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| Village of Ambly-sur-Meuse |
13.9°
C Very hot and sunny with a light breeze. Max outside 41.3° C. Set off at
9.15am, waving and shouting au’voir to the kids and their mothers at the camp
by the bridge. We’ll never know where they were from, probably Rom, but they spoke
very good French. A Belgian cruiser was moored under the trees just before lock
17 Haudainville (3.5m). A girl student and an older man were working the lock.
He started shouting (not very politely) to back off as we approached the lock –
they were flushing big clumps of weed through the lock and made sure it had all
gone out of the chamber before he called us in. The little lorry with the grab
arm was parked on the lockside. They closed both gates before taking our ropes
for us which meant that the “feed”
paddle that was left up shoved our bows over
on to the opposite wall. We got the ropes on the bollards, eventually. He
refused to put Mike’s stern rope on the rear most bollard, he said the water
will push the boat back, so Mike flicked the rest of the rope over the bollard
he’d asked for. Yes the boat does go back to start off with, that’s why we have
a rope at the front to stop it, but then it starts to pull forward. No use
telling him. As we left the man’s phone rang and someone must have asked him
where he was
because he answered with “I was helping the girl get the weed out
of the lock” Hmm. Not the lock keeper – showing off in front of the fi-fi? We
left him to it. Above the lock were more huge rolls of weed ready to get sucked
into the lock next time it’s refilled. 4.3kms to the next lock and loads more
weed. The water was very clear and we could see lots of fish again. The D964
was right alongside the canal on the left. Under the A4 Paris motorway and a
sign on the 964 said Lorraine National Park. A man and a woman were there at
Dieue Aval 16 (3.0m). The guy took our ropes first then worked the
lock, the
lady closed a gate and went back in the house. He left the top gates open and
put feed paddles up on the bottom end gates. Very little weed in the next canal
section 1.7kms to Dieue Amont 15 (2.5m) Our first lone student girl worked the
lock for us (they are employed as stand-ins for holidaying lock keepers). She
did it all by the book. In the little town of Dieue there was an Intermarché
supermarket and on either side of the canal above the lock there were two boats
moored, which looked permanent, and nine campervans under the trees along the
quay. One small German cruiser, with two middle aged men on board, was waiting
to go down the lock. 6.4kms to the next lock. Factories lined the bank on the
left for a while. A man was sprawled out on the ground
under the next bridge
(drunk, maybe), he sat up and shouted bonjour as we went past. Immediately
beyond the bridge was a very fragrant sewage works. Spotted too late for a
photo, there was a great cloud of spray as a tractor was going through a
tractor-sized carwash. Never seen one of those before. A bank vole went
swimming across the canal, identified immediately by its auburn coloured fur.
We passed a family fishing in the middle of nowhere (and since Verdun the
towpath had been practically non-existent, washed away by the fast passing
traffic, no fancy tarmac cycle pistes here) then we spotted their van behind
them at the end of a farm track. This length of canal was nice and shady, wild
and jungly, with occasional views to the right across the river valley. The
lock keeper at Ambly 14 (2.7m) had a young man as an apprentice and he had
taught him very well, ropes gates and then paddles in the right order and the
lock was full in no time. The lock house was lovely, lots of flowers and a sign
advertising honey for sale at 5€ a jar. 2.8kms to the next. The first field of
sunflowers that we’d seen this year appeared on the right, the flower heads
were all bent low in the heat. A Belgian-flagged former Connoisseur hireboat
came towards us. He wanted the middle, I was steering – he didn’t get it. I
detest it when someone aims their bows at ours expecting us to move over, I’ll
give anyone half the middle – but not all of it (unless they need it - like a
péniche, but we’ve seen none of them since Pont-à-Bar) Mike said the skipper
didn’t look very happy. Am I bovvered? Shouldn’t be so pushy. We’d passed with
several feet to spare. Yellow fields with rolls of straw and meadows baking in
the sun, grass all turning to yellow. At the next and last lock of the day,
Troyon 13 (2.5m) there was another young student girl to work the lock. All on
her own with no help. The house was occupied and there were sun loungers
outside but no one about. The girl’s car was by the old lock cabin and she had
a seat outside for sunbathing or maybe studying. She spoke reasonable English
to Mike when he opened a gate for her. The canal above was weedy again and the
water clear so we could see fish darting. 5.4kms to the next but we were
stopping before the next lock. The towpath had been built up at one time with
gabions, rocks in wire cages, and one or two of them were left standing
isolated on shallow shelving sandy beaches. An old man was fishing, he waved
and said our boat was very quiet. Wondered how he had got there until we saw
the quadbike parked behind him. Just one large French cruiser (called Daisy) was
moored at the end of the long pontoon at Lacroix. We moored in front of him
leaving the rest of the pontoon for other boats. (A downhill boat arrived later
and moored at the far end later). Gave Mike a hand with the bike, tricky on a
pontoon that is narrower than the length of our plank. Had an audience, the French
couple off the boat behind us, who were sitting in seats under the trees. Mike
went to collect the car from Vacherauville then we went to St Mihiel where
there is a Carrefour Market and I got some bread and he bought some petrol and
diesel in cans. Back on the boat, I finished off the log and did the photos, no
Internet so no blogging.
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| Below Ambly lock |
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| Old tow rope pulley on Ambly lockside |
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| Moored on the pontoon in Lacroix |
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| And then there were three - and a fisherman |
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