Taddy Tales

On to Dun-sur-Meuse, a pretty, if scruffy, little town with an ancient church towering on the hill above.  Throughout this region, one is repeatedly drawn to its history through roadside memorials and signs to cemeteries. In Dun, the river bridge is named after General John Pershing who led the US First Army here on the decisive Meuse-Argonne Offensive that led to the Armistice of 1918.  Quite an achievement but at such a price.  The offensive lasted 47 days and deployed 1.2 million US troops.  26,277 of them were killed.  It was the largest battle in US military history. 14,000 of them are buried at the nearby US cemetery.  It's a beautiful and moving place to visit and we spend a couple of hours in the exhibition and then wandering through the headstones.  It seemed particularly moving that these young men died in the few weeks leading up to the armistice. The American Battle Monuments Commission does a first rate job of maintaining the cem...

The scenery of the Ardennes national park comes to an end in Charleville-Mezieres.  The steep wooded hillsides give way to soft farmed countryside.  I'm currently reading Anthony Beevor's account of the Ardennes offensive of 1944.  I'm struck that the Germans used the Ardennes to head west in 1870, 1914, 1940 and 1944.  Beevor wonders why it was still a surprise to the allies in 1944 but I can see how challenging an attack over this terrain would be (and ultimately was). Charleville is a pretty town with a formal layout from the C17th (somebody called Charles . . .).  It's our first decent restaurant meal in France and we take a couple of days to explore.  Like so many towns in this area, there's a Boulevard Franklin D Roosevelt and a Place Churchill (or vice versa). We also continue our game of taking a train back to get the car and then driving it forward along the river and getting a train back.  This gets more complicated as there aren't many...

The Meuse flows over 272 km to the Belgian border and needs 59 locks to get there.  Climbing from Belgium, we start in the Ardennes National Park.  Steep rocky hills create extravagant meanders in the river and the railway seems to cross back and forth regularly.  It's beautiful cruising without much to trouble us but a lock every 4-5km. The locks are not difficult but care is needed. About 300m before the lock is a receiver on a pole.  We point our remote control at that and press the button.  It starts flashing and the red light on the lock turns to red/green whilst the lock is prepared.  The gates open and the light turns green.  Then we cruise slowly in and identify bollards we can use to hold the bow and stern.  Sometimes this is awkward because the lock is deep and Julie's throwing skills are much in demand.  Sometimes it's hard because the bollards are located unhelpfully.  This can be a problem when sharing a lock with ano...

It's time you heard from me, Cora.  I'm having quite an adventure with lots of interesting new places.  But it isn't all plain sailing and the life of a travelling dog can be hard sometimes.  THEY don't help either and sometimes they seem cross with me all the time.  It's not my fault that there's so many cats and they all need chasing. As soon as we stop somewhere new, I'm ready to get off.  If they're mucking around with mooring lines, I like to remind them of this as loudly as I can.  HE gets mad about that and shouts.  But then HE gets me off to do the necessary . . . It has been a lovely warm spring and I've much enjoyed rushing through the lush undergrowth.  It was especially nice at Waulsort albeit a bit itchy afterwards.  Then HE got all exercised and started pulling ticks off me.  I don't know why he bothered - when they're full, they drop off on the floor of the boat all by themselves.  Apparently, on one day he pull...

We were ready for the off again.  And it was just 8km to France.  The weather was lovely and we were planning a long-ish day with a number of locks and a slightly worrying tunnel.  And it was Rob's birthday too! The fun started in the first lock when the lock keeper wanted us and a hire boat full of Germans right up the front.  I could hear on the radio that a big commercial was coming in.  It was tight and the hire boaters were nervous and the commercial bowman cautious.  It's possible the animation gives an ide.:   I knew the commercial skipper would be careful and he told the lock keeper very firmly to fill slowly.  He then told us just as firmly that he would be overtaking before the next lock and not sharing again.  Didn't argue. We arrived in France and reported with papers at the first lock.  The welcome was warm from a nice lock keeper who spoke excellent 'French for Idiot Brits'.  He wished me happy birthday a...

We were on 'birth alert'.  Our plan was to return to the UK as soon as our new granddaughter was born.  That meant we needed the car nearby, we needed to be not too far from Brussels so we could leave Cora there, and we needed somewhere safe to leave the boat. We decided not to leave Belgium and to move a couple of hours south from Dinant to Waulsort where we'd identified a marina that others considered safe to leave a boat.  As we cruised, the banks were steep and rocky, really impressive river-scape.  Waulsort is a small village made smaller by closure of the railway.  The port was beautiful and had loads of space.  And it was certainly secure because it was on the other side of the river to the village, and with no car access.  It was the day before 'due date' so we paid for a week and settled down to wait wondering what we'd do if we were still waiting in a week. How then, did one cross?  The answer was Belgium's last hand-pulled ferry....