. And again, as already a few times earlier this trip, we discovered the ease and effectiveness of this construction. And we gained experience and learned to trust ourselves and our ship.

So. We managed this 2.3 kilometre tunnel without a hitch, although it was exciting.

Panache is not fond of tunnels and takes shelter to Michel’s leg as he steers the ship, standing in the gangway.

As Michel says: “It is frightfully cold in these tunnels, but my leg stays warm.”

Panache looks after Michel

To our pleasure we found more commercial traffic after Saint Quentin, the French peniches, and certainly more than two years ago when we travelled the same stretch.

We think it a positive sign, indicating a rise in cargo hauling on the waterways, it is “greener” and increases maintenance.

passerende peniche

Now we are moored in Sillery, just South of Reims. We will leave the ship here in the pouring rain whilst going to Amsterdam for a week.

Hopefully the weather will be fine when we return so we can continue our journey with a bit of sunshine and no high water levels.

To be continued!