Friday 24th April 2015 Cappy to Corbie. 11.4kms 1 lock

WWI monument. British soldier and his wounded horse. Chipilly

3.5° C Sunny and calm with no wind to start with, a gentle breeze later. There was a heavy dew overnight, so the outside of the boat was streaming with water. Mike and Graham did the car moving and I called the booking office to tell them we were moving on to Corbie and asked if we could have a lock keeper for 10.30am. No problems. Two waterways workmen in a large open punt, powered by a big outboard motor, went past us heading upriver to do some more bank trimming as we were getting

Lock 13 Sailly. Canal de la Somme

ready to move. We set off upriver a bit to wind, then continued down river at 10.00am. Round the first left hand bend and the village of Cerisy was spread out along the left bank with lots of shuttered holiday homes. A long straight section of canalised river lead to our one and only lock of the day, lock 13 Sailly. As promised, there was a man with an orange van there ready to operate the lock for us. This time there was a lectern-type control panel halfway down the lockside. A French couple with a

Inscription in lock wall at Sailly. Canal de la Somme

campervan had stopped to watch us come through the lock and they asked the usual questions; where were we from, how did we get the boat here, how long had we been here, etc, etc. The water emptied and dropped us down another 3.20m. A couple of bends, followed by another long straight section with a row of low hills in the far distance. A large cruiser was coming towards us, the crew waving. Graham said on VHF that they’d asked him how his back

Old wooden wagon - note wooden wheel. Near Vaire-sur-Somme.

was!! He went to see an osteopath in Cappy - it must be her uncle, she said he had a boat there! What a small world. Mike took photos of an unusual wooden fisherman’s cabin near Vaire, it must have been a road wagon at some time in its past as it still had wooden wheels. Just after that we passed a big farm with a farmhouse that must have once been a very grand affair, now it was surrounded with farm buildings and a smell hit us that Mike said must be a piggery, but it reminded me of a maggot factory in East Anglia. Phew,

Moored at Corbie. Canal de la Somme.

what a stink, we were very glad we weren’t having any lunch. Lots more sweeping bends through woodland, with bright green new leaves bursting forth everywhere. A lone sandpiper flew in front of us for a while. Coots hid in the bankside vegetation. Near a weir by the village of Hamelet, a coypu swam across until it saw us, then it continued crossing the canal underwater, out of sight except for several surfacings for air. We arrived at Corbie at 12.15 pm. We were heading down to the moorings by the lock, but the boat belonging to Jill’s friend from Facebook was moored by the campsite on the right so they stopped and we reversed back to join them. Not long after we’d tied up a hotel boat, called La Belle Epoche, went past heading for the moorings above the lock.