Amiens to Sailly-Laurette

27 km, 3 locks

Last night, moored outside the English Pub, Ian felt like a pint of bitter.  So – momentous occasion – we went out!  It was the first time we had ventured into an establishment to buy a drink or plate of food on this trip ( i.e. in 10 weeks).  English Pub?  No British beer, no British cider, and the barman didn’t speak English.  But that’s Ok, we are in France after all.  Didn’t like the price though – over €8 for a tiny Heineken, a glass of wine and a glass of sparkling water.  But once again we were amazed at the polite good manners of the French:  the pub was full (watching a football match) and two young guys sitting at the bar offered us their seats.

This morning we encountered the down side:  when we went to take in our lines as we left the dock we found that our bow line had been undone during the night. Fortunately, we had 2 spring lines plus the stern line so the boat hadn’t moved but it was the first unpleasant experience we have had in France.

We left the dock at 8.15, intending to stop for the night at Corbie 18 km and 3 locks upstream – last time when we passed this way we got free wi-fi, but you have to check in at the camp site office to get their password - and determined to beat the lunch hour wait.  We were surprised by the number of families out cycling and walking.

 

We tied up at the pontoon next to the camp site at 11.45, and made a quick trip to the supermarket to buy bread for lunch, and discovered that today is a public holiday and the supermarket was closing at 12.30 – good thing we started early!   And that explained all the families out enjoying the sun.

Not only did the supermarket close early – so did the camp site office:  11.00!  So no free wi-fi but at least we got hot showers because the ablution block was open.

Unfortunately there were lots of teenagers, just being teenagers. hanging out at the picnic tables alongside the dock.  They weren’t doing anything wrong, just boys showing off to girls and girls trying to impress boys, lots of loud very awful rap type music!  All rather annoying for geriatrics like us!

This is where the Red Baron crashed in 1918 and we were determined to find the spot this time, so we set off by bike on the towpath along the canal and struck inland and uphill to the ridge.  Lovely ride.

Notice board at the crash site

The field where the Red Baron crashed

Narrow country roads

When we got back to the boat there was a second set of teenagers, also playing loud unpleasant music, and not the same stuff that the first set were listening to.  Opposing stereo!  We had visions of this going on till midnight so decided to move on and find a more peaceful mooring.  

We passed some boats along the way - at last, not the only boats on the river.

No idea!

There were 5 boats in this convoy!

and one of them was a sailing boat

Just an hour away we tied up at the dock below the Sailly-Laurette lock.  Peace at last!

Ian wanted to fly his drone (he got it all ready to film the Red Baron crash site but it was too windy on top of the ridge) so he filmed some footage of our mooring here.

The restaurant where we didnt eat

There is a memorial at the lock to Wilfred Owen, the poet, who wrote a poem entitled “Hospital Barge” while here.  Wounded soldiers were moved away from the front line to the hospitals in Amiens by barge (now isn’t that interesting) and he did a trip on one of those barges which inspired the poem.

There is a restaurant here and, after looking at the prices, we decided it might be a good place to eat out. Unfortunately, it was closed.  Pity, a rib-eye steak is €14.50, pepper steak is €12.50 and that includes chips, veg and salad.  Oh well, back to the Barbie.