Douai to La Basée

I just discovered this post in "drafts", it never got published.  So here it is, a few days late.

32kms, no locks, 4 hours

I don’t really know what to say about yesterday.  We have done this stretch of waterway so many times and it is not particularly exciting or picturesque.

It was a lovely cool day, partly cloudy, and a bit breezy at times.  We left Douai at 9.15, passed lots of barges going in the opposite direction and saw lots of ducks, coots and moorhens with their chicks.  

Three very sad and very neglected yachts

The junction onto the Canal de la Deule

Mrs Coot and her, um, cootling (if cootling is to coot as duckling is to duck)

A very large "garage des bateaux" or boat harbour.

I had read somewhere that the VNF is making a concerted effort to clean up wrecked vehicles in this canal....

... cars, lots and lots of wrecked cars

This used to be coal mining area of France and we see a lot of these old slag heaps, now turned into attractive leisure parks 

We have also seen many derelict factories besides the canal.  Do you think in 200/300/400 years time people will be standing looking at the ruins in awe, like we do at old castles today?

It's summer and the wild flowers are in full bloom

The tiny "halte fluvial" at Pont de Vendin

The junction of the Canal de la Deule which goes north to Lille and the Canal de l'Aire which goes west to Dunkirk.

Other than that, not much happened.   We turned west onto the Canal de l'Aire and arrived at the free pontoon (no services) at La Bassée at 13.15.

So, I will digress.   A few days back we saw a black swan so I asked Mr Google about them.  He tells me they are native to Australia and I was astounded to learn that nearly 25% of males will form monogamous homosexual relationships.  Often one of them will court a female till she lays her eggs, then they kick her out, incubate the eggs and raise the cygnets as normal.  And, also interesting, there is a 6% divorce rate (all black swan couples, not just the homosexuals). In Mute swans 20% are homosexual.   Mallard ducks can also be gay but this is usually when they get thrown out by their parents, there are too many young males and not enough females.  Well I never - isn’t the natural world fascinating!

Today, Ian got out the bike trailer and we filled up with fuel.

Syphoning from the jerrycans into the boat tank

The lovely mooring at La Bassée, just 2 minutes walk to a huge Intermarché supermarket with fuel station