Pont l'Eveque to Pinon

41 kms,7 locks, 6 hours

The skies were grey and leaden this morning, with occasional spits of rain, and a little chilly at 9C.  I bought a loaf of warm bread at the Boulangerie and we left the lovely little port at about 9.00. 

The locks on the Canal Lateral de l’Oise are double locks, side by side, Freycinet gauge 39m x 5m, which means we won’t be seeing any big barges today.

We shared the lock with a Swiss pleasure barge and in the lock alongside going in the opposite direction was a British pleasure barge.  We have not seen many pleasure craft yet so it was quite a surprise to have 3 together.

Parallel double locks

A cute little canalside cottage

The Canal Lateral a l'Oise - stately, peaceful and really just rather nice

Mistletoe in the trees

The Canal Lateral de l’Oise seemed calm and quiet after the Canal du Nord, but that may be because today was Easter Monday.  We passed only 1 commercial barge. 

After 15km we turned off onto the Canal de l’Oise a l’Aisne.  It is a charming narrow windy canal.

A telecommande alongside the map books - we picked it up at the Saint Hubert Lock

The entrance to the Canal de L'Oise a l'Aisne

After pressing the button on the telecommande,waiting for the lock gates to open

Getting to the top - and a very narrow bit ahead

Aha, it is an aqueduct over the Oise River

An old bridge that has seen better days

There are some lovely farms along the canal

Another aqueduct, over the Aillet River

We passed 3 commercial barges.  Surprising, and urm - challenging.

A barge emerged right at a corner so we had to backtrack to give it room 

And it was an old friend "Surfboard" which we have seen in a few times before

At least we heard this one on Ch 10, still had to squeeze into the bushes though

Lovely, isn't it?

It would have been a lock keepers cottage in days gone by, now it is a really quaint home

Once you are in the lock, you need to activate it pushing up the blue pole

Beautiful

We stopped just before the lock at Pinon where there is a small quay with bollards and rings, a grassy sward, picnic tables, rubbish bins (why mention this? Because in Belgium there aren’t any – it is very difficult to get rid of rubbish!) and a Carrefour supermarket right next to the canal.  

Pinon Halte Nautique.  Also please note the new boxes on the stern

Not only a supermarket but a petrol station too!  Happy days.  We hauled out our two 20 litre jerrycans and ambled up to the pumps.  It took us a couple of minutes to work out how to use the automatic pumps by credit card, but hey presto, fuel flowed into the jerrycans.  Then we loaded them into a supermarket trolley and wheeled them back to the boat.  

Yes, we did return the trolley! 

It took an hour and a half to fill the tanks with 120 litres of fuel, and most of that time was siphoning the fuel from the jerry cans into the tank! 

Pont L'Eveque

A restful, lazy day.  We spent some time doing mundane chores (i.e. cleaning) and Ian installed a new light above the galley, then we went for a walk with the camera.  We spent a good few hours route planning for the rest of this voyage, and watched the F1 grand prix.  And that was it, so here are some pics.

The view from our boat

The marina at Pont l'Eveque

The view of Njors from the opposite side of the canal

There is a small boat yard  in this inlet

Another view of the boatyard

The port viewed from the town square

A memorial to Joan of Arc who fought a battle here for control of the bridge over the Oise river.

Someone really loves Volks Wagens

The water level in the river is really high, here the gates of the lock are well under water

An influential area during WW1

Easter Sunday, locks closed, barges lined up waiting for tomorrow

and finally - flowers

Peronne to Pont l'Eveque

47 km, 7 locks (3 going up, 4 going down) and 1 tunnel.
The weather forecast for today was not good: rain and wind.  But with Easter weekend closures tomorrow and having already lost so much time we decided to get moving as far as we could. 

We set off at 8.10 this morning (we could only collect the baguette we ordered yesterday from the capitainerie after 8.00) and just after entering the main canal we ran over a section of debris.  Never desirable but sometimes there is no other option.  1 km later, when manoeuvring to enter a lock, Ian said the controls felt strange, and that there was a vibration from the propeller – something had got wrapped around it when we went through the debris.

We found a place where we could stop, actually a really good place to stop overnight if necessary, emptied out the aft locker above the propeller/rudder and moved all heavy stuff from the aft lockers to the forepeak so we could raise the stern as much as possible.  Then Ian opened up the coffer above the prop examined it.  He discovered some plastic wrapped around it which he had to cut away.  

The offending plastic, tough shrink wrap used for around pallets, etc

After that – no more problems.
The Canal du Nord is really rather pleasant for a busy commercial waterway. 

Wide, lined with trees, and enough curves to keep it interesing

Ramps for animals to climb out.  Unfortunately there are not enough and we see many dead rabbits, hedgehogs,etc.

Getting in the wood for next winter - I am so envious! 

A family of grebes

Fields of rape plants

Waiting for the tunnel

Just over 1km long, you can see all the way through

The locks are all 91m long by 5.8m wide so you do not see the very big commercials here, but there are a lot of "double trouble" barges, each about 40m long. 

A barge called "Ski"

At 17.30 we had tied up at Pont L’ Eveque, where we spent a couple of days last year.  It is free marina, water and electricity are extra. In fact the weather was not that bad, just a sprinkle of rain from time to time and the wind only picked up late in the afternoon. 

So, here we are, an enforced lay-over! It is quite a charming little port and I'll post pictures of it tomorrow.

Marquion to Peronne

A long day - 9 hours, 40 kms, 11 locks, 1 tunnel.
It's late and I'm tired so not too many words today!  This will be a story in pictures.
We left the pontoon at 8.45 and travelled through the next 6 locks, all going up stream, with the peniche, Luxor.  

Ducklings!

Getting prettier and prettier - rape fields

OK, not so pretty, big tractor spraying big fields

Even less pretty and a whole lot more smelly - a barge delivering a load of steaming manure to a methane factory

Much better, the Canal du Nord is a very busy waterway but rather lovely

But in the 6 km stretch to the tunnel, Ruyaulcourt, we left him behind us.

Northern entry to the Ruyaulcourt Tunnel

Long and dark - and cold

Two barges passing in the middle of the tunnel, best my camera could do in low light, and these barges got sucked together with an almighty crashing and scraping

There were another 5 locks taking us down hill to the Somme Valley, which we traversed in the company of another peniche, Veronica.  

One empty barge going lickety-spit and overtaking another laden barge

Most of the locks had a 6 metre or more rise/fall, and the last one was 8m

Wonderful early 20th Century engineering

At 17.45 we tied up in the marina at Peronne. When we stopped here last year it was free, but now it is a pay marina, for our 9m boat it cost us €11.80, including water and free showers, but electricty is an extra €2.50.
Another long day tomorrow - 47 kms, 7 locks and 1 tunnel.  We are in a rush to find a good place to spend a couple of days with inclement weather coming up.

Douai to Marquion

It is 10 days since my last blog. During that time I went to South Africa (my mother died 2 days after I got there, not a happy time) and Ian got to know Douai very well, he even discovered a laundry just 3 blocks from the boat! 

24 kms, 4 locks

Today we resumed our travels, now very much delayed and impossible to get as far as we had planned, but so be it.   We will now be able to spend some quality time investigating a new shorter route.  Route planning is always fun.

We left Douai at 10.30, after a quick dash to the supermarket to buy fresh bread, cheese, salami and a concertina water hose.  We already have one which has proved to be ideal and when we saw that Lidl was getting them in today we just had to get another (for the many occasions when the water tap is just a bit further than your hose can reach!) .  Meanwhile Ian made a quick dash to Aldi in the opposite direction to buy a new light fitting for the galley.   While I was away and he was catering for himself he came to the conclusion that the lighting in the galley was really not very good (I have been mumbling about it for 2 years!) and it really needs a new light.  Hey presto, today Aldi had 12v strip LED lights, with motion (wave of the hand) on/off and dimmer functions.  It cost just €12.99.  At that price he was rather doubtful about the product so bought just one.  This afternoon he fitted it and now is beating himself up for not buying the whole stock!  It is wonderful, the colour is a warm glow and the dimmer function is fantastic.

Ok, enough of that, back to our travels.  Between Douai and Arleux (“The  Garlic Capital of the World”, I kid you not) there are 3 big locks, measuring 144m x 12m, and they are double locks.  At the first lock we went into the left hand basin with 2 commercial barges going upstream and in the lock alongside there were 4 commercials going downstream.   Traffic control anyone? 

Exiting Douai Lock behind 2 commercials

The locks are equipped with floating bollards, the pleasure cruiser’s best friend.

At Arleux we turned onto the Canal du Nord where the locks are a lot smaller, in the region of 90m x 6m. 

Ecluse de Palluel, with a 5m wide barge almost fitting from side to side, and bollards spaced way to far apart for little pleasure cruisers

At the top of Ecluse de Palluel, 6.3m rise, looking back down the Canal du Nord

We tied up at the floating pontoon in Marquion (downstream of Ecluse2) where there is free water.  Ian filled the water tanks with jerry cans (didn’t want to get our new hose dirty) while I cleaned the hull, deck and fenders which got really messy with mud from the locks.

Every fender had smeared mud all over the hull 

Clean again

The rest of the afternoon we watched the entertainment show from the lock just 300m away.  There is a lot of movement of commercial barges on this canal and at times there was a queue 4 barges long, we timed one rotation – 45 minutes.

Njord and in the background a line of barges waiting for the lock

No wonder they are building a new canal alongside this one with bigger locks. 

Cold tonight with wind from the north, about 10C, but Ian is outside braaiing some sausage.

The water point