Saturday 9th May 2015 Longpré-les-Corps-Saints to Samara. 16.6 kms 2 locks

An old photo from 1996 showing how the staircase locks used to be
on the canalised Somme, with sloping sided turf lock bottom chambers.
This one was taken at Pont Remy lock

12.4° C Sunny at first, then then lots of clouds, but only a short spell of very light rain later. A white cruiser went past heading uphill around 10 am. Before we set off I phoned the lady to book the next lock for 11.45 am and we set off, heading upstream against the strong flow again, at 10.30 am. A large sign on the towpath proclaimed that the section of cycle path from Etoile to Picquiny had been funded to the tune of 920,000€ as a joint venture between Somme and Picardie. That’s for 12kms of tarmac. Three lady joggers jogged past and came jogging back again ten minutes later. A lone fisherman was trawling his livebait along the towpath side, fishing

Below Labreilloire
(pix taken coming downriver - lost the ones going up!)

for pike or zander. Another fisherman was hidden from view between trees on our right, he was sitting in a new type of floating seat for fishermen with his legs dangling in the water. At the end of the village of Etoile there is an old high concrete quay next to a factory that looked mostly unused, the quay had been derelict a long time. A sandpiper flew off in front and the warblers were singing loudly again. Madame phoned us at 11 am, she said the lock keeper was at the lock and wanted to know where we were. We told her we would be there

Below Picquiny.
(pix taken coming downriver - lost the ones going up!)

when we said - at 11.45 am. When we got to the lock, Labreilloire 21, there was no one there. It was 11.45 am. I rang her and said there was no sign of an orange van. She said she would ring the team, but doubted she could get anyone now before lunch! We moored in the slack water in the short lock cut right next to the lock gates. She rang back and Mike answered the phone – he wasn’t very happy – she said it would be after 1.30 pm and he gave the phone to me and I told her he was annoyed that no one was there to work the lock as promised. She said she would call the team again. At midday the orange van turned up with the same lad who had worked the locks for us the day before. He said he hadn’t had a call from the lady controller until just now. OK, at least he’d arrived now and we didn’t have to waste

A contented Daisy. At Samara

an hour and a half before continuing upriver. The single lock was full (we thought it had been empty as there was no water at all leaking through the bottom end gates) so he emptied it and we went up another 2.5m. The lady at the lock house was having a delivery of logs. One of her cats (there were at least two others by the lock house) was making a big fuss, first with me while we were waiting for the lock keeper and then with Graham in the lock and was trying to become a stowaway on MR. On to the 3kms weedy canal section at 12.30 pm. When we got to the end of the canal section, Mike had to do a hard reverse to get the stuff off the prop and release the wedge of blanket weed that was wrapped around the stem post at the bows – shades of UK boating. Graham did the same to rid MR of the clinging weed. 2kms before lock 20 Picquiny I phoned Madame again to

Our moorings at Samara

inform her that we would be at the lock in about twenty minutes. A few minutes later our keeper was driving down the towpath towards us in his orange van – looking for us? Noted he was on the phone. He turned round and went back to the lock. We keep telling them that our boats are not like the little cruisers and hireboats that they’re used to, that zap along at 10 to 12kph! (We only do about 7kph normally and the flow is reducing that to 4 to 5kph) The weir below the lock was flowing very hard across the canal from our right. Mike went to the right so that it didn’t throw us into the left hand wall, a bit too far

MR moored at Samara

right and we were listing hard to the right as the strong current caught us, not for long as he increased power and shoved the tiller hard over as we headed sharply for the left bank. A fisherman sitting on the left bank looked on, astonished at the power of the water and our antics! Graham was following, so he didn’t go quite so close to the right and didn’t list as much as we did. Into the top chamber of the lock and the lad took Jill’s rope. Mike got on our roof and put a fore end line round a bollard for me. I couldn’t see where the bollards were and there were no painted markers on the edge of the lock wall. Soon up another 2.30m. The keeper had already told us there was a boat on the mooring above the lock - there would have been space for us to moor beyond the cruiser, called Dolfyn, but we carried on to moor a couple of kilometres further upstream again at Samara by the park. MR moored on the pontoon so they could get the dogs off easily and we tied up as before by the wooden landing stages with our bows on the end of the pontoon and a pole to keep the boat off the bottom. Mike and Graham went back to Abbèville to collect our car. The towpath was very busy with cyclists and walkers.

Sorry folks! I accidentally deleted all the photos we took today so I've had to improvise with an old one from 1996 and ones taken coming downriver, plus Mike retook ones of this scenic mooring in the woods close to the old Roman Camp. There are golden orioles in the woods here, we can hear them singing, but frustratingly we can't see them...