Paris to Melun

58 kms, 6 locks, 8 hours

We are in for a couple of days of really cold weather.  This morning when I got up it was 5^oC, not too bad at all, but I hauled out my long johns, knee warmers, beanie, gloves and scarf.  We left the Arsenal marina at 9.00, it was 8^o, a fitful sun was trying to shine between the clouds and a cool breeze was teasing at our scarves.

Back under the bridges, past the Chinagora hotel at the confluence of the Marne and the Seine, we had a long slog ahead. 

Leaving the Arsenal Marina

We were hoping to get to Melun, 58 kms and 6 locks upstream.  We were aiming for Melun because we knew there was electricity available there and with frost forecast overnight it would be nice to have some heating. 

Last year we travelled from the Arsenal to the lock below Melun in something over 9 hours but we got caught out by the lunch hour closure of the locks from 12.30 to 13.30.  By leaving an hour earlier this time we hoped to escape that. The locks close at 18.00 in the evening and we were really not sure if we would make it through the last lock in time.  It would all depend on the how long we would be delayed at the locks by other commercial traffic.

At the first lock we were held up for about 10 minutes, at the second lock there was a 45 minute wait for two commercials coming downstream.  The time was slipping away!  But all the locks ran really smoothly from then and we made up time by pushing up the revs to help us push through the strong current flowing downstream.

Passing close by Orly Airport

4 cygnets

1 gosling

An unusual system for operating the gates at the locks.  As the drum rolls around the gates lift up and lock into position.

We arrived at the last lock with nearly an hour in hand, which could so easily have been whittled away if there had been some commercials taking precedence at the locks.

The weather had deteriorated slowly but surely throughout the day.  Big clouds started building, the wind increased, the temperature decreased, we had a shower of hail and several showers of rain between some sunny spells, and just as we left the last lock a deluge descended from the black bellied clouds overhead so Ian drove from inside for the last couple of kilometres.

We arrived a little before 18.00, tied up very securely (after our experience of being bounced against the dock wall by a wanna-be racing driver in a commercial barge last year), got the electricity plugged in – and the rain stopped.  Still cold though, and getting colder.