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| As our friend Chris Hutchins would say, ‘Those are stonking stanking planks’ |
Two commercials who had moored overnight just down from us
left at about six in the morning and then all was relatively quiet with only a
few more passing until we got underway at about nine. It was going to be yet another day in the 30s,
so we wanted to get moored up before lunch to avoid cruising in the heat of the
day.
We both think that it’s brilliant that it pays to transport so
much cargo by river and canal over here.
I said yesterday that most of the cargo in this area seems to be sand
and gravel but before we left, we saw fuel, containers and wastepaper being
carried.
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| Different cargo during breakfast |
We were heading for a lock mooring for our penultimate night
on the Seine before reaching Paris and had a really pleasant cruise without any
mishaps or near mishaps for once.
We love the way the French shape their trees, this village
had cuboid shaped trees along the riverside.
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| A raised hedge |
We had the first lock to ourselves and hoped we hadn’t held
up the three commercials who were itching to get in as we left.
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| Getting away from the lock quickly to let the big boys in |
When we radioed ahead for the second lock, we were told we
would have to wait as boats were coming up and also that we should let a commercial
go in front of us. At least that’s what
we think we had been told! It turned out
to be correct and as we were waiting, we heard the deep throb of a big boat
coming up behind us and then followed it in.
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| Sharing our second lock |
After going through the second lock we took it slowly as we
wanted to check out the possibility of mooring at the lower lock landing. We were in luck, there was a very long lock
landing and there were bollards that we could reach. With such a length available it would mean we
shouldn’t get in the way of any commercials mooring overnight. Coupled with that it was Saturday so the
traffic was lighter anyway so less of a chance we would have neighbours 😉
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| Our mooring for the rest of Saturday below Le Coudray lock |
After lunch and a rest, we went for a slow walk to have a
look at the lock we had come through and to find a way over to the other side
as we could see places where Buddy could get into the river.
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| A grass snake crossing the road in front of us |
Karen had been wondering how wide the river is where we are
so when we walked across the bridge over the lock and the river, she counted
her steps and made it about 180 metres, the same length as the lock.
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| Walking over the lock but you can’t see the gates at either end |
Each of the locks we are going through to get to Paris have
secondary, smaller locks next to them. These
secondary locks are the originals and were built with lock cottages as on the
canals. We have seen a couple of these cottages,
but it seems that some have been demolished. The secondary locks are occasionally used in
busy times, but the secondary lock here clearly isn’t as it looks quite
derelict now.
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| The disused secondary lock |
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| The old lock cottage |
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| Water level marks on the lock cottage from the disastrous floods of 1910 & 1924 |
We walked down the other side of the river to where we were
moored and let Buddy spend a lot of time just standing in the water to cool
down.
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| Buddy cooling down |
This picture shows the length of the lock landing and to put
it in perspective we are the little black dot at the far end:
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| Nice long lock landing with plenty of room |
On our way back we found the largest and longest stanking
planks we have ever seen. These ones are
17 metres wide and are used to create a dam in front of the lock gates during
times of maintenance.
|
| The largest and longest stanking planks we have ever seen |
There was a river cruiser built in the style of the
old Deep South paddle steamers that was running trips from a nearby town. It too was at the end of its run outside our
boat and was turning around next to us every hour or so. Many of the guests were waving and taking
pictures of us so we imagined an advertising board on the quay at the other end
of the its journey chalked up with: ‘Join us on a trip to see the mad English
roasting alive on a narrowboat!’
 |
| Completing its turn |
The forecast for Paris over the next week is cooler, down to
the mid-20s, which is good news.
On Saturday we cruised 20 kilometres down two locks.
On Saturday we cruised 20 kilometres down two locks.
When we went to bed on Saturday night some loud music
started on the opposite side to the river.
It appeared to be some sort of outside rave party that didn’t finish,
and therefore kept us awake, until 3.30 in the morning. We couldn’t get to sleep because the music
was so loud, but the strange thing was that the music wasn’t bad and sounded
like it had a really good dance beat. If
you know us, then you will know this is a strange thing to say as we can only
dance in our minds 😉
We woke up later than usual on Sunday because of the music
and consequently left later than usual.
We were now reaching the suburbs of Paris and places were becoming more
commercial and industrial.
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| The incongruity of a town hall next to old warehousing |
We were also expecting to come across more weekend leisure
cruisers as you would on rivers like the Thames as it was a Sunday but were
surprised to find, that apart from the odd commercial, we had the river and
locks to ourselves. We did pass the
pseudo paddle steamer on its first trip of the day though.
 |
Exchanging waves
|
We could feel we were approaching a city as graffiti was
becoming evident on bridges and quayside walls.
Especially spoiled were these old bathing changing rooms still standing
by the riverside.
 |
| Looking back at Corbeil-Essonnes |
When I radioed the first lock, I was told that we would have
to wait for another pleasure boat, so we were really surprised that once we
were in the lock, the gates closed and we were going down. Maybe it was another misunderstanding as when
we were going down, we noticed a trip boat coming up the secondary lock. Maybe we had got to the lock quicker than
expected and the éclusier let us down on our own as a commercial was waiting to
come up – we will never know.
 |
| This was the first time we have seen a secondary lock being used |
When we neared the second lock, we looked for a 20-metre
pontoon that Karen had read about. This
would be ideal to moor up on for the rest of the day. It was fairly close to the lock so I was a
little concerned that the éclusiers would wonder if we were coming down the
lock or not, especially as I hadn’t radioed ahead. Anyway, we found the pontoon and luckily it
was empty, so I made to moor up
As I was getting in position Karen asked me if I was going
to turn around first (on rivers you always moor facing upstream and tie up the
front first). With worrying about giving
mixed signals to the éclusiers I had forgotten about turning around but breathed
a sigh of relief as, by carrying out the manoeuvre, it would be obvious that we
weren’t intending to come down the lock.
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| Moored above the last lock before the centre of Paris |
After a lunch in the welcome shade we went for walk but found
we couldn’t get off the lock landing; all the gates were locked! We didn’t mind as we were happy just to spend
the rest of the day on the boat, especially as it was Karen’s birthday and we
had some champagne in the fridge 😉 We then realised that Karen wouldn’t be able
to have a run in the morning so we decided to go have a look at alternative
mooring spots.
After checking, we found that if we went through the lock
the last decent place to moor up before Paris was just the other side of the
lock, so off we went. I radioed the
éclusier and was told to head for the lock on the right,
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| The last lock before Paris - one lock on the extreme left and the other on the extreme right |
The lock we went down was the smaller of the two locks and it was unusual as it only had one gate at each end.
 |
| Just the one gate |
We were soon moored up again in yet another spot where we
were all on our own. It seemed to be at
the end of the runway at Paris-Orly airport and we noticed that planes were
taking off every few minutes. Our
guidebook clearly hadn’t been updated for a while as it mentioned that it wasn’t
a busy airport and there was just the odd plane taking off or landing!
During the afternoon quite a few clouds rolled in and also
some breeze and it made for a lovely change to sit outside drinking our
champagne in weather that felt cooler.
When entering up the boat log for Sunday and checking the
journey for Monday I found that we had yet another lock to go down before
hitting the centre of Paris. It was odd
that neither of us had spotted this on the numerous times we must have looked
at the map. We knew we would have to go
up a lock to get off the river and into the basin at Arsenal but had completely
missed this final lock which, ironically, is called Écluse d’Anglais!
On Sunday we cruised 20 kilometres down two locks.
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