Thursday 13th August 2015 Naix to Tronville. 15.1kms 13 locks

VNF eco(nomy) version of bank protection

18.3°C Hazy sunshine, hot and muggy. Clouding over around 2pm, thunderstorms due. (Max over 35°C again) It was already over 25°C in the cabin when we winded and set off at 9.15am continuing the journey down the canal. Mike had been to have a word with the lock controller via the intercom and lock 15 Naix (2.60m) was ready for us. (All the first seventeen locks are chained) Down the lock with water thundering over the top end gates behind us. Not long before we were at lock 16 Nantois (2.61m) passing a

Menaucourt and a new fenced path on the aqueduct

long field full of maize. A VNF team of two men and a woman, dressed in waders, were busy placing some woven hessian along the bank, with a digger and a lorry with a grab arm on the lock side ready to do some bank protection back-filling. Down lock 16 and on to lock 17 Menaucourt (2.40m). There was another short aqueduct before the lock and a fenced path had been added over the top of the hydraulics. This lock should have been the last of the automatics according to our old Navicarte canal guide. We went

A mural on a bungalow

under two bridges, rail and road, close together, with two sets of detector sensors. Next lock should be ready then. Nope. There was a telecommand post to zap and we had no zapper – the VNF collected it when we turned on to this canal. We thought we might have missed a dispenser on the last lock, so we went back, which was fun, the boat was too long to turn by lock 18, so Mike reversed to a wider bit then swung it round. It would be on one of the “long” pounds (1.5kms) Set the sensors off as we tied to the railings under the railway bridge and lock 17 got itself ready for us to go back up it. Mike walked back to the lock (nowhere to get off closer to the lock) and searched for a box. Nothing. So he called the controller. Explained we had no telecommand and he’d need

Modern lock cabin 

to reset 17. He said OK. We wondered what next? I fully expected after the man on a bike through the tunnel to have someone on a moped with a zapper doing them for us! A young man on a moped did appear as we returned to lock 18 Longeaux. He had set the lock for us but it started to close (we took too long maybe) so he had to dash into the posh new lock cabin to override it. He handed us a zapper. We had the feeling that he should have handed it to us at the last lock, but either he forgot or hadn't turned up in time. Never mind, we’re on our way again. Dropped down 18 with the lad watching. The old lock house’s doors and windows were all bricked up. There was a lock keeper and his family living in that lock house last time we were here, he worked the lock for us. The scenery was changing as the valley opened up and the pounds were straighter. We had a metalled track on our left and two cyclists went past on it. Lock 19 Givrauval (2.23m) had retained its lock house and it was lived in as there was a busy little village of the same name right by the canal. Below the lock there was a floating pontoon about 20m long for visitors to tie up. No one there. On to lock 20 Grèves (2.40m) back into open fields, the house hadn't survived. Lock 21 Gainval (2.37m) still had its house, but not sure if it was lived in. On into the town of Ligny-en-Barrois, passing the back of the Carrefour Market (there appeared to be no access from the canal, when we went shopping by car later we spotted a track) and down lock 22 Ligny (2.59m). We were busy checking out the basin where Matilda

Moored boats and campervans at Ligny

Rose moored for part of last winter and managed to miss the zapper post. We carried on to lock 23 Villeroncourt (2.62m) searching for the post. Reversed back towards the basin as a young lady on a moped arrived. Saw that the post opposite the basin was actually two in one, posts back-to-back and it was by a moored VNF tug. We’d dismissed it as being the post for going uphill. Meanwhile the girl had got the lock ready for us. She had trouble with our French. Never seen two command posts together like that. Smiles, bet she’s thinking silly old fools. I asked if they ever had commercials now. Nope and, by all accounts, precious few bateaux de plaisance either. We’d seen nothing all day. The next post was the same, two together. Down lock 24 Maulan (2.60m) with lots of water over the top end gates so Mike put a stern rope on to save keep reversing. Again there was a shuttered lock house, but not sure if it was lived in. A VNF man in a van went down the towpath and waved. Lock 25 Velaines (2.61m) wasn’t full, which we thought was strange. There was a smart house alongside it. Had a short wait while it filled and the gates opened.

Moored among the water lilies at Tronville

Water pouring over the top end gates as usual. No signs of any other boats moving. There was a family fishing by an old engine shed and the right bank was full of factories. Down lock 26 Nançois-le-Petit (2.62m) and 27 Chessard (2.60m) neither had lock houses, they’d vanished. Our chosen mooring at Tronville was just a short distance. There was a good quay with bollards just after a winding hole full of water lilies where two young boys were fishing. Winded and tied up opposite a caravan under an open fronted shed. The little boys moved their bike to the end of the quay and fished in front of the boat. A young couple turned up and went swimming in the canal by the road bridge behind us. Got the bike off and Mike hurried off to get the car before the thunderstorms arrived, we could already hear distant rumblings. He managed to get back with the car without seeing any rain. Later we saw flashes of lightening to the South and we had some rain, but not for long.