Wednesday 13th May 2015 KP88 to Corbie. 12.5kms 3 locks

Starch factory Roquette at Daours.
click here for more info on the Roquette factory and its produce

3° C Sunny and warm. The boat behind us, Casey May Too, left at 9.15am heading uphill the same as us. I phoned the booking office at 9.30am and a pleasant young man replied and confirmed that there would be a lock keeper at Lamotte for us at 10.15am.  At 9.45am we set off again, heading upriver following MR around all the twists and turns of the Somme and arrived right on time at lock 16 - our lock keeper had the gates open ready for us. Work was going on apace at the old lock house turning it into a hire base for canoes, kayaks and bike for the Somme bureau de tourisme. Only a shallow lock of 1.3m, so we were soon on our way again. 4.5kms of fast flowing water, swirling around many bends up to Daours

I told him Graham says he wants one!
Found the float tube online and its looks pretty good value to me!

lock 15. Going upriver we had more time to notice the extent of the factory that produces potato starch – it was very large and modern and, unlike a lot of the rest of the local industry, still hard at work. Lock 15 was not ready for us yet and the cruiser Casey May Too was waiting below the lock. Looks like we’ve been “grouped” by our friendly lock keeper. He might just as well work the lock once with all three of us together, there was enough room, just. The cruiser went right to the front of the chamber with the two narrowboats behind it. Slowly the lock filled, 3.20m rise. Our lock

Not much space left in this lock chamber. Corbie

keeper said he would work the lock for us at Corbie rather than go off to his lunch, which we thought was very generous of him, especially as a French cruiser appeared below the lock just before we left. On the next reach Mike changed gas bottles as one had expired when I went in to make a cuppa before the last lock, so I steered round all the z-bends between Daours and Aubigny. The keeper had told Graham that there were no bollards on the left side of the next lock, so we said if MR went on the right we would tie alongside. Again, we rose gently 2.80m and I hung on to MR’s stern line while Graham gave our star lock keeper some beer and a bar of chocolate (from his stash of Cadbury’s) to say thanks. The lad stayed and worked the lock again for the little French speedboat as well. The

Attention! Chefs at work. BBQ at Corbie.

skipper from the speedboat told us that he was doing a round trip from Paris back to Paris; he’d come all the way down the Seine, along the coast and back into the waterways system at St Valèry and up the Somme, and then he would continue down the canal du Nord and the river Oise back to the city. DB Aslaug was moored on the quay immediately above the lock, but there was space for us on the quay by the campsite (which has water and electricity, four hours for 2€ in the slot) so we followed the big cruiser, who was only staying for lunch, and moored beyond two Belgian cruisers, with the little DB Vagabond at the far end of the quay. We had some lunch then Mike and Graham went to fetch the car from Samara. When they returned we did a BBQ in the pleasant sunshine and used Mike’s concrete workbench for its intended use as a picnic table.