Canal Des Ardennes - Part 2

After the descent of Montgon locks we stopped at Attigny - a small, typical French town - which was pretty much shut for the night and then moved on to Rethel, a comparative metropolis - it had an Intermarche - fab! We stocked up as the first night at Rethel ended up with a boat party on Half Moon with all of our neighbours. The wine cellar was empty!

What are these birds? Very hard to photograph; they have white trailing edges to their wings and they 'dip' like dippers.

We sailed close past a bittern - by time stopped boat, reversed, got camera ready, it had sensibly decided to fly into a tree.

Left Rethel - had two nights there - lovely, tree lined canals, we saw loads of herons, a bittern, several kingfishers and lots and lots of different dragon and damsel flies.  Stopped at the tiny hamlet of Variscourt, a halt fluvial  - very picturesque -  and free.

b-b-q for tea.

We often have wildlife visitors hitching a lift.

this was a tight fit to pass.

We have seen just over a metre below the keel for the first time in weeks!  All good……

We then ran aground and got stuck in the mud on the edge of a wide section of canal - Thank heaven for 54BHP and a big propeller - ploughed a furrow back to the main channel.

Locks are going up again for the first time in two weeks.

On 28th July we made it to Reims - several boats were there that we knew and once again Half Moon proved very convivial! We are moored about 500m from the Cathedral which has the most fabulous light show with classical music in the evenings; sitting in the square in front of the cathedral watching it being painted by lasers was magical

We had a view of reims Cathedral from our mooring!

The light and sound show was amazing.

As this is the centre for champagne we went to the house of Veuve Clicquot for a tour, 24km on tunnels in the chalk stone provides them with enough storage for their bottles! - good tour, very slick presentation

Steps down to the Veuve Clicquot cellars.

Heading off towards the Tunnel de Billy today, 2.5km long, and back into deepest rural France

Carole’s Interesting Facts

No. 9:  The top level between the highest lock and the first of the down locks is called the ‘reach’.

No. 10:  I am the fender queen.

No 11: There are over 240km of tunnels under Reims, mined for the city stone, but now used by all the champagne houses for wine storage, a World Heritage Site.

No 12: Veuve Clicquot is damn good champagne

CANAL DES ARDENNES

CANAL DES ARDENNES

What a pretty canal this has been, but shallow!  We’ve spent most of the distance so far with about 0.5m below the keel and some miles with only 0.2.  Stressful for the skipper; But the scenery and the villages, together with the great little Halte Fluvials - all free, with free water and some with free electricity too, more than made up for it.

The bread, the wine the cheese, just fabulous food even in the small shops.  Had a lot of great evenings with fellows yachts and the odd bankside BBQ as well.

Downsides - these locks are bloody narrow! and the water is full of weed and leaves so there is the daily chore of cleaning the raw water filter to stop the engine overheating and the algae water in places has left us with a filthy hull but these are minor irritations compared to the fun we have had on this section of the trip.

A couple of days ago we descended the Montgon locks, all 26 of them in a row - the first 20 were fun, after that we were looking forward to a stop and a beer!

Our friends on Barracuda got stuck as a torrential overnight rainstorm had raised the water level such that they couldn’t fit under a bridge- the guys from the VNF lowered the canal levels for them so they were only held up for an hour or two.

Heading for champagne country soon.

The tunnels feel very narrow

The water rushes in - hang onto your ropes!

Charlesville-Meziers square

I jump off the boat and carry the mooring lines up the ladders.

Dave using his swim time usefully

Cockpit mascot

A great night with our boat friends

b-b-q time

Leaving a lock - 1/2 m each side to spare 

A bit silly - nearly at the end of our 26 locks.

Barracuda approaching a lock.

The locks now need you to twist a pole to activate.

You need a lot of fenders on the canals!

Carole's Interesting Facts:

No. 7  definition of a pessimist:  Someone who puts prunes on their all bran.

No. 8  Some locks need very long mooring ropes. 

Into France

Dinant was the start of the prettier section in Belgium. Fabulous Citadel with a cable car to the top and huge cliff faces overlooking the town.  It's also the birthplace of Aldoph Sax - the inventor of the saxophone.

Overnight stop in Dinant

Adolph Sax- invented the saxophone

Church and citadel of Dinant

We left Dinant and headed south again, we were aiming for Givet just over the border into France - an we nearly made it.  Lots of locks some big, most small, pretty villages and amazing Chateaux.

The locks are now smaller and prettier

We stopped at one lock while divers fixed it, several boats rafting up for the wait. Then into France, four boats into the lock where we were all held whilst we paid our French canal fees - €236 for two months use of the system.  Once we'd paid we were all allowed out and onto towards Givet itself - yet another pretty little town but we carried on a little way heading for the next small village for the night.  But the lock broke and we ended up anchoring in the river, going for a swim, and having a fabulously peaceful night at anchor - our first in this boat. Totally idillic.

Bernard  rocks

Our first anchoring with this boat

New sun bimini proving very effective

The following morning all was well with the lock and we headed into the tunnel of Ham - 600m long and 5m wide - felt a lot narrower than that - our fat boat is 3.80m wide.

Our first tunnel

Yet more locks followed - we think we have about 250 yet to do - including another smaller tunnel before ending top at Riven for the night.  Lots of locks on this stretch making progress slow -but we don't care!
  Good system with automatic locks - given a radio controlled gadget which press as approach the lock; nifty.

Have heard the our river gets very shallow in the upper reaches but hopefully we should be ok as we turn off into the Canal d'Ardennes near Charleville-Messiers - fingers crossed.

Second tunnel 

Namur and the hills

We have made it to Namur and are stopping for a couple of days to have a look around the Capital of Wallonia, Belgium.  Its an ancient city dominated by a huge Citadel.  All very picturesque. Its at the confluence of the Meuse and Sambre rivers and has been inhabited and fought over for 100's of years.

We've moored on the river bank, just below the citadel, next to the Casino.  When we sold the last boat, most of the money was by bank transfer but we ended up with some €500 notes which are incredibly difficult or expensive to change into smaller denominations and no-one will take them.  However we've found that Casinos accept them with no problems at all.  So we went to Namur Casino last night and were charged €7 each to get in - but that included a free cocktail and €5 of free bets on their slot machines.  Changed a load of notes to smaller, spendable ones and then won €32 on the slot machines - not a bad exchange rate really - capped off with free coffee and sandwiches! (we are now bona-fide members of the Grand Casino Group and have our own named cards to prove it!)

We've decided to take the shallower hilly route into France via Dinant and across the border at Givet, so will let you know if we've got it wrong and end up back in Namur after running aground :)

Dave going to check out his area tomorrow

Cute street in Namur

Look what we found in the Namur supermarket!

View from the citadel - just see our boat moored between the trees.

That's where we're heading tomorrow

The  Citadel

I just love this 'statue', titled 'Looking for Utopia".  We thought it was probably a Pratchet turtle holding up the Disc World.

Just have to have a gaufre when in Belgium - my idea of Belgium is beer, chocolate and waffles.

You can just see our boat through the bridge archway.

Carole's Interesting Facts:

No 5.  You have to keep a close eye on one's boats arse when manoeuvring a centre cockpit boat.

No 6.  Black tyre fenders make for a very black marked hull when rafting alongside.

Into Belgium

We had planned on stopping for two nights in maastricht, but as the weather forecast was for really heavy downpours on Thursday we stopped for another day on our free river mooring.  We've done some of the tourist stuff in Maastricht - including visiting the tunnels, as did Napoleon and d'Artagnan of Musketeer fame.  Maastricht is definitely worth a visit.

Carvings in the Kazenmatten caves

Bookshop in Maastricht - said by the Guardian to be:"The fairest bookshop of the world, a bookshop made in Heaven"

Left on Friday after refuelling at a floating fuel station in the city centre and headed south again.  Some more huge locks and a long stretch of heavy industrialisation just over the border into Belgium.

Another lock!

We stopped briefly at Liege but decided to carry on towards the quieter areas.  Stopped at Huy for the night. Had Moules Frites in the harbour bar and have  again only been charged 1€/metre a night for the berth, includes electric hook up and good showers.  Why are we so expensive in the UK?

And we are amongst hills again!

Huy marina

Made it to Maastricht - despite Andre Rieu!

Continued along the Maars, great river, very interesting, pretty in places and industrial in others.

We stopped in Hassun, small (and cheap) marina, very friendly moored against a grass bank.  Felt left out as the other motorboat's got out their deck chairs and sat on the grass - went to the bar instead.

Lunch stop at Aachen  -  best cake shop ever 

We continued upstream into a huge area of lakes, filled with boats and tourists, near Roemond and then onto Maasbracht. Maastricht has the deepest lock in the Netherlands - 12metres!  it was like entering hades and then being lifted out into the sunshine - even GPS failed to work down there.

We met the harbourmaster from Hassun near Roemond in his 50' motorboat - he told us of a great ice-cream stop  on the way to Maasbracht, we followed him through the locks and rafted alongside his very, very expensive boat to squeeze in to the mooring and nipped across his boat for ice creams.

Look at the pictures of the ship going through - for scale the red dot is a crewman.

Series of pictures showing ship going into Hollands deepest lock

man in red on ship for scale

We had chatted to a Dutch lady a few days earlier who said that Maastricht would be very busy at the weekend as Andre Rieu was playing a series of concerts in the town centre so we had a couple of slow half days to avoid being swamped by Rieu-ites; they were still there when we arrived on Monday.  The town has been taken over with Rieu fever.  Every restaurant has a special Rieu menu.

Maastricht is great though - very pretty,  old and genteel town.  There is a wall in the middle of the river, connecting two bridges and you can moor for free in the heart of the town - keeps getting better!

Stopping here for a couple of days to do the tourist thing then heading off to Belgium.  We are now south of the UK so its a bit of a milestone - although we do head a bit north into Belgium before going south again towards France.  Choice of routes coming up when we get to Namur - one squeakily shallow but possibly do-able - but very pretty sounding or the other  - less shallow with a  huge boat lift but longer - will decide at Namur.

Bandits of the river - anyone know what they are? (not in our book)

Rafted alongside our friend for best ice cream ever.

Going up

Prosecco to celebrate reaching Maastricht

My mate Andre

Free mooring in centre of Maastricht - amazing.

Carole's Interesting Facts cont.

No 5.  Maastricht has 8,000 underground 18th Century tunnels.

No. 6.  it might be a gaggle of geese on land, but is a 'plump' on water.