Sillery to Tours-sur-Marne

29kms, 12 locks, 1 tunnel

Yesterday turned out to be another long day, and we really didn’t expect it to be.

We left the mooring at 7.10, having to motor back about 100m to the pole that activates the lock, to find that a barge, travelling in the same direction, had beaten us to it.  Oh no, if only we had left 5 minutes earlier!  Travelling slowly behind a barge (they only do about 5km/hr on these narrow canals, and take forever to enter and leave the locks), added an extra 3 hours to our day.  The same trip that took us 3 hours on Tuesday took 8 hours yesterday.  And of course we were travelling the same section of canal for the third time in three days.  

Fields of gold yet again 

The VNF have not yet managed to fix the leak, more pumps going today than yesterday

We waited 20 minutes at the Mont-de-Billy tunnel for the barge to get well ahead.  This is controlled by a red/green light, we had no option.

Suffice to say it was a trifle boring apart from the last 45 minutes when we finally left the Canal de l’Aisne a la Marne and turned into the Canal Lateral de la Marne.

We turned right towards Epernay on the Marne River 

Canal Lateral de la Marne

Falling petals and pollen

This is new water to us for the first time on this cruise.  Until now we have been following a route we have done before but now finally we are heading for the Marne river.

Approaching the town quay at Tours-sur-Marne

Threatening rain clouds, but it never fell

Tours-sur-Marne is a small village, which I'm sure is usually very attractive but the town square and the narrow street leading to it are undergoing major road works, so it looks a bit of a mess at the moment.

We went for a walk to look at the River Marne which runs alongside the canal.  Today we will be moving from the canal onto the river itself just north of Epernay, and Ian wanted to check out the current.

The river is moving very fast, we hope the current is not going to be as strong as this.