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Friday, 7 August 2015

Thursday 6th August 2015 Haudainville to Lacroix. 21.3 kms 5 locks

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”
Below Ambly lock
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
Old tow rope pulley on Ambly lockside
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
Moored on the pontoon in Lacroix
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
And then there were three - and a fisherman
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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