Celles-sur-Aisne (Rain on the Aisne)

Leaving Soissons on Monday morning

We didn’t want to stay in Soissons as we’ve visited before and the current crisis doesn’t make it conducive for sightseeing when there are other people around.  Even though Soissons is in one of the lowest risk département it is now one of the hundreds of towns in France where masks are mandatory outside. Many local councils seem to be being stricter than the guidelines laid down by the state.

As we needed to do the weekly shop on Monday morning, we went to a supermarket which according to the map was 600 metres away going out of town.  When we got there, the supermarket was closed down, but a sign indicated that there was a new one 200 metres further along the road.  While Karen was shopping, Buddy and I walked further out of town through a business area which was pretty deserted as I expect most are around the world at the moment.  The most interesting thing we came across was some disused railway sidings which was unusual because the tracks hadn’t been removed as they are normally used for good quality recycling scrap such as during the 'war effort'.

The disused railway sidings

When we got back, I topped up with water while Karen unpacked the shopping and then we set off for a rural mooring at Villeneuve-St-Germain which wasn’t that far from Soissons. We knew there was a good walk there along the riverbank from our last visit, so Karen and Buddy walked while I drove.  The mooring was just below a lock and ideal for Buddy as there wasn’t any passing traffic and ideal for us as it was away from people.

Moored at Villeneuve-St-Germain

We had a good circular walk through the countryside in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day relaxing on board.  Although it was half sun most of the day it definitely felt colder so it was good to be indoors.

On Monday we cruised two miles through no locks.

We had about eight miles to travel on Tuesday to where a staircase lock up onto the Canal latéral à l’Aisne marks the end of the navigable River Aisne. Obviously, unpowered craft can continue up the river itself and shallow draughted boats are also allowed but only a couple of miles further up to where there is a small pontoon.  It was that pontoon we wanted to get to next partly because we hadn’t been before and partly because not many boats make it up there.  We looked at doing it last year but there were two plastic boats moored there and they looked like they’d been left there for the winter.

It started raining just before we set off, but we decided to go anyway.  It probably wasn’t the wisest choice as it rained continuously for the whole journey that took the best part of three hours.  As you may know, Buddy hates being inside the boat if one of us is on the back driving.  The rain was coming down so hard at one point that we ended up making him go inside and Karen went in with him while I carried on.  Apparently he wouldn't settle in his bed and just stood with his feet on the back steps until I'd moored up and came in.

Rain on the Aisne 

It was raining quite hard by the time we reached the lock cut off the river, so I decided to moor up where I knew there was a mooring.  I didn’t really feel like carrying on up the river only to find there was no room and then having to come back again. 

Moored in the lock cut at Celles-sur-Aisne

The rain stopped while we were having lunch so afterwards, we went for a walk along the canal.  When we got to Vailly-sur-Aisne, we left the canal at a road bridge to walk down to the river to check out the mooring.  Looking down from a road bridge over the river we could see a boat on the pontoon and we recognised it as one of the two that were there last year.

Someone there already

We went down to the pontoon to see how the boat was moored and if it would be possible to move it a few metres so there would be room for us.  When we got onto the pontoon, we found that not only was it chained to the pontoon it also had immovable mooring rods, so it wouldn’t be possible to move it.  We worked out that we could probably get on but it wouldn’t be the securest of moorings with about 11 metres overhanging, which wouldn’t be that sensible with the flow from the river.  It started raining again on our way back so that really decided it for us; we would stay where we were for the rest of the day. 

Not such a safe looking bridge across the canal

On Tuesday we cruised eight miles up one lock.