Einville-au-Jard to Lagarde

18 kms, 5 locks

At last a shorter day today.  We left Einville at 9.00 and arrived at Lagarde at 12.15.

It was a lovely sunny day, cold as usual in the early morning but it soon warmed up.  

Sunshine!

Quaint villages

Open fields

Lots of curves

Not sure but I think this is a garden shed - with a propeller

This is a beautiful area and very popular with charter boats, in fact there are 2 charter companies based at Lagarde and we saw 6 charter boats on the move.  Long weekend?  Perfect time to spend a few days on the canals.

Charter boats waiting for the lock

There is rain forecast for next week and we saw a lot of activity on the fields, farmers getting in the silage for next winter while the weather holds.

And here we are at Lagarde marina - second from the left

We rushed to get here, traveling for many hours each day, to meet up with Lynn and Shaun, Ian’s sister and brother-in-law whose boat has over-wintered just 7km from here in Port Saint Marie.  We really didn’t think we could make it after the enforced sojourn while I went to South Africa, but we did.  Hooray!  We will move on there tomorrow afternoon.  They only arrive on Tuesday but Monday is a holiday (1^st May) and the locks are closed.  So this afternoon was a rest period, we watched Qualy for the Russian F1 grand prix, read a little, surfed the net, watched some snooker.  Just chilled.
The marina costs €12/day including water and electricity.

Pompey to Einville-au-Jard

38 kms, 11 locks,2 lift bridges

I woke up late today – 7.15.  In fact, it was Ian getting up that woke me up – must be the first time in almost 40 years that that has happened!   We did another run (erm, walk) to the Lidl supermarket to stock up on wine,milk, meat and fresh bread and at 10.00 am we finally got underway. 

Immediately we turned off the Moselle River and onto the Canal de la Marne au Rhine, Est.  This is the continuation of the Canal de la Marne au Rhin, Ouest (west) that we travelled on from Vitry-le-Franois for 3 days.  After picking up a telecommande from the lock keeper at the first lock, we turned sharp right into the Junction lock, 7m rise/fall, then sharp left as we exited. Interesting.  

A board instructing us to pick up a telecommande -hooray!

7 metres, quite a high lock

We were already into the outskirts of Nancy, which took some time to traverse, including waiting at 2 lift bridges, and I was disappointed that we didn’t pass through the old town area. 

The outskirts of Nancy - some pretty bits...

...and some not so pretty bits

One of the lift bridges

The Port de Plaisance - little and large

A double story office block over the canal

Once past Nancy we got back into rural countryside with a lot of villages and residential areas alongside the canal.  Not unpleasant at all,  and a nice change.

The junction between the Canal de la Marne au Rhin and the Canal des Vosges

The aquduct over the Meurthe River

This lock is a bit different, old fashioned inlet sluices

A lock keeper using the control house as a greenhouse

The magnificent church at St Nicholas-le-Port where Joan of Arc went to pray before her attack on the English army

The old part of the Solvay factory, which apparently has biggest furnaces in the world, well, in 2003

This was unexpected!

A village alongside the canal

Unfortunately, we also came across some large tree trunks - fortunately we didn't hit any of them

We had no idea where we were going to stop this evening so we just kept going till we found a nice mooring near a town with good internet so we can check up on the Formula 1 news!

Here we are in Einville-au-Jard.  

The mooring at Einville-au-Jard

The notice telling us how to get electricty/water/showers

The pizzeria opposite the mooring, one of the places to buy the jetons

The Menu of the Day - tempting!

This used to be the terminal for a narrow gauge railway, and this is the original turning point

The little railway carried passengers as well as coal

It is a town mooring with services but you have to buy “jetons” (tokens) from a choice of local shops (Pizzeria opposite the mooring, bakery, grocery shop, etc) but at €2.50 for a shower, we would rather shower on board.  And we don’t need water or electricity. Nice restful place though.

Pagny-sur-Meuse to Pompey

38 kms, 1 tunnel, 18 locks

We left our mooring at 8.30 this morning because the “ouvrages” (locks/bridges/tunnels) open at 9 am and our first “ouvrage” of the day was a tunnel. We got there a couple of minutes before 9 and – nothing, no lights on in the tunnel and no red/green lights to allow entrance, because there are no entrance lights at all, also no sign with a VHF channel or telephone number.  We waited till 9 and as nothing happened and it’s a short tunnel (800m) so we could see the other end really well, we just continued through.  At the other end there is a lock within few hundred metres but the red/green lights were just dead.  We could see the next lock in the chain was showing a red light so obviously the first one (and tunnel?) was out of order.  Hmm, what to do.  I called the VHF channel. No reply.  I eventually found a telephone number for the VNF (Voies Navegable de France) and a lady answered, she got the message that we were at a lock that was out of order but she could not work out where we were.  It seems I had got through to the main VNF desk for the whole of France!  She kept asking what department we were in, well I had no idea, somewhere between Champagne and Lorraine!  That didn’t help.  After a 10 minute struggle (in French!) she said something that sounded very reassuring and said goodbye.  I was not convinced that anything was going to happen. Then we saw a VNF van driving down the towpath so we flagged them down and explained the problem.  Ever so helpful, as usual, he called someone and 3 minutes late a van appeared, the driver rushed into the control house and the red light came on, then red/green and the lock started to fill.  Hooray, some 30 minutes after stopping at the lock we were in business.

Approaching the Foug tunnel

No lights apart from our spotlight

The view aft,with no spotlight

Port de Plaisance at the eastern end of the tunnel

Waiting for something to happen

Aha, we have lights

4.4m rise/fall

Exiting the locks

All the way along the smaller canals the water level has been very high

All ran smoothly until we got to the second last lock in the chain (of 12) and again there were no lights showing at all.  Just as we were getting concerned a VNF van pulling a trailer with a generator appeared. 2 chaps jumped out with extension cables, and magic boxes, hooked them all up to the lock gates, lights appeared, the gates opened and in we went.  Once tied up in the lock they explained that vandals had destroyed the control room:  broken in, stolen the electronic equipment and computer and then set fire to the remains.  But also we would have to wait for another boat that was coming down the chain of locks. So we lost another 15 minutes or so. 

Men at work

The burnt out control house

Sharing the lock

Toul - the old town walls on the right

An interesting bridge in Toul

Then we were out onto the mighty Moselle River.  It is really wide and for the first time in many days we saw big commercial barges again and even shared a lock (185m x 12m, cf. the 38mx5m locks we have had for the past 5 days or so!) with a 100m barge. Unfortunately, it moved a lot faster than us so we had to wait at the next lock, another half hour lost.  By the time we stopped in Pompey it was much later than we had intended!

On the Moselle River - big commercials

The Moselle is very pretty

And very wide 

We have stopped for the night at a small pontoon just before the turn back onto the Canal de la Marne au Rhin, but the east section this time, to Nancy and ultimately Strasbourg (but we are not going that far – this time).

The pontoon mooring at Pompey

A view of the Moselle river with the pontoon on the right

Then a quick walk to a Lidl supermarket (about 20 minutes away) for some much needed groceries, it is over a week since our last stock up at Douai.  Barbecued sausage for dinner, and bed.