Tuesday 12th May 2015 Samara to KP88 by the N25. 19.4kms 3 locks

Heron hiding in a tree

13° C Overcast start, sunny spells with loads of clouds, breezy and cooler. Mike went early by car to get bread from the boulangerie in Picquigny. The man in an orange van arrived at 9.15 am wanting to know what time we were going, Mike told him we’d be at the next lock at 10.15am. We set off at 9.35am. Jill walked the dog and we followed MR along the 4kms of winding bends to the first lock, 19 Ailly. Through the lower chamber and into the top one. Jill was waiting on the lockside having beaten us by a good ten minutes and took Graham’s ropes. The control panel was on our side of the chamber so the lock keeper took our ropes and put them round the bollards for us. Up 1.9m with no problems. DB Aslaug was moored above the lock and we said hello to Bente and Kurt as we passed them on the long (for the Somme) lock cut. 4.75kms to the next and more winding bends with the river still flowing at about 4kph. A group of quite elderly male joggers went past, all waving and smiling. The average age must have been about seventy, the French do take their keep fit seriously around here. Just before lock 18 Montières I took a photo of a lovely old barn with

Leaving Ailly lock

half its roof caved in - there are so many derelict and disused buildings around here in want of some TLC. A new keeper was at the lock ready to take MR’s ropes as the “pupitre” (as they call the lectern type control panels) was on their side this time. Mike climbed up on our cabin roof to throw ropes round bollards. This one takes quite a time to fill as it’s 2.50m deep and the two chambers have to be filled as the centre gates were taken out when the put a new road bridge across the chamber. Another long lock cut as we headed into the outskirts of the city of Amiens. We’d

Why did only half the roof collapse?

told the last lock keeper that we’d be at Amiens lock 17 between 1.30 and 1.45pm, so we stopped for lunch just before the weir at a nice little quay with bollards. MR went alongside the bank and disturbed a fisherman, who was very pleasant about it so we gave him a couple of beers. Lunch. Set off again at 1.10pm and found the flow rate less than before so we arrived early by 5 minutes at the lock. MR came alongside and we attached to a bent and battered bollard, being very careful as there was an equally battered concrete sewage pipe that stuck out from the quay above the level of

School of Engineering. Amiens

gunnels at just about the right height to take out a window. The keeper emptied the lock at 1.30pm and we went in and he took all our ropes as this lock is the deepest on the river at 4.40m deep with no recessed bollards in the wall and no ladders. Good fun. He filled it fairly slowly so, again, no problems. On through the city, passing the quay d’amont, where there was one moored British boat called Casey May Too, more FB friends of Jill's - they followed on later to moor

Beautifully decorated house in Amiens

at the same place as us. We carried on to the little quay upstream of the N25 motorway ringroad around Amiens, and tied to the end of the quay, leaving the rest of the quay for MR so that the dogs and cat could get on and off as they wished as it’s an ideal spot for them, no roads or houses and nice and quiet for the humans too.

A quiet mooring by the motorway