Marquion to Douai

23 kms, 4 locks, 4 hours 15 minutes

We set off later than usual today at 9.00 because we had just a short hop to Douai (and on Sundays the locks only open at 9.00).  It was another grey day with thin high cloud and bad visibility, although not misty.  It was pleasantly cool again too. 

There was just one lock left on the Canal du Nord where waited 10 minutes or so for a boat coming upstream.

Waiting at the lock.  The guillotine gate on the downstream end is open, waiting for a boat to enter

The guillotine gate opens for us to exit

It’s Sunday and it seemed all the world and his wife and children were enjoying the great outdoors.  We saw fishermen (of course), lycra lads and lasses on their bikes (of course – although we didn’t see them further south), big cycle groups just out for a ride, ramblers, joggers, rowers, dog-walkers, mothers and fathers with toddlers on bikes……

At Arleux, the Garlic Capital of the World (I kid you not), the Canal du Nord forms a junction with the Canal de la Sensée, which is part of the Grand Gabarit from Dunkirk all the way to the Belgian border near Valenciennes.  Turn right and you go to Cambrai, the Canal Saint Quentin, and Valenciennes on the Escaut River; turn left and you head for Douai, the Lys River and Dunkirk.  We turned left. 

Just 3 locks – and they are biggies on the Grand Gabarit, 144m by 12m.  We had them all to ourselves – smile – and they have floating bollards – bigger smile.

In the last couple of weeks the eggs have been hatching.  On the Yonne and the Seine we lots of  swans with their cygnets, and now we are catching up with ducks, coots, moorhens and grebes again. 

We were here in early April, when it still felt like mid-winter and all the trees were bare.  Now it is full on summer, what a difference.

The narrow, green, leafy entrance to the Halte Nautique in Douai

Out from the trees and into the centre of Douai

And here we are

We’ll spend the day here tomorrow.  I’m dying to get all the grime from the Canal du Nord locks off the fenders and hull.  The water may be a beautiful green colour but it has a chalky sediment in it that clings to the walls of the locks and transfers onto the fenders.  It doesn’t wash off by dragging the fenders in the water, it has to be washed off properly.