We are off down the Dizy canal today. There is a stranded South African barge in the river. Engine trouble but nothing we can do, too big for us to tow. The VNF will come to the rescue but as we have seen their boating skills can be a bit dodgy and sure enough the South Africans were to spend more time worrying about the VNF crew inadvertently drowning themselves than whether the engine could be fixed… but at least they turned up and brought a diesel engineer with them.
The new locks are tiny compared with what we have become
used to and the bridges much, much lower!
We have to back up at one point and drop the arch even further… Still it’s a neat system for opening the
locks. You glide up to a pole midstream
and twiddle it until the light come on to indicate the lock is being
prepared. It’s all very well thought out
and we can’t believe how much work is being done on the canal itself and for
providing additional stopping places.
Grape picking is continuing at a furious pace and everywhere
its bums up and baskets filled!
We stop for the night at Mareuil-sur-Ay. A lovely spot and we have a barge quay to
ourselves instead of using the town pontoons.
Bramble enjoys eating walnuts and chasing squirrels but manages to find
something to play in that causes her to scratch to the point we have to go back
to Epernay again to visit the doggy doctors.
After a quick trip back, a zoom in Francoise’s car and a couple of stabs
Bramble is feeling much more comfortable.
Maybe Epernay will turn out to be like Sneem in Ireland – lovely but
impossible to leave!
Next day we cast off again and pass the now fixed South
African barge and twiddle our first lock pole.
It’s nice to visit the same bit of canal (again!) and we note the
wildflowers that have been planted at the locks and dip our arch again! Back in Mareuil-sur-Ay nothing has changed
and the quay is still lovely but we restrain Bramble’s enthusiasm to revisit
the bushes! The Weather is definitely
changing and it rains heavily overnight… brurrrr… we will need to buy an extra
duvet shortly!
The canals are narrower again now and more structured but
the villages are pretty and we slowly move out of vine country and into fields
of Lucerne and maize. We are on a go
slow and only manage a couple of hours a day before we pull in for the
night. Most of the stop overs are rural
or on the edge of the villages so it’s very peaceful and we are surrounded by
green paddocks and trees. Bramble is
loving being the mistress of the river bank and patrols for rat, voles and
moles.
We had wanted to go up to Reims (pronounced “Rance” for some
strange reason!) but the canal is closed for maintenance so we tootle off
towards Chalons-en-Champagne. Beautiful
big trees line the banks and it becomes even more remote if that is possible;
even the fishermen (pêchers) are thinning out.
The bridges start to get even lower and the locks go back to awkward
bollards and slippery ladders. Not as
relaxing but good for the fitness and agility!
Chalon-sur-Champagne lock is malfunctioning and no matter
how much twiddling we do the gates don’t open so we spend a few tricky minutes
tying up only to see the gates open.
Turns out the pole just alerts the lock keeper to open this one and she
was a bit delayed! The halt is nice
though; set in a park on the edge of town and there are some lovely walks along
the banks and each evening people promenade past the boat collecting walnuts
and conkers. The town itself is really
interesting too with lots of old building and a short tourist trail.
The weather is still not wonderful, so I make some scones
for the big trip to Chepy (1 and ½ hours down the canal!). When we get there we find that the Camino
runs past so we take a hike before the rain sets in for the night. You can run but you can’t hide from the
Camino and needless to say it must be disappointing for Sonya to have missed a
bit… still there is always next year!
It rained so much overnight that we actually float off the
mud (you get used to wiggling your way onto the pontoons) and it continues to
chuck it down but we dress up in our oilies and plough on. The locks overfill in this section and it is
hard to fend the edges off once we reach the top but with a bit of ingenious
boathook work we manage. Sadly there are
also a lot of dead animals in this section as the banks don’t have any escape
routes out. Foxes, coypu, rabbits and
even a deer float by. Not nice.
This part of the country was heavily bombed during the war
and there is a plethora of temporary mechano bridges that unsurprisingly could
no longer be classed as temporary and in various spots crosses mark where
people were dragged out of their houses by the Germans and shot. It’s amazing that there isn’t more animosity
towards the Germans now.
There are a lot of limestone kilns and quarries on the canal banks. The soil is sandy and the hills studded with wild roses. It is very reminiscent of Central Otago but Vitry itself is unimpressive. The halt is tiny and we have to perform some slick manoeuvres to tuck ourselves in, only to find that when the wind blows we are in danger of ripping the pontoon off the wall. More string required! In the morning a hotel barge has parked in the entrance and isn’t moving till summer. We have to haul ourselves along the side of it, working our way through the overhanging trees to get out. Can’t wait to get back into open water!
The next stop Orconte is just what the doctor ordered. A five star rural halt with power and water,
even has a shower and toilet block. Now
that’s good thinking by the local community. It’s a really pretty spot and Bramble spends a
few hours digging a hole under a tree before chasing a deer round and round in maize
field. Ahhh what more could you ask for!
Another thing we have noticed in this section is the lovely
lock keepers houses. Built in the mid to
late 1800’s, the current tenants don’t often have to work the locks but they
have created some lovely gardens and sometimes sell products such as fresh
veges. It’s interesting to note the
style of house changes as we go up, all due to the fact that the canal took
many years to complete.
The water is also very clear here. Great for seeing the shallow edges! There are manual bridges now so the VNF workers stop us occasionally to quiz us on our intentions. Good for our French and their “un peu anglais”! They are really helpful and even take the time to zoom past on their ancient “fartblaster” scooters to tell us not to park in front of what will turn into a nightclub tonight with a strip show by pompiers (firemen)! We move on to the next village. Poor Bramble is quite disappointed to move as the fields looked good for a “chasse”. She is still quite worked up after her near successful deer hunt of Orconte!
The water is also very clear here. Great for seeing the shallow edges! There are manual bridges now so the VNF workers stop us occasionally to quiz us on our intentions. Good for our French and their “un peu anglais”! They are really helpful and even take the time to zoom past on their ancient “fartblaster” scooters to tell us not to park in front of what will turn into a nightclub tonight with a strip show by pompiers (firemen)! We move on to the next village. Poor Bramble is quite disappointed to move as the fields looked good for a “chasse”. She is still quite worked up after her near successful deer hunt of Orconte!
A last it’s a sunny,
hot day and we have a team of VNF blokes to watch out for us and help at the
locks and bridges. We hand out a few
beers and enjoy their company. There are
some huge carp in the canal and we see a dead one over ½ a metre long. The signs on the bank say it is an area for
“nuit pêche” for the carpe… the French
are trés serious fishermen!
Next we take the walk to the top of the hill as recommended by the Hotel de Ville. The walkway is closed but we feel justified in clambering over the barriers and ignoring the signs as the Town Hall folk told us we must go to the top! Not sure what they do at the Town Hall but it obviously doesn’t involve issuing permits for public works and restricting public access! The panoramic views are fabulous, however, and we sneak back down a different way ending up in the back streets of town. All in all an interesting stop and the patisserie near the town halt does a lovely line in champagnoise tarts… yummy!
Still no time to dawdle… we head off and push our way
through a very weedy section of canal which tests the bowthruster ability as a
weed trimmer before encountering a half open lock. Rule number one of canal life if there is a problem phone a friend… in this case the VNF. Some stuttering French later and a man is dispatched to view the issue. In the meantime we “park” bow first on the bank and access the problem for ourselves. There is nothing blocking the gate but on closer inspection the hydraulic ram appears to have jumped off the gate…. Hummm this could be more serious!
Phase one – the VNF man arrives and attempts to open the gate with the override key… no luck… I point out the ram…. “ahhh, merde, sacred bleu, un grand probleme” or something similar… In other words “major panic and I can see you being stuck here for a while…” Never fear, I imply, as I signal Murray, fixer of all things broken.
Phase two: We convince the VNF man to risk life and fingers and let us help him to put the ram back on. Lots of to-ing and fro-ing later we manhandle the ram back into place and lash it down with the piddley bit of twine he finds in the back of his van. Job done and business resumed. We gallop back to the boat and rush through the lock before it all falls apart again. Still we leave behind one very happy VNF man and we continue on to celebrate with a beer at Donjeux our next stop.
Another pretty cool day on the canal…
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