Wednesday 22nd April 201 Cappy to Chipilly. 12.3kms 3 locks

Riverside bungalow

5.3° C Sunny but with a cold wind blowing. Mike and Graham moved the cars. I made a start on the blog while they were away. Mike had put the antenna for the Internet on top of the mast so I got a better link, but not that good. When they returned at 9 am I was still uploading photos, very, very slowly. Gave up and got ready for moving. At 9.30 am a cruiser that had been moored down by the Locaboat base left heading downriver. I phoned the booking office and they said OK someone would be there for us at ten. Mike hauled the pole in (the water level had gone down a touch overnight, we were

Building a hire base at Froissy lock

on the bottom and listing slightly even with the pole out) and we went down to the former hire base, winded, then emptied our rubbish bin. Shame the rest of the facilities (water and electricity, were all switched off. There were several orange vans around and the keeper we had last time said good morning as we went through the new modern liftbridge in Cappy. A long line of vehicles on the D1 both sides of the bridge were kept waiting while we went through. Just around the bend was Cappy

All mod cons hunting hide

lock 10, which was ready for us. I asked if there was still a tap for drinking water at the next lock. No, nothing now until Corbie. Made a cuppa on the 2 kms pound to lock 11 Froissy. A large new modern museum with a long concrete quay had been built just before the lock. Must check to see if that will be open on our return. There was a new lock keeper to greet us at the next lock. I asked if the new building under construction on the lockside was to be a new lock house – no, it was to be a hire base for canoes, kayaks and bikes with a small restaurant plus showers and toilets. He said there would be water available too. Mike took a photo of the roof tilers at work and

Derelict lock house at Mericourt

told them that his brother-in-law was a roof tiler too, but in England. Froissy was a deep lock 3.30m down. Below Froissy there was 6kms of winding river-fed channel to the next lock; the river joined the canal from our right and we noted that there was a sign now indicating that there was a Port at Bray back up the river. But our old chart marks the river channel as having no access. Must have a look at that by road. The wind was blowing harder and cold as we went past the little town of Etinhem, visible through the trees on the far side of another large lake on our right. The river

Moored at Chipilly

thundered over a large weir on a left hand bend just before lock 12 Méricourt. The same keeper was there and this lock had no new cabin so he had to open a control panel at the top end to close the gates and paddles and another at the tail end to open the lower end paddles and gates. There was a fairly modern lock house to the right of the lock chamber, but it was derelict with all its doors and windows boarded up. A couple more kilometres of canal wound through open farmland with the village of Méricourt on our left with golden yellow fields of colza, glistening in the sunshine on the low hills beyond. Our waterways crew had moved the workboat that had been on the quay in Chipilly this morning when Mike and Graham left a car there – we’d been planning to breast up and move it ourselves – that saves us having to move it and move it back again. That was nice of them. It was 12.45 pm when we tied up. Lunch, then the men went to retrieve the car.