Corbie (camouflage joke)

We assumed we were going the right way

Our next stop was going to be at Bray-sur-Somme where there’s a pontoon that’s just short of 20 metres in length but at least we'd be able to squeeze our boat on it.  The trouble was that Tony & Nick, whom we’d met at Feuilléres, had told us that friends of theirs were moored there on a boat called Tadham Castle.  Each day we’ve been selfishly hoping they would pass us meaning that the mooring would be free.  Our luck was in on Thursday.  We were having breakfast when we heard a boat coming and soon realised it was Tadham Castle.  As they passed, we exchanged a few pleasantries and they said they’d kept the spot warm for us.

We called up for an éclusier for the journey and got ready to leave Cappy.  He was a different guy but just as efficient, quickly seeing us through a lift bridge and a couple of locks.

Goodbye Cappy

The forecast had been that we’d have no sun and there would be a high chance of rain off and on during the day.  As you can see from the picture above, the clouds had started clearing by the time we left, and we were glad we were still in shorts and tee shirts and not listened to the forecast and given in to jeans.  Ian & Lisette commented the other day that we will love the Somme especially if the weather stays fine.  The weather certainly is being kind to us even though it’s considerably different to what we would have been having back in Châlons-en-Champagne even though it's only 120 miles to the south.  We imagine the weather in the Somme is similar to that experienced in the south of England.

As we dropped below the lock at Cappy we saw the narrow-gauge railway that runs alongside the river for a few miles.  It's one of many 60cm gauge railways designed by a guy called Paul Decauville.  They were laid in this area in the 1880s in preparation to defend against a likely invasion by Germany and were to be used for carrying arms and equipment to the front line.  This particular line ran for almost 30 miles and carried up to 1,500 tons of arms etc. a day during the Battle of the Somme in 1916.  This remaining section now operates as a tourist attraction and there is also a museum that contains many artefacts including some of the original steam engines.  We hope to visit on our way back as it was closed when we passed today.

The ‘tourist’ station at Cappy

An interesting fact was that these small gauge railways were prefabricated and assembled like model railways.  Being lighter they could also be laid on the boggy ground of the Somme.

Coming up to the second lock of the day we went under a proper road bridge.  I say this because, apart from the A1 autoroute and a small lock service road, all the bridges we have encountered so far have been lift bridges.

A proper bridge at Froissy

I’ve already mentioned that as this is a canalised river, we keep changing from river sections to lock cut sections and the map of the area we were travelling along today shows what I mean.

We came from the east along the straight lock cut, marked with the red arrow, where the route then re-joins the river and continues to the west.  We were having a diversion for the day and when we joined the river, we turned a sharp right to go upstream to Bray-sur-Somme, the green star.  As you can see, the river splits into many channels along its course so we had to keep our wits about us.

Here we are getting ready to turn sharp right

We came down the lock cut on the right and turned up the river on the left 

Back on the river again but now going upstream

For the most part it was obvious where to go and, in many places, stakes had been driven into the river bed to keep boats away.

After just over a mile we could see the first houses of Bray-sur-Somme ahead so began looking for the mooring.

Bray-sur-Somme ahead

We found the mooring and, with such a gentle flow on the river, it didn’t matter which way around we moored so I span the boat around before mooring so we would be facing the right direction when we left.

The mooring was next to a camping and caravan park, but it was very quiet.  There were three campervans parked on the riverbank down from us, very few people in the static vans and no tents. Being such a lovely spot, it must normally be packed with visitors at this time of year. 

After lunch we went off to explore the town.  As expected, most places were closed, even the tourist office.

What’s Karen found outside the tourist office?

Yes, it’s a Royal Mail post box

The post box had been donated by the village of Inkberrow in Worcestershire, but sadly for us, was from the current queen’s reign not Victoria’s and it wasn't even pillar box red.

We were pleased to find two lavoirs in the town, both stream-fed and built to the same design.  It was a great shame that they had both been securely gated since 31^st January this year.  A notice indicated that the mairie regretted the decision, but it was due to ‘incivility’ by young children.

The lavoir on Rue Pierre Curie (the husband of Marie Curie who I didn’t know was Polish)

If you have time, then it’s worth reading these words from an information board outside one of the lavoirs.  It’s a good translation and really explains the background to the development and use of wash houses.

Before heading back to relax outside with books and wine as it was a day with a ‘Y’ in it, we walked up the hill behind the town where there was a German war cemetery.  With (only) 1,119 marked graves it’s described as a small sized cemetery and it wasn’t completed until 1970s.

On Thursday we cruised four miles down two locks.

Before we started our cruise on Friday we went for a walk around some of the lakes at Bray-sur-Somme.  Even though it was early there were lots of fishermen and women already set up for the day.  Neither of us quite get fishing unless it’s to eat the end product but we both see that the tranquillity of sitting quietly for hours on end must be good for the head.  It was particularly tranquil where we walked as it was so quiet, there wasn’t even the sound of traffic or distant trains.

The fisherman above (if you can see him) reminded me of a joke.  A sergeant major said, ‘I didn’t see you at camouflage practice this morning Perkins’.  The reply was, ‘Thank you sir’.

As we set off, a couple of fishermen were very jolly with their waves and bonjours and then we realised they were raising glasses of rosé to us and it was only just gone 10am!  They were clearly going to have a good day’s fishing.

The lakes and wet areas continued by the river for most of the day, but it was always obvious where the channel lay.  Other than passing a couple of villages in the distance it was a totally rural trip all the way to Chipilly where we stopped for lunch.  We'd lost count of the number of times we said how lovely the river and countryside was.

Morcourt

Mericourt-sur-Somme

And for a change, some wooded hills 

Our éclusier for the morning had a larger orange van than the previous guys which made it even easier to see if he’d arrived at the locks or not.  There was a particularly large lock cottage at the first lock.  It was a shame it was boarded up as it would make a delightfully remote home.

Larger than usual lock cottage (and a larger than usual orange van)

Moored at Chipilly for lunch

We had to moor with all but a couple of metres of the boat overhanging the mooring quay with the back end secured to a tree stump.  We didn’t mind using the tree stump as commercials no longer use the canal, but we did think the other boat on the mooring had tied up rather selfishly.  We tend to accept how people moor as we don’t know the background, e.g. other boats may have left, someone on board may be disabled etc.  They'd used all three mooring bollards when he could have used two, leaving room for other boats to use the free one and share the middle one. It also looked like it was going to be there a while as it had notes on the windows giving a phone number and email address in case of an issue.

If we’d have liked the spot, then we would have stayed overnight.  Instead we decided to have lunch, look around the village and then move on to the next mooring.  We had to keep a close rein on Buddy as there was a flock of domestic geese parading around.

Our own guards

Walking into Chipilly

In the middle of the village was a statue of a British soldier comforting a horse.  The accompanying text indicated that a staggering 375,000 horses were killed in WWI.

The statue erected in honour of the 58^th British Division, ‘The London Division’

We were obviously thinking about the casualties and aftermath of the war as we both misinterpreted a banner on a wall of the church opposite the statue. 

At first, we thought the village was thanking the English until we realised it was the French Red Cross!

As we’d decided to carry on for the afternoon, I called up the control centre and gave them an estimate of when we should reach the next lock.  When we arrived, it happened to be the same guy who’d looked after us in the morning.

More inconsiderate mooring?

We were heading for the town of Corbie where Karen had found there were several areas to moor.  The first one was a little way out of town, so we pulled up there as we didn’t fancy being in the centre.

Moored at Corbie

As you can see from Karen's position, it was a bit of a step down to the back deck and it wasn’t a particularly pleasant spot so we walked down to the centre to check out the other moorings which were each side of the lock.  Before the lock was a 200-metre quay that looked like it had recently been improved.  It had coloured edging indicating different classes of mooring: green for long term boats, blue for transients, yellow for business boats e.g. hotel, restaurant and trip boats and finally white for the lock landing. There was a large boat with a French couple on board on the visitor moorings but there was room for us behind.  We would also be next to a permanent boat which another French guy was busy painting.  The roadside of the quay was set out for campervans and it was relatively popular with five French vans already in place for the night.

There were also electricity and water bornes, but we wouldn’t be needing either service.  The Somme département have installed bornes along the river and they are operated by €2 pieces for which four hours of water and electricity is supplied.  We popped down to the other side of the lock and saw a 20-metre mooring at the bottom of a grassy bank.  It was more up our street, but I didn’t feel it was fair to phone for an éclusier near the end of their working day especially as the mooring on the quay above wasn’t that bad, 

Moved down to the spare spot with blue edging

We had conversations with the people on the boats either side of us and then settled down outside to watch the world go by as is our wont in the evening.

It had been a hot day, but it had kept hazing over which reduced the intensity of the sun which was good as we'd been in the open most of the day.  As we watched people walking up and down during the evening, we noticed the great majority were wearing masks; we’ve not seen such a large proportion before.  This struck us as odd as the Somme is a ‘green’ area and the two ‘orange’ areas we have recently travelled through, Nord and Pas de Calais, had very few mask wearers outside.

We will probably stop in Corbie for a couple of nights and move on again on Sunday morning.

On Friday we cruised 14 miles down two locks.