Friday 31st July 2015 Mouzay to Vilosnes-Haraumont 18.7kms 4 locks

Bird of prey scouting for dinner from the air.

2.9° C. Misty after a really chilly night (dropped down to 12.9° C in the cabin – normally we light the CH at 15° C!) Sunny and breezy, getting warmer again. Mike said he saw a buzzard in the field below the canal first thing. We winded and set off at 9.00am heading up the canal. 3.4kms to the first lock. Saw the first fisherman of the day at the big winding hole where the D964 road starts its 5kms run right alongside the left bank of the canal. Up 2.6m at lock 29 Sep where the house was lived in and recently renovated. A big

And one scouting for dinner from a hay bale.

Dutch cruiser went past heading downhill. Fairly flat fields on our right extended three of four kilometres to the base of the forested low hills. Paused for a Dutch cruiser to come through the bridge at the next floodgates and we went through before the next downhill boat, a small Belgian boat. Mike moved over in the bridge hole as there was enough room to pass but the cruiser hung back until we’d cleared. Beyond the flood gates there was a big needle weir to out right with an empty barragiste’s house and a huge walnut tree, full of nuts but not ready for

Above Dun-sur-Meuse lock

picking yet. Back on a river section, there were four fishermen fishing by the base of a long demolished railway bridge. Wooded hills were now on our left and at the site of the next remains of a railway bridge there were the moorings belonging to Meuse Nautique where there was one small private cruiser, three little boats for hire and a trip boat moored. Just upriver of that there were more fishermen and a tethered floating fishing hut (not seen any of these in France apart from on the Somme) On the left bank there was a row of ten dead

Our first lock keepers, lock 27 Warinvaux

trees, we wondered what had caused that, a tree disease of some kind perhaps? As we neared Dun-sur-Meuse there were summer houses of various types, chalets, bungalows, caravans and tents, each on their own garden plot on the big bend before the town. On the pontoon mooring there was just one moored cruiser, but four campervans were parked next to it for the facilities. Zapped the last (for a while) automatic lock, 28 Dun, and went up 2.35m. Although located in the town, I think the

Which turned out to be a school for student lock keepers, eight of them.

lock house was uninhabited. Beyond the lock there was a big silo (whose loading quay looked unused) on the left and a very large campsite in among the trees on the right. 1.7kms to the next lock, the first of the seventeen manually operated ones, 27 Warinvaux ( 2.7m). It was empty, ready for us with both gates open. A sandy haired VNF man in a blue teeshirt came and took my centre rope loop and put it on a bollard for me. Two young student girls wound the bottom

And the next one, 26 Liny, had a charming
resident lady keeper

gates closed and then wound up the top end gate paddles, all under supervision of the VNF keeper. Meanwhile a row of other students were seated on a long bench watching. We got a lock keeper school! All worked extremely well, better than we expected. Another pound of 1.7kms and our next lock Liny 26 (1.80m) was ready for us with one gate open. Fully expecting the students to have gone off to lunch, we went into the lock expecting to have to wait, but instead we found a lovely chatty resident lady lock keeper who immediately said she loved our boat. Thank you, so do we! Told her it had been nine years since we were last there. I threw the centre rope over a bollard and she worked the lock, opening

Getting the corn in

just one gate for us to leave. Great, the keepers here know about narrowboats! Mike told her we would be stopping before the next lock at the flood gates in Vilosnes. OK. Her two daughters arrived for lunch as we left at midday. Bon appetit! It was about 5kms to our stopping place and after a couple of kilometres the river came into view again between the trees well below the canal on our right. We saw a honey buzzard and a black kite on this canal section and a combined harvester working in a big field of wheat above us to our left, creating great clouds of dust (bet he has an air-conditioned

An unexpected pontoon mooring at Vilosnes

cab!) The top of the church spire at Vilosnes was visible over the crest of the hill as we came into the village. All along the left hand bank were more chalets and caravans on little plots, many of them with little fishing boats moored on the canal banks in front of them. We continued round the bend, more chalets, and high trees on the right blocking the view to the satellite. Through a newly refurbished flood lock and spotted a new 20m long pontoon, ideal for us. We moored so that we could put the plank on the gangway to the bank for stability when getting the bike off the roof; tied up, set up the solar panels and TV and then had some lunch. Got the bike off and Mike went to collect the car from Pont-à-Bar. I got on with the log. One disadvantage of the mooring – no internet. One of the hireboats from Meuse Nautique went past around 4pm, most likely on its way back to base.