28 km
Rather a strange day. We started off with a blocked toilet inlet
again – more weed!
 |
| Ian doing his Action Man impersonation! |
We set off down the Canal de la
Deule, rather concerned about the amount of weed that we were still seeing
along with a lot of other rubbish. The canal was nothing like this when we came
up this way 5 weeks ago.
However, we did see an old friend
 |
| Moonraker - we have crossed paths 3 times |
We turned off into the Canal de Lens
where we intended to stay overnight. We
had a choice of two Haltes de Plaisance, at Courrieres or Harnes. The pontoon at Courrieres is very pretty
but
the water was murky, clumps of weed again, rather smelly and there were lots of
dead fish floating around. We continued
up the canal and the quality of the water got worse and worse. By the time we got to Harnes it was like
thick revolting soup
 |
| Revolting! |
stank of sewage, with various things that people throw
into toilets floating on the surface and so many dead fish. We gave up any idea of spending the night in
either place. Disappointing, depressing
and disasterous for what could be a very beautiful canal.
 |
| The beautiful canal on a rather misty morning |
So we continued down the Canal de la
Deule to a tiny Halte de Plaisance in a cut off the main canal called Gare de l’Eau
Pont a Vendin. It’s a funny little place:
Very pretty
 |
| Gare de l'Eau de Pont a Vendin |
It has a very narrow entrance, about
4m wide, with gates across it, one of which was fastened open and the other was
swinging backwards and forwards. I held
it open with a boat hook as Ian eased us through.
It is rather shallow inside, the dock
needs a bit of maintenance, and the water and electricity box has been removed.
 |
| It needs some tlc - the square white box at the bow is the remains of the electricity/water point. |
But it was 14.00 by this time, we
didn’t need water or electricity and it’s really rather charming in a shabby
sort of way. And has a good wi-fi hot
spot!
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