Mons to Historic Canal du Centre

We got back on online last night to check the weather and decided it really didn't look that bad.  We've coped with worse.  And the outlook for the next few days is not much better.

So 9.40 this morning we left the Port de Plaisance at Mons and headed into the Canal du Centre.  The weather was a bit blustery, very breezy at times, partly cloudy, nice sunshine between the clouds, cool in the wind, warm in the sun!  A bit of everything - except rain, thank goodness.

The Canal du Centre is picturesque in place

and down-right awful in others. 

There is quite a lot of industry along the canal - that's why it's here - but we were surprised that we have not seen more commercial traffic.  Two barges called Asterix and Popeye amused us, as did this strange craft.  It is a "pusher" barge, just an engine really, and used to push barges without engines.

We had to go through 2 locks early on, one with a 5m rise and the second with a 10m rise. 

Fortunately the second one had floating bollards.

The next stop was the mighty Ascenseur de Strepy-Thieu, a new modern lift lock 112m long and 12m wide, with a rise of 73m.  And there are two of them side by side. 

They date from 2002, built to replace the 4 smaller lift locks of about 16m each which have been in use since 1888.  More of them later.

As we got closer to the Ascenseur the terrain got more hilly.

 And we passed the one of the old 16, lifts close to the new canal.

 The approach to the Ascenser is pretty impressive.

I called on the radio in English and got a reply in French, telling us we would be entering the port tank and to wait, so we tied up along with 3 other boats.  

The lift was on its way up when we arrived and came down with another load before we could enter.  The whole experience from arrival to exiting at the top was just over an hour.  

Amazing, how do engineers come up with these ideas!

The view from the top is wonderful. 

The Health and Safety notice says "Risk of being decapitated"!

Leaving the Ascenseur at the top we crossed a short aquaduct, and a few kms further on a much longer one.

Then we turned off the new Canal du Centre into the Canal du Centre Historique.  We have tied up just above the first lift lock.

We were hoping to go through this old canal tomorrow or the next day, but there was a gang of 5 men doing major maintenance on the lock.  And when I phoned to get more information all I got was a voice mail in French prompting me to leave a message.  Err, my French is not quite up to that!

So we took a walk to look at these amazing feats of engineering that were built 125 years ago.