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| Fog on the Meuse |
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| A quiet mooring |
Monday dawns with thick fog. As we move
out of Mouzon there is a foredeck watch and a top speed of 3km/h.
Over the next hour it burns off to a clear, sunny Autumn day, a
chance to do some painting jobs under way. David clears rust spots
and repaints at the bow. Nick tackles the brasswork around the saloon
door. The Northern section of the Canal de L'Est runs for 270km
mostly along the River Meuse (of which we are doing 176km), among
woods and farmland with more kingfishers to the km than anywhere I
know. Monday night finds us at the Halte Nautique at Dun sur Meuse,
with electricity, water and a SHOWER! Luxury.
Bird spots include. sparrowhawk,
stonechat, great grey shrike, red kite and many buzzards. As we
follow the ridges to the South, there are more and more graveyards as
we approach Verdun. Nick cycles to the memorials of the battles at
Verdun in the 1914-18 war. We overnight on the town quay at Verdun.
Linda has raspberry beer and we meet yet another eccentric
restauranteur in a riverside Pizzeria.
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| Verdun Moorings on the quay |
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| Working the non-automated locks |
The
locks between Verdun and St Mihiel are not automated and we are
accompanied by a lock-keeper who could be our friend Max's twin
brother. We found a launderette in St Mihiel, fuelled up from a
garage, and said farewell to Nick who was off to London to exchange a
berth on Jonge Jacob for a hotel in Park Lane! Progress was slowed by
two broken locks the next day. As “Max” said (in French) “that's
the way the pot heats up”. As a result we did not reach Troussey,
and were stuck next to a cement factory for the night, before leaving
the Meuse down a steep flight of locks to Toul. This section was made
more stressful by the knowledge that there was a large commercial
barge coming up. Luckily we did not meet him on the blind corner,
where we hooted twice, very loudly. Here we were joined by an
ex-colleague, Colin, for a couple of days, as we moved up the Moselle
for a short stretch (broad still waters and wooded edges followed by
the industrial wasteland of Neuves Maisons). Still behind on our
schedule we raced up the first 15 locks of the Canal des Vosges, only
to be trapped at 1800, two locks short of Charmes. Undaunted, we tied
to a tree, and walked into town for a shower at a camp site and a
real three course meal in town. Now that we are on the Canal des
Vosges we have to climb to the summit ahead of us, and we have 260km
to go to St Jean de Losne. It is looking more likely that we will
stop at Corre, where we reach the Saône in 100hkm, and finish off
later in the Autumn. We will have been on the move for four weeks,
our VNF pass will run out and other duties are calling.
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