Froncles (a lockdown by any other name)

Lavoir de Froncles 

We left at eight on Tuesday morning to give us time to get to the first lock on the canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne ready for when it opened at nine.  I mistimed it and it was 9.20 when we got there and were told that two commercials and a private boat had already gone through.  As I’ve probably said more than once, this will be our third attempt at completing this canal; the last two ended in failure as we had to turn around because of low water levels.  In 2019 we made it 20 miles to St-Dizier and the following year we reached double the distance and were turned around at Joinville.  This year we will get to Joinville as quickly as we can so that: 1. we’re into pastures new and 2. we get further away from the Covid hotspots.

The 140-mile-long canal was originally called the canal de la Marne à la Saône as it formed a route between those two rivers and is part of several routes linking the south of France and the Med with the industrial north.  It was renamed the entre Champagne et Bourgogne in order to promote interest amongst tourists.  The northern end, where we joined it, is at Vitry-le-François and it rises up 71 locks to the summit at Langres where there is a 5 km long tunnel.  It then drops down 43 locks to the river Saône at Heuilley-sur-Saône.

Lock information plates on lock cottages still have the original name, canal de la Marne à la Saône

The first 40-odd locks we will go through are operated using a télécommande as are the locks on the Saône side of the summit.  We believe an éclusier sees us through the other 30 locks in the middle section, travelling on either a scooter or in a van.  We’ve had that arrangement on other canals before, and it has its pros and cons.  The main con is that we have to agree times of departure each day thus losing flexibility but on the other hand if there’s an issue with a lock then we have an éclusier on site.

Télécommande

The canal is one of the more modern French canals, the complete length wasn’t finished until 1907 even though the first 45-mile section on the northern side was completed in 1864 and was called the canal de la Haute-Marne.

The canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne

Our target for Tuesday was to try and reach St Dizier and we were driving into the sun all day as we were heading south so not many pictures came out.  After a few locks we crossed the border into Haute-Marne, our first objective. As the virus incidence was lower there it was less likely to go into lockdown if the departmental approach was extended.  As it turned out, it didn’t make any difference as a national lockdown is being reintroduced from Saturday evening.

Crossing the département border – but it made no difference in the end

As three boats had already gone through ahead of us all the locks were set against us, but we soon got into the swing of things, Karen doing the ropework as we went through each one.  The locks so far are between 3 and 3.5 metres deep, so Karen has to get on the roof to hook her line on.

The sharp eyed amongst you will have noticed the stepped bollards in the lock.  Karen prefers not to use those unless the locks are really deep making it impossible for her to reach the bollards at the top.  It’s understandable as she has to have her wits about her with stepped bollards in terms of coordinating taking one line off and getting another one on higher up.  

Everything was going well until we were in the lock at Écriennes.  Karen had got her line on and I had the boat in forward gear to keep it taut and hold the boat against the lock wall when suddenly all power went.  I couldn’t get forward or reverse gears and realised the gear cable had snapped.  Of course, the boat was pushed backwards by the force of the water coming into the lock but luckily Karen’s line prevented it going as far as the back gates.  If it had then the rear would have got caught under the walkway on the gates as the lock filled with disastrous consequences.

Once we were up and the gates opened, we pulled the boat out by hand and tied up to a rare pair of bollards that were just outside the lock.  The cable wasn’t as easy to change as the throttle cable that snapped two years ago (again in a lock!) and we lost well over an hour, but we were thankful we had a spare one.

Not a bad place to breakdown

An éclusier stopped in his van to check we were OK and also dropped off a car tyre.  I couldn’t work out what he was doing with it then realised he was standing it in front of Buddy who was tied up to the boat.  The éclusier was concerned that speeding cyclists wouldn’t see Buddy until too late!  I said we were quite happy to move the dog, but he wouldn’t hear of it!

Because of the loss of time for the breakdown we didn’t make it to St Dizier before the locks closed for the evening so ended up at Hallignicourt outside a French Air Force base.  At least we were treated to several flypasts during the evening.

Rafale fighter jet coming in to land

Tuesday evening at Hallignicourt

We’re seeing lots of butterflies on the wing as we cruise along but heard on Wednesday morning that we’re in for some cooler weather in a week or two.

On Tuesday we cruised 18 miles up 12 locks – a long day for us.

Many canals have longer operating hours for commercials than plaisanciers like us.  We have often wondered if we could travel on the extended hours on canals with automated locks.  We know it’s a bit naughty and certainly wouldn’t call VNF if there was an issue ‘out of hours’.  With a mission to get to somewhere convenient in case of another lockdown we decided to put it to the test on Wednesday morning and left at seven.

Leaving at first light

When we approached the first lock, there were no lights on, and my immediate assumption was that centrally they knew we were the only boat in the pound and therefore wouldn’t turn the lights on until nine.  It transpired that the lock was broken and at eight o’clock a gang of men turned up and were working on it.  They fixed it within the hour and called us through even though the lights weren’t working, so we didn’t find out if we could have gone through on commercial hours, but we’d already lost an hour’s cruising from the day.

Waiting for the broken lock to be fixed

Our first task was to get to St Dizier where we would top up with water and then continue on our way; we would have got there on Tuesday had it not been for the snapped gear cable.  As we came into St Dizier, we could see Zoe & Sebastien’s boat moored on a quay.  As we approached, they came out (Sebastian cannot stand up inside the boat by the way) and got ready to leave.  We went up the main St Dizier lock with them and then they went ahead while we filled up with water.  They were on a real mission reckoning they could get to Marseilles in 11 days.

Zoe following us at St Dizier (not sure where Sebastaian was)

While we were topping up with water a council worker emptying rubbish bins, stopped and kindly offered to take our rubbish.  Not only that, he gave us what looks like a year’s worth of dog poo bags on a roll.  We remember Nikki & Gorete telling us about the same experience they had when they were moored at Reims once. Maybe it’s the way council workers are trained.

Bags on a roll

Leaving St Dizier

Coming out of St Dizier we called VNF as they have to send someone to operate a lift bridge on the edge of town.  It’s a fascinating spot as there’s a motorway bridge, a working lift bridge and an out of use rail swing bridge,

The old and the new

Our objective for the day was to get to Joinville where we knew it would be OK to moor if a new lockdown was introduced immediately when Macron made his announcement in the evening.  It was a shame to take things quickly and not spend time exploring the villages and countryside we went through but as Joinville was the farthest we had got to before we had been to many of the places already on the way there and back (and documented in the blog entries at the time).

A railway line ran alongside us much of the way…

Breuil-sur-Marne

Sommeville

While on the other side of the cut  the Marne could also be seen flowing beside us much of the way.  Up here in Haute-Marne the river is a lot smaller than the one we’ve lived next to at Châlons-en-Champagne and enjoyed cruising so much in 2019 from its confluence with the Seine in Paris up to Châlons.

One of the many lift bridges we went through – this one is over the exit to the lock at Curel

Wednesday seemed to be the day the swallows arrived and in several spots we saw them wheeling around with the occasional dip into the water.  While on wildlife we also heard bull frogs croaking a few times. It was strange as Karen’s mum, Ann, was only asking at the weekend if we see many frogs.

Approaching the penultimate lock of the day at Bussy

All had gone really well with all the locks and lift bridges since the issue with the first lock of the day.  That was until the lock at Bussy.  We noticed that it stopped filling about two feet from the top and our first thought was that we wouldn’t make it through the next lock by closing time and therefore not get to Joinville.  Karen went for a wander around the lock and started looking in the outbuildings as there was a VNF van parked there.  The next thing I knew, she appeared with an éclusiere who she’d found in a hut.  Éclusiers carry a box of tricks in their vans that they attach to the automated control unit when things go wrong.  Our éclusiere got hers out of her van and soon overrode the automated system and had the lock filling up again.

Karen looking really pleased with herself that she'd found the éclusiere

We were through the final lock with no problems and were soon moored at Joinville.  It was a mooring shared with campervans and there were five or six already there but no boats.

The main item on the agenda in the evening was the President’s speech at eight o’clock.  Not surprisingly, he announced what to all intents and purposes is a national lockdown in all but name from Saturday evening and not for chocolate shops (yes, apparently they are essential!).  The first two lockdowns were recognised as such and the French words used were confinement and reconfinement respectively.  This third lockdown is being called the semi-confinement.

We got our plans out again and chose the option we’d put together in case lockdown was delayed until the weekend.  This meant we were off to Chaumont which was a further 25 miles and 20 locks away.  As the administrative town of Haute-Marne we felt it would be large enough to meet our needs if we couldn’t move for a good few weeks.

On Wednesday we cruised 23 miles up 16 locks through numerous lift bridges making it an even longer day than Tuesday.

Sun rising on Thursday morning at Joinville

The main task on Thursday was to move the car, which was at St Dizier, up to Chaumont.  This involved getting a bus back to St Dizier, driving to Chaumont and then returning to Joinville by bus again.  The bus rides weren’t quite Covid friendly as the one when I moved the car to St Dizier as there were two other passengers on both trips.  Both trips were again tantalizing because the routes went through some small villages in the Marne valley.  The tantalizing was because we passed quite a few lavoirs that couldn’t be investigated.

Waiting at the bus stop by Joinville’s war memorial

A swiss guy called Claude had been in contact with me recently through one of the French canal social media sites.  He’d seen me post information about the really good state of the canal in answer to someone’s concern.  He said he and his wife Susie were on the only boat moored in Chaumont and said we must call in and see them on our way through. 

The old part of Chaumont is on top of a hill and the port is at the bottom.  I parked in the port and went to find Claude & Susie.  They were both in and we had a good old chat for a while; they’ve been stuck in Chaumont for eight months because of the continual closure of the canal through combinations of lack of water, too much weed or lockdowns. 

Claude & Susie’s boat l’Escapade and space for us

Like many Swiss they were fluent in several languages including English, French and German although they conversed with each other in Swiss-German.   I couldn’t help thinking how useful those languages must be when travelling around Europe.  While chatting a French guy came up with a bucket of goose eggs and Susie bought half a dozen from him.

Goose eggs

An older part of Chaumont

I was back at the boat by early afternoon and we immediately decided to get on our way.  We hadn’t expected to cruise on Thursday but by doing so it would mean we had less to travel over the following two days.  A couple of cyclists took great interest in us as we left and the guy asked if they could take pictures and videos.  I said we didn’t mind, and they kept cycling ahead to find vantage points from where they could film us.

Aqueduct over the river Marne

Old lift bridge no longer in use

An éclusier pulled up in his van at one lock and told us we would have to moor for the night at Donjeaux as something was broken.  We couldn’t get to the bottom of what was broken but he assured us everything would be OK and we could still get to Chaumont by Saturday evening.

It had started to feel close during the journey and the sky was quite hazy, so it was good to moor in the shade when we arrived at Donjeaux.

Moored at Donjeaux for Thursday night

We had a quick walk around Donjeaux and then along the river Rognon which joined the Marne in the middle of the village.  Donjeaux seemed a very sad and uninspiring place, even the church and mairie looked very utilitarian.  It all seemed a bit strange as most homes in villages tend to be well looked after even in these straitened times.

Functional mairie

Donjeaux war memorial

On Thursday we cruised six miles up four locks – a bonus as we weren’t really expecting to move.  This leaves us just under 20 miles and 16 locks to get to Chaumont by Saturday evening.

We decided to break the back of the remaining journey to Chaumont by doing as much as possible on Friday, so we arrived at the first lock at nine, lock opening time for plaisanciers.

Kilometre stones have been few and far between, but we couldn’t really miss this one.  As it was at pk72 we assumed it was marking the original end of the canal when it was called the canal de la Haute-Marne before it was extended down to the river Saône.

The end of le canal de la Haute-Marne ?

After the first lock we crossed the river Marne yet again.  It still amazes me how the routes of canals were chosen without today’s modern gadgetry let alone at what point it was worth building an aqueduct in order to utilize a different side of a river.

Crossing the Marne again

We also had to negotiate several more lift bridges at the exits to locks:

During the journey, Claude contacted me to say they had managed to speak to the capitaine at Chaumont and they had reserved a spot for us in the port and also turned on the water and electricity for us.

Position marked out for us

The bollards looked a bit dubious and fortunately we carry a couple of rope protectors that we sometimes use on feisty locks to stop the lines fraying.  Claude said they had got through two sets of ropes in the eight months since they’d been there hence his protectors made from pipe lagging seen around the closest bollard above.

They even had a welcome sign prepared

The scenery along the Marne valley is certainly stunning and we’re looking forward to having some good walks over the next few weeks:

The horse had been in the water before we came past

We thought we’d stop at Froncles for lunch; this was a place Karen had picked out as a possible place to stay if we couldn’t get as far as Chaumont.  In the end we fell in love with it and the scenery and decided to stay for the duration of the semi-confinement.  The only other boat there wasn’t lived in, so we had the quay to ourselves.

Perfect spot in our lockdown paradise

There were four campervans that were also staying until travel was allowed again.  Before making our final decision to stay, we had a quick walk around the village which was quite large compared with others we have been through. 

Walking across the Marne into Froncles

It even had a Carrefour Express which was the same sort of size as a Tesco Express so we would be covered for essentials.  We would need to complete an attestation if we wanted to go to larger shops in Joinville or Chaumont which we would be able to do by car if we needed to.  To our delight we found a lavoir as shown at the top but will have a proper visit during our stay and report back in a future blog update.

There were also excellent examples of housing typical of the villages like Froncles that grew up on the back of iron foundries.  Again, more investigation is required.

Row of different sized housing by an old foundry where the port has been built

I’ll finish this extended blog update (thanks for bearing with me this far) with the mairie and war memorial at Froncles:

On Saturday I’ll be catching a train into Chaumont to retrieve the car and then we’ll be settled in for the next four weeks or however long it takes.

On Friday we cruised eight miles up five locks.