Condé sur Marne to Reims to Sillery

45 kms, 18 locks, 1 tunnel

Ooff, it was a long day today.  We left the pontoon at Condé at 8.00 and whistled through the 8 inter-linked locks (heading back to Reims) because they were all empty and we were going “uphill” so as we approached they opened and there were no delays. 

Before sunrise - mist on the water

The Fields of Gold - again

There was a brief delay at the tunnel when we had to wait for a barge to exit.   

The VNF hard at work fixing the leakage problem onto a neighbouring property

The industrial zone between Sillery and Reims, a barge loading grain

Now this is different - travelling the towpaths with donkeys

Most of the 7 locks on the “downhill” side to Reims were also in our favour and we tied up at the marina in Reims at 13.45 just 5 hours and 45 minutes later – we really expected the trip to take almost 7 hours. 

Off we went to the Free shop with all our paperwork for our contract with them, the new phone and the old phone.  First problem, it seems I must have changed the password for our account at some stage and not made a note of it (I don’t remember this at all!) so we had to go back to the boat to pick up an email with a new password.  Then back to the shop with the new password.  Half way through the process we needed to retrieve an sms with a code, and the old phone was in the middle of an update!  After waiting for a few minutes the minion helping us just opened the back of the phone and whipped the battery out!  Well, that really messed up the old phone and now it can’t recognise a sim card at all.  Now we were totally at a loss at how to retrieve this code, so the minion put the sim card into his phone, really manhandling it like a piece of tatty plastic, but at least we got the code so could continue the process.  At last we have a nano sim card for the new phone, and the old (backup) phone that now seems to be totally dead!

Next stop was a FNAC store, close by, to get an adapter for a nano sim card to a micro sim card.  And while we were there, totally thrown by the loss of our supposedly “backup” phone, we just happened to buy a new backup  4g phone  - a Nokia on promotion.  Nuts, yes, but the thought of losing contact with the rest of the world is quite daunting.

By this stage time was marching on but I made a quick dash to the cathedral, which is so famous.  I hate to admit but I was a bit disappointed.  The exterior is magnificent (but not as good as the cathedral in Amiens) and the interior is actually just plain disappointing.  I guess I have been totally spoilt by seeing the Amiens cathedral first.

So back to the boat and at 17.00 we left to go back upstream again.  The locks on this stretch close at 18.00 so we could not make it to Sillery but at 18.45 we stopped at the lock just below Sillery – wild cruising at its best, no water, no electricity, no town, just a bollard near a lock. And a 4g phone signal :)

By the way, in Reims we tied up alongside Gerd and Dagmar on Freya.  It was great to meet up with them again; we last saw them a week ago in Chauny.  They have had all sorts of problems, went to Compiegne to get the most urgent sorted out and are now heading for a boatyard in Pont-a-Bar.  Lovely people, I hope it works out for them.