Poppy Country

The weather wasn't great as we entered the Somme Canal from the Canal du Nord but it was a relief to get off the busy commercial waterway. We soon realised that we were lucky to have made it here when news started to come through of the floods in Paris and further south. Canal breaches and rivers in flood meant many boats were stranded, friends in our marina at Saint Jean were to be unable to leave for a few weeks so our early start this year had paid off.

    Not just fair weather boaters! 

We spent the first night moored at Cappy which was a bit disappointing. The hire boat base had closed and with it most of the local businesses. So next morning we moved on to Corbie, a much livelier town with a large supermarket to restock the cupboards and a market on Friday morning. It also had a pretty impressive town hall.

A fair bit of socialising was done at Corbie. We met Aussies Mark and Georgie on bateau Parce Que who were great fun. Terry from Renaissance, with whom we were still travelling, treated us all to one of his special chicken curries served up on the back of our boat and Georgie provided the 'wickedness' (their term for all the little treats they have from the boulangeries!). 

After the Friday morning market we moved on to Amiens, the capital of this region. The lock keepers seemed surprised that we were happy to go into the locks with Renaissance as we just about filled them, but by now we had got it down to a fine art and just slotted in together like two pieces of a jigsaw. Only one tense moment when the skipper got distracted by a plaque in the lock commemorating its rebuilding by the Royal Engineers after the British destroyed it in WW1.

The Somme is a very picturesque, winding river, canalised in parts, which flows steadily down to the sea at Saint Valery on the Bay of the Somme. But due to the recent heavy rain the flow was running at more like 6 or 7 km per hour which is nearly our cruising speed so the engine was barely ticking over and we were doing 8 or 9 km an hour. There were also some strong swirling currents and some tight bends to negotiate. Once they got used to it the two skippers quite enjoyed the experience, 'slaloming' round the twists and turns of the river, talking to each other over the VHF radio. 

We had to abort our attempt to moor on the town quay in Amiens as the flow was too great to allow us to turn (something we later came to be grateful for). We went for plan B, going through one more lock and moored a bit further out from the city centre. Next morning, Aussies Mark and Georgie came round having seen us steaming past them at the town quay. They had been kept awake until 5am by noisy revellers at the English Pub opposite! 

Amiens is lovely city though. It's Cathedral is a Unesco World Heritage site, the largest gothic building in France. The photo does not do it justice, nor does the frontage show it's length of 145 metres. Notre  Dame in Paris could fit inside it twice over.

Beautiful by day but even more stunning at night. From mid June to September a sound and light show breathes life once more into the saints, apostles and other figures studding the cathedral, through the projection of high definition digital images. It was magnifique!

Cruising into Amiens we had passed the ''Hortillonages'', floating gardens separated by little canals, cultivated since the Middle Ages. We were lucky enough to be around for the once a year event of recreating the tradition of bringing the produce down by boat to the centre of Amiens and selling it from the quay. It was a great atmosphere on a sunny Sunday morning, the quays were packed with onlookers all clapping as the boats came in. The French do these traditional festivals so well.

This is the medieval waterside district of Saint Leu, the historic heart of the city and also Amien's nightlife. Where there used to be millers, weavers, tanners and the like there are now restaurants and bars, antique, book and craft shops. So much choice for lunch.

We left Amiens, travelled 9 km and 1 lock to Ailly-sur-Somme and 3 weeks later we are still here! We travelled back to the UK for granddaughter Harriet's christening, hoping to move on down to the coast when we got back. But the river levels were still high and fast and it was closed further down until the situation improved. With a family visit due soon we decided to wait it out here until they arrive. It's a nice little town with everything we need a few minutes walk away.  We have had plenty of good company. It was great spending time with the two Terry's again, lots of laughs. they have now left us to head for Belgium. James and Linda came to visit us in their camper van and we have just had a great weekend with Roger and Margaret (Phoenix). The Somme cycle path is on our doorstep (handy for working off the delights of the excellent boulangerie), and we have the car to get out and about and visit the surrounding area.

Chris got a bit excited when 4 brand new Chevrolet Camaros turned up for a promotional photo shoot and even took some shots with the red one next to our boat, matching colour scheme! 

Half an hour from here and we are in the thick of the First World War arena. This Friday, 1st July, marks the centenary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme. People from all over the world are heading here to commemorate. Over twenty nationalities fought at the Somme. The countryside bears constant reminders of the slaughter and sacrifices made, remains of trenches, mine craters and so many cemeteries and memorials. The memory is being kept alive of the terrible waste of life in every corner of the area. On that single day, 1st July 1916, almost 60,000 men were killed, wounded or missing, most of them young, inexperienced volunteers, many of whom still lie under the battlefield. They were told it was safe to go over the top because all enemy opposition would have been destroyed. They were wrong, and men were cut down in their thousands, many on the uncut wire they had been assured would be destroyed. 

Nothing prepares you for the scale of this mine crater as you peer over the rim, 91 metres diameter and 21 metres in depth. Several mines were blown just minutes before the men were ordered over the top, the intention to destroy parts of the German front line. This crater is the property of an Englishman who bought it in 1978 and it is the only one open to the public. A third of all the ordinance fired during the battle is still said to be live buried in the ground. Some of the farmers use armour plated tractors!

Wandering around the site at Beaumont-Hamel, the Newfoundland Memorial, is one of the most moving experiences.  Although now grassed over, the preserved trenches, shell craters and the steel pickets which held the barbed wire still sticking out of the ground, all evoke images of the battlefield. On the morning of 1st July 660 men from the Newfoundland regiments died in the first 20 minutes after going over the top, leaving just 68 unscathed.

The memorial with its crowning bronze caribou statue, emblem of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, now looks out over the battlefield towards the German lines.

The famous statue of the British soldier comforting his injured horse at Chippilly

Old British vehicles have been arriving for the centenary weekend

We are only 60km upstream of the coast at Saint Valery on the Bay of the Somme. Now that conditions have settled down we hope to head towards it next week. There is a mooring on the canal side just before the sea lock. We took a trip by car to check the mooring out and have a wander around. Looking forward to spending some time there.

Feels a bit like Cornwall with its narrow streets of pretty fishermens cottages

Cars, boats and trains

I have a bit of catching up to do on the blog as we have travelled some distance in the past three weeks since leaving Langres and have today arrived on the Canal de la Somme. That's some going by boating standards especially as we had a 9 night stop during which I returned to the UK.

After leaving Langres we continued on up the Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne cruising every day apart from a 2 night stop at Joinville where we had arranged to meet up with friends Daphne and Ian on their way back to Saint Jean. Lovely to catch up with these two intrepid travellers and hear their tales of a winter in Mexico.

It was downhill all the way in the locks so very easy and quick. We had the canal virtually to ourselves, very few boats around. People seemed pleased to see a pleasure boat passing through again though and we had lots of tooting and waving. One morning a British registered Morgan and an Aston Martin travelling together stopped and waved on a bridge as we were passing underneath it. 

We moored at picturesque Froncles for one night where I had my first and hopefully last boating injury of the season. There had been a shower as we were coming in to moor and I hadn't realised how slippery a wooden pontoon is when wet and banged my shin hard. Ouch. I have had several shades of bruising from my ankle to my knee. 

The locks at the upstream end of this canal are renowned for being full to the top but some of them were overflowing. It makes life difficult as the fenders protecting the hull become ineffective.

How about this saucy pair spotted at one of the lock houses? 

Our progress was slowed one morning when the lock keeper told us after only 2 hours on the move that we had to stop at Saint Dizier as the lock there was blocked and was unlikely to be reopened that day. We moored up to see police and pompiers ( fire fighters) at the lock. They take pollution very seriously on the waterways here and it appeared that fuel oil had been found in the water. It's not everyday you see two specimens like these in a lock! 

We got on our way again next morning, left the Champagne et Bourgogne canal and got onto the Canal Lateral a La Marne, reaching Chalons en Champagne in time for our 36th wedding anniversary. After consulting Tripadvisor we decided on Les Sarments for a celebratory meal. It turned out to be a good choice as it was full even on a Tuesday evening. My dessert, the ' specialite de la maison', a Grand Marnier soufflé, was out of this world, cooked from scratch so a 20 minute wait but worth every minute.

I then left Chris to his own devices for a few days in Chalons and headed off to the UK to visit family for a long weekend including 2 family members visiting from Canada. I was able to get the train from Chalons, a five minute walk from the boat, to Paris, then the eurostar from Paris to Saint Pancras London, tube to Waterloo and then a train to within 3 miles of my daughter's house. Whilst I was gone Chris went back by train to Auxonne where we had left our car at the start of cruising, then drove to the Somme, parked the car up and returned by train, via Paris, meeting me at Gard du Nord,  then we got a train back to Chalons together. Took some planning but not as daunting as it sounds and all went smoothly.

Taken from our mooring at Chalons, sunlight in a moody sky

After 9 nights moored in Chalons we set off early next day for Sillery, just outside Reims. We had arranged to meet old friends affectionately known as the two Terry's and Gladys (the dog!). 3 years ago, when we were real babes in the water, they had been our saviours, holding our hands and teaching us the ropes, literally, of cruising in France. Although we have kept in touch via email and blogs we had not seen them since that first year in 2013. Within 5 minutes of mooring up we were having a drink together on the back of John and Martha's lovely old tjalk, never having met John and Martha before.

This is one of the things we love most about boating out here, you meet new people, wave goodbye, sooner or later you meet up again and are instantly like old friends. Being on the waterways is being part of a community and owning a boat gives you automatic membership. 

We had a day off cruising the next day, caught up with some laundry then spent a very pleasant afternoon playing boules together followed by drinks and nibbles back on our boat. John gave us a real treat when he fetched his guitar and entertained us with a few songs.

On  Friday morning we set off just after 7am behind the Terry's on Renaissance to cruise to the Canal de la Somme together. We cruised through the city of Reims which unfortunately we have not had time to explore, will have to wait until our trip back down next year. The next 3 days were the longest cruising days we have done, but we were heading for large commercial waterways which you do not want to hang around on for too long. We were also in a hurry to get through the tunnel at Braye which we knew was closing on Monday for 3 weeks for maintenance and would have meant a slightly longer journey on busier canals.

Waiting for a commercial barge to exit before entering the 2.4 km Braye tunnel.

 

It was good to be travelling with another boat, relaying messages over the radio of other boats or navigational hazards approaching. When we entered the Canal du Nord it was like going from country lanes in Devon to the M25! 

Like a country lane on the Canal de l'Oise a L'Aisne

Playing with the big boys on the Canal du Nord

Fortunately we were able to lock through together on the Canal du Nord without having any commercials in with us. 

Guillotine style lock doors in 6 metre deep locks, I try not to think about them malfunctioning whilst we are going out

Yesterday we cruised for a record 12 hours over 65 kilometres and got to within a couple of hours of the entrance to the Somme canal. As it was late in the day there were already two commercials moored up in the mooring we were headed for so Renaissance squeezed in on the end and we rafted our boat onto them. The locks had closed by now so we knew no large vessels would be along to rock us about and we would leave early again in the morning. Terry, unfortunately, was up at 1.30am sawing tree branches off which were overhanging and scraping the roof of his boat keeping them awake! 

This morning we entered the peaceful tranquil waters of the Somme. It will be home for us for a few weeks now, time to really slow down and 'smell the roses' again. We have been told we are in for a treat. Lots more to come on that in the next few blogs. But to finish here's just a little treat we had from the boulangerie, hard to resist and tasted as good as it looks!

The water gypsies are back!

We arrived back in Saint Jean de Losne two weeks ago looking forward to our fourth season of cruising and new adventures. As usual it was a sociable time back in port, catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. 

All set for dinner with friends Pete and Glen, shame I forgot to take a photo of them, too busy chatting as usual

We had a very scenic drive through the vineyards for lunch with Chris and Andy who were moored up on the Bourgogne Canal at Pont d'Ouche. Such a shame that some of the vines have been hit by the recent cold snap and frost, fires were lit throughout the night on the Chablis vineyards to try to keep them above freezing. I do hope they survived, I love Chablis!

We managed to get all the usual start of season jobs done on the boat. Chris borrowed a rowing boat so he could paint the lower hull, not quite as easy as he thought, each time he rollered on the paint the boat pushed away, quite amusing to watch but he got the hang of it in the end.

 

We had a lovely mooring spot in the port, next to one of the islands in the middle of the basin. I had never heard a nightingale sing until we came to France, hauntingly beautiful. I would lie in bed reading and listening to them at night. Not quite so impressed with the very loud cuckoo which woke us up some mornings though. 

It would have been easy to stay longer, the lure of Mal and Paul's quiz nights, Wednesday beers, the camaraderie, but there are new places to see and explore this summer. We are heading to the Canal de la Somme. We have heard it is a beautiful waterway and it is possible to get right to the coast. We are aiming to get there by early July as we have a very important visitor coming to stay for a week, our new little granddaughter with her mummy and daddy. 

Lots of planning, think we have all the maps we need

We may well spend a month or two on the Somme then head for beautiful Ghent and Bruges where we have secured a winter mooring for 2016/17. 

So on Monday morning we slipped the ropes and headed up the river Saone to our first stop Auxonne. A beautiful start to what will be a 5 month voyage.

The socialising continues in the port at Auxonne on Roger and Margaret's boat Phoenix

A beautiful sunset walking back to our boat on the town quay

Next morning we turned off the river and entered the Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne, the next leg of our journey. It really is like entering Narnia, a beautiful canal, very quiet, especially so early in the season, and no shops until we reach Langres 3 days away. The cupboards, fridge and freezer are well stocked. 

Pretty little villages glimpsed between the trees

The first evening we moored on one of the few moorings on this stretch of the canal, meant for a much smaller boat but we managed. I found it quite amazing that we still had full internet and phone signal, and even a TV satellite signal despite being in the middle of nowhere. The wonders of modern technology, at least I didn't miss the Masterchef finals. 

Very peaceful morning spot at La Seine

The weather has got warmer by the day and after 3 long cruising days we have arrived in civilisation again at the beautiful medieval walled city of Langres. 

Our first glimpse of Langres from the canal

We intend to spend a relaxing weekend here before continuing our journey. We shall make the hike up to the old town in the morning but this evening we are looking forward to a well earned meal and bottle of wine, or perhaps that should be champagne, accompanied by one of my favourite french cheeses made here in Langres.

Langres to our winter base at Saint Jean de Losne

We ended up staying in Langres for a week in the company of our good friends Pete and Glen. The remnants of tropical storm Henri were forecast to cross central France. When it arrived on Wednesday we battened down our hatches and did the only sensible thing, ate and drank the day away, out for lunch at the auberge near the port and then back to Pete and Glen's boat. Great fun! 

On Friday morning we said our goodbyes and set off in opposite directions. Pete and Glen are staying out cruising a while longer before returning to St Jean and are then heading off to sunnier climes in Portugal for the winter so we shan't see them again until next year.

We had the 5 kilometre Balesmes tunnel to go through but unfortunately the storm had knocked out the electricity supply to the tunnel lighting which meant Chris having to concentrate hard for an hour and a half with only the tunnel light on the boat to see by. There was also a tree branch down in the cut as we approached the mouth of the tunnel. The VNF (French waterways authority) are not always very quick off the mark in removing debris.

We had been forewarned that on leaving Langres we would not come across any shops until we got to the bottom of the canal and back out onto the river Saone. As this would take us 4 days we had stocked up the cupboards before we left. We really enjoyed the peace and quiet and lovely scenery though as we knew this was our last bit of cruising this year.

Gorgeous last mooring on the canal

On Monday we left this lovely canal, turned right onto the river Saone and arrived in Auxonne late afternoon. We managed to squeeze onto the town quay next to Andy and Chris on Edwina Rose. We spent a great evening on their boat with Roger and Margaret from Phoenix who were returning to the UK next day.

Our planned early start next morning for the last leg of our journey to Saint Jean was unexpectedly delayed by fog.

By mid morning it had cleared and the sun came out. We had a delightful 3 hour river cruise down to Saint Jean with not a breath of wind.

We were a week early to go into port so were hoping to get a space on the steps at the town quay. There is a real holiday atmosphere with the bars and restaurants and the comings and goings on the river, a good way to end the season. With a cruiser close on our heels Chris made sure we got into the only available gap before he got there first. Ten minutes after we had tied up two guys came along in a truck and put a board up saying no mooring for 40 metres as a hotel boat was due in. Fortunately a boat behind us was pulling out after stopping for lunch so we quickly untied again and took their space. It wasn't until late evening that the hotel boat finally turned up and it was the biggest we had seen on this river so far, 115 metres long carrying 142 passengers. Just as well we moved when we did!

We had some very noisy neighbours waking us up early some mornings with all their quacking.

And some very noisy guests onboard to watch the Wales v England rugby match. Two Welsh, four Kiwis all supporting Wales, and us two Brits. They nearly took the roof off our boat when Wales won!

Edwina Rose joined us on the quay along with Kiwis Guy and Vicky on Piper barge Manuka who had brought her over the Channel from the UK into Calais earlier this year.

On Tuesday we had arranged to meet James and Linda from widebeam Poppy for lunch in Dijon. We had met them out cruising in the summer and they were winter mooring in Auxonne. They got the train to Dijon and we drove and met them there. As we were clinking glasses James commented on how lucky we all were to be here enjoying wonderful company in a wonderful city, in wonderful weather, on a weekday lunchtime. Cheers to that! We should definitely not take it for granted, especially as we are all still in our fifties! 

Not only did we get to have lunch out that day but dinner too as a farewell to Cyn and Ían as they head back to New Zealand for another summer over there. These antipodeans never get to experience winter now. We shall miss you guys.

After a week on the quay Chris took the JR on her last little trip of the year into the marina whilst I walked round and took photos. This year we have travelled a total of 1080 kilometres and gone through 457 locks.

We have managed to secure a lovely mooring spot on the very end of a long pontoon. It is between two islands within the basin, full of bird life and even goats on one of them. The kingfishers flit across the water from one island to the other, the sight of them always makes me smile but they are too quick for the camera.

So this is the final blog of the year. We have created more marvellous memories to look back on and will continue our journey next May.