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| Pleasant mooring in Cambrai |
We left Bantouzelle on a cloudy but warm Friday morning and headed for Vaucelles where there's an historic abbey that had had an interesting history. It was only a four kilometre cruise, so Karen & Buddy walked while I took the boat down a couple of locks to meet them there. They started out on the left bank but the path ran out at the top of a bridge. Fortunately they hadn't gone very far and turned around and went back to the first lock to cross over to the other side where there seemed to be a more permanent path.
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| The end of the road |
There were a couple of bollards
just below Vaucelles lock and Karen & Buddy were already there, waiting for
me as I came out.
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| Moored at Vaucelles |
There was an electricity and water borne but, as we are now in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region it could only be operated with a key that has to be purchased from VNF offices further north or via mail order. As we were only going to be in the region for a few days before heading into the Somme, which is in the Hauts-de-France region, we hadn’t bothered arranging to get a key.
It wasn’t far to walk to the abbey through the well-to-do
village of Vaucelles, We had to make do
with walking around the outside as we had Buddy with us and dogs weren’t allowed
in the buildings. Having started life as
an abbey back in the early 1100s it has been through various transformations
including a weaving factory, farming enterprise and the inevitable use by the
Germans as a major WWI headquarters. It
was amazing to find out that it was Kiwi forces who retook the buildings in
1918 especially when you consider they wouldn’t have flown over here in Jumbo
jets.
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| The abbey is the building to the right |
Out of sight in the above picture were some interesting farm buildings, in terms of their size, that had supported the monks when they were being self-sufficient. Opposite one of the large barns we were really pleased when we came across only our third circular lavoir.
Returning to the boat we decided to carry on until we found
somewhere to moor for the day. We've found that many of
the recorded moorings on this canal have either disappeared or are only
suitable for commercial sized boats. We ended
up dropping down quite a few locks and most of them had two lock cottages as the locks were in pairs and
one even had three cottages. The design of the cottages was different to those on the other side of the summit, but, like those on the other side, the styles were different between those built
originally and those added when the locks were doubled up.
There was a VNF office at one lock and an éclusiere came out to take our details. She even wanted to record where we were planning on going for the rest of the year. I asked if they sold the key fobs but, as I expected, she said they’re only available from six northern towns including Lille, Dunkerque and Béthune. She said we could use the tap in their porch that was used by the office cleaners. The tap had obviously been left open as, when she went into another room to turn the stopcock on, water gushed out all over the floor. I quickly turned the tap off and when she came back, she did the ‘c’est la vie’ version of the Gallic shrug and just laid a towel over the floor.
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| Taking on unexpected supplies at Crévecoeur-sur-l’Escaut |
Water points are even scarcer on the Canal de St Quentin than we have found elsewhere, and we’d planned to call in at the port in Cambrai where there's a charge to moor and get water. Now that wasn’t necessary, we can hopefully find somewhere else to moor when we explore Cambrai. After filling up we dropped down the lock and stopped for lunch.
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| Lunch stop at Crévecoeur-sur-l’Escaut |
As we’ve headed further north, as well as being cooler, we’ve noticed fewer log piles but the house opposite our lunch spot had a very neat store. I know they generally are neat but there was something even more orderly about this log store neatly stacked between growing trees.
We had to go through several more locks before finding somewhere to moor; none of those in the guidebook existed any more. As we came out of the lock at Marcoing we saw a small basin on the left so thought we would try mooring in it.
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| Inviting looking basin |
It was then that we noticed that Iskre & Panache
were moored on a commercial mooring a little further along. We wondered why they were there and not in
the basin so carried on down to find on what they were doing.
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| Iskre & Panache |
They had a different guidebook to ours and it had told them that the basin was private so they moored at the commercial mooring using a combination of bollards and pins (it was so unlikely any boats would come past). Our book mentioned a private basin too, but it was further down, so we span the boat around and went back to the basin. It didn’t look quite wide enough for us to turn around in so we reversed in just in case.
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| Our own basin shared with a few camper vans |
There were chickens roaming free that seemed to belong to a house at the back of the basin. Idyllic as that sounds, it did mean that Buddy had to be tied up.
On Friday we cruised nine miles down nine locks.
Other than our traditional Saturday pancakes for breakfast, the next day started in the same way as Friday, by Karen & Buddy walking while I drove the boat. A lot of the journey was back in woodland as we seemed to lose the open fields of Friday.
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| Setting off on Saturday |
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| Approaching the lock where I’d arranged to pick up Karen & Buddy… |
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| …they were there waiting already |
In my mind I’ve been calling this canal the Kingfisher Canal as we seem to be seeing many more than others we’ve been on. We’ve also seen them perching on the coping stones at the top of the banks which is odd as we usually only see them perching in trees. Talking of unusual perches, we did pass a heron perched on a sign.
After the fourth lock we were approaching our destination
for the day, Cambrai. As we were neared
the town we could hear Gary and Malcolm having a radio conversation about where
to moor. They had decided to go into the
port which we didn’t need to as we didn’t need water or electricity. I told them we’d be mooring outside the port
but would see them later. During Karen’s
investigations of moorings on this canal she'd found that there should be two iron
stakes on the bank outside the port so we would moor to those.
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| Karen looking for the mooring bars on the bank |
The bars were free, so we were able to moor up for the day.
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| Moored outside Cambrai port |
We went for a wander around the port and caught up with Gary & Pat and Malcolm & Sue for a while and then popped back for lunch before exploring town. As we were eating, a small motorboat passed us with a bride and her bridesmaids on board.
We noticed they turned into the port entrance, so went out
to see what was going on. There was a
large crowd of people at the bottom end of the port where the boat pulled up
and the groom wearing naval uniform helped the party ashore.
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| The wedding party |
We then had a look around the town itself which we found to be really busy and we actually felt rather uncomfortable with so many people, many of whom weren’t keeping any distance from others. In the end we left the centre and took a circuitous route back to the boat and spent the rest of the day in the port. Being a religious centre over the centuries there are many churches in Cambrai, so they made up the majority of our pictures.
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| Some churches… |
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| …and the old St Julien hospital with its chapel on the right |
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| The Porte de Paris, one of several gates that were in the city walls |
Not only was it busy with people, there were a lot of cars and no apparent pedestrianised areas. This in turn meant there were no peaceful squares which was also a shame.
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| The main square with the hôtel de ville out of sight to the right |
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| More cars and people |
We are now at the northern end of the Canal de St Quentin and tomorrow we’ll be heading on to the Escaut river which is the French name for the Scheldt which reaches the North Sea at Antwerp. We’ve really enjoyed the Canal de St Quentin and found it a lot more attractive than we thought it would be. By the same token we’re looking forward to getting down to the River Somme as we’ve heard that’s a really pretty canal too.
On Saturday we cruised five miles down four locks.
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