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| Our peaceful mooring at Givrauval |
Karen went for a run first thing while I went off to explore Givrauval. With a population of fewer than 300 it didn’t take long to look around and one of the first things I came across was the sign for an égayoir or horse wash.
It was a sure sign that if the
village still had a lavoir that the chances were that it would by the
égayoir. The directions took me down the
main street to the other end of the village and sure enough in a small
courtyard of houses and a farm there was an open air washing basin and behind
it the horse wash.
The village must have been more proud of its égayoir as it was labelled as such with no signs to, let alone on, the lavoir. More sophisticated set ups often also have an abreuvoir or horse trough and a fontaine for drinking water.
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| The égayoir |
The mairie was fairly nondescript and also the first we’ve come across that hasn’t been flying a Ukrainian flag. The war memorial contained a rather stark message and Karen and I wondered later if, in the PC mad UK, it would have had to be removed. The text at the bottom refers to the barbaric Germans.
The church was pretty and, as is often the case, was perched at the top of a hill overlooking the village.
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| Saint-Quentin |
While I was on the hill Karen rang me; she’d finished her run and had called in at the Carrefour on the way back. She’d found some bags of soil and flowers and needed me to bring the trolley down to cart them back. If anyone had seen us we must have been a sight walking just over 1.5 km down the towpath with the trolley and then back again with three 40 litre bags of compost with Karen carrying trays of plants. Halfway back I spotted what looked like a dead kilometre stone down the bank. I scrambled down and sure enough it was pk 65 that had rolled down the side. It signified that we’ve completed a fifth of the length of this canal since joining it a week ago.
It was midday when we got back to the boat, so our breakfast was rather late, well for us anyway. We decided that as we were moored in such a lovely spot that we would stay put for the rest of the day. A lot of the afternoon was spent cleaning plant pots and planting them up. As it was quite breezy, they were all put on the back deck for safety while they hardened up.
FRIDAY 22 APRIL
Our plan for Friday was to reach
the summit at Demange-aux-Eaux. We got
ready to leave at 8.00am but the first lock went onto red lights when I
summoned it. Ringing VNF we were
reminded that we wouldn’t get any support for an hour as only commercials are
supported out of the hours of 9-6 on this canal. Fortunately, we hadn’t gone very far so
reversed back to the pontoon we’d just left.
An éclusier turned up dead on nine and got the lock ready for us.
After two locks we joined a chain of 17 automatic locks that would take us up to the top lock at the summit. This meant that we didn’t need the télécommande any longer, just an éclusier to set the first lock and then the rest all operate automatically when they realise a boat has left the previous lock. It didn’t quite work out like that and the éclusier who set the chain ended up staying with us all day because of various problems with gates or paddles not opening or closing. This actually worked in our favour as with someone setting the locks ahead of us, we got up a lot quicker than if we’d have been doing them ourselves let alone the impact of having to make a phone call every time we had a problem.
The journey up went through the
stunning countryside of the Ornain valley with just the odd village on the way.
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| Tréveray |
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| Our éclusier racing ahead in his van to get the next lock set |
We did have a few issues with weed which surprised us as the canal had been practically weed free so far. In the end it was only in six pounds but did require five trips to the weed hatch. As the éclusier was happy not taking a lunchbreak we had lunch on the move and made it into the top lock in just over six hours. I suspect the éclusier was just going home early as it’s normal practice to take a break. We topped up with water when we rose to the top of the lock and made arrangements with the small VNF outpost in the lock cottage to go through the Mauvages tunnel at nine in the morning. Regular readers will know that this tunnel is the only one we’ve come across where an éclusier has to accompany each boat on a bicycle.
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| Buddy hiding in the shade of the sign while we topped up |
Leaving the lock we turned sharp left at the junction where an arm heads off to Houdelaincourt. When we were here in November, we went down the arm as it isn’t frequented by many boats these days because one of the entrance gates at the start is left closed meaning only boats like ours can get down there. Those of you with larger boats will be pleased to know that both gates were now open, so a little adventure awaits you if you so desire.
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| Both entrance gates wide open |
Once past the junction we moored up at the VNF yard which is where the tunnel maintenance buildings are situated. In front of us was a sadly decaying electric towing tug which was in use until 2013.
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| Moored at the VNF yard in Demange-aux-Eaux |
After a relaxing drink outside we went for a walk around the village of Demange-aux-Eaux (pop. just over 500) which, as its name suggests has quite a bit of water around it. In addition to our canal, there was the river Ornain with a couple of manmade channels from the river and also a couple of streams. The Ornain is a lot smaller now we are higher up and Buddy had a welcome drink and cool down. We had to keep him on his lead as the water was flowing quite fast through the arches and he’s never shown any inclination to swim.
Next to the bridge was the village war memorial which seemed
rather large and grand for a medium sized village but then we didn’t count the
number of names inscribed.
We than crossed a bridge over one of the manmade channels and
found a lavoir. Sadly it was closed to
the public and appeared to be full of farm equipment.
There was a bar and a boulangerie in the centre, but the bar was
closed for the afternoon which was a shame.
The mairie and church looked like they were built of a similar stone,
but I couldn’t find out anything about their history.
It was still lovely and warm when we got back to the boat and the
breeze had died down too so we lazed around for the rest of the day. Well, I did most of the lazing as Karen baked this week's cake and cooked dinner. My cake of choice this week was a ginger cake.
On Friday we cruised 20 km up 19 locks.
SATURDAY 23 APRIL
As we had to be at the entrance to the Mauvages tunnel by 9.00 am we
had an early breakfast. Rain was
forecast for the morning, and we noticed a few spots in the water before
setting off. Fortunately, it was dry when we left and stayed that way for
the whole journey apart from a few attempts at a drizzle, but it rained properly
for nearly half an hour just after we moored up for the day before leaving us with sun and clouds for
the rest of the afternoon and evening. As
we set off, we passed the decommissioned electric towing tug that I mentioned
earlier:
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| Decommissioned towing tug... |
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| ...and its service building |
An éclusiere had arrived in her van just before we got to the tunnel and clearly had some procedures to follow as the light was on red, so we had to wait before going through. The tunnel at 4.9 km is the second longest still in use in France and was opened in 1846. We always marvel at the amount of material that must have been removed to make the French tunnels as they were built to take large, deep-draughted barges.
When it was first opened the bargees pulled their boats through
manually which in France used to be called “à la bricole” because bricole is French
for the chest harness that used to be worn by the people towing the barge. This method was stopped when a steam tug was
introduced to tow convoys of barges through. This was replaced in 1913 by an electric tug
and this service was carried on for 100 years until it was discontinued in 2015. Although boats now go under their own power,
the overhead electric cables are still in place as can be seen here where we
are waiting for the green light:
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| Waiting for the green light with trolley wires above |
When we went through today’s tunnel in the opposite direction last
November an éclusier saw us through by pedalling his bike along the towpath
next to us. He told us that this is a
requirement, and all boats must be accompanied in this manner for health and
safety reasons. Our girl today either
hadn’t heard about this requirement or didn’t really care or was frightened of
tunnels as, once we were in, she got on her bike and shot off quickly to the other
end.
It took just under ¾ hour to get through and then we were out into the Meuse valley with 12 locks to go down to reach our day’s destination of Void. These locks were like yesterday’s, in that they were in a chain but, unlike yesterday, presented no issues so we ended up with a dry and uneventful journey before mooring in Void for the day. Also we had no weed issues and found out why when halfway down the flight:
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| Weedcutter at work |
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| Moored for Saturday night |
SUNDAY 24 APRIL
It was a grey morning but at least, once again, the forecast rain
hadn’t arrived. Election day here in
France but dear old Brexit withdrew the right of Brits who were French
residents but without full French nationality to vote or stand for election in
France. This has even impacted those Brits
who’ve lived in France for many years, especially those who’ve held elected
positions in their locality as they have now had to stand down.
We left Void during the morning intending to get to Pagny-sur-Meuse in time to watch the England girls in the six nations match against Ireland. We would then move on to Lay-St-Rémi as we hadn’t moored there before. Leaving Void, we passed a green obelisk commemorating a man called Nicholas Cugnot who was born in the town.
Cugnot was famous for building the world’s first mechanised vehicle; his steam powered cart started trials in 1771 and was never successful due to its massive weight and having a body too rigid for the rough tracks of the day. The obelisk was erected in 1969 to replace an original statue that had been melted down by German soldiers in WWII.
We had an uneventful journey to Pagny-sur-Meuse with Karen and
Buddy walking the last six km when I dropped them off at the junction with the
canal de la Meuse. Non-boaters may wonder
why I include pictures of junctions, but they are primarily there for the benefit
of other boaters. Many read fellow
boaters’ blogs to find mooring spots and get general navigational hints. Seeing a picture of a junction can help when
wanting to travel along a new waterway.
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| The southern end of the canal de la Meuse to the left |
Light rain started during the second half of the rugby and as it
was still drizzling when the game finished, we decided to stay put at
Pagny-sur-Meuse. This means we’ll
probably give Lay-St-Rémi a miss and get down to Toul on Monday.
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| A 75-metre pontoon to ourselves at Pagny-sur-Meuse |
On Sunday we travelled 12 km through no locks.
MONDAY 25 APRIL
Our aim on Monday was to reach Toul where the canal will drop us
onto the Moselle. When we get on the
river we’ll be turning left to travel downstream picking up from where we left the river when we turned off to
reach Toul last year. This means that we’ll be on new
waters to us for at least the next few months.
A few kilometres after setting off we approached the tunnel at Foug
and triggered the magic eyes as the lights were set to green as we arrived.
Once through the tunnel we had 13 locks to drop down to reach Toul and Karen
got off for a while to give Buddy a run.
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| Looking back at Foug tunnel |
They were dropped near the wall close to the frothy water but with
a depth of at least 2,50m they’d been impossible to see even though the water had
been clear.
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| Passing the port at Toul |
Once we’d gone past the port, we dropped down one more lock and moored under some of the town’s fortifications.
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| Moored for Monday in Toul |
During the afternoon we went to a supermarket to do the weekly
shop and also popped into a garden centre to buy a few more plants. As we’d done the town tour last year we saw
nothing new to us other than the war memorial from the Franco-Prussian war (aka
war of 1870) and WWI.
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| The war memorial we missed |
The only other job we had to do was to make sure we and the boat
were ready for river cruising first thing on Tuesday.
On Monday we cruised 14 km down 13 locks and through one tunnel.
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