Taddy Tales

This canal is only 50km or so long but it has 74 locks for us to tackle.  They're all downhill which is easier but you still need to get into an efficient pattern.  300m out and you see a single red light.  Press the remote control and that changes to red and green as the lock is prepared.  By the time you get there, it's just a green light.  In you go, lift the blue rod and you're down and out it less than 10 minutes. But it doesn't always work that way.  Too often, we arrive at a lock to find 2 red lights.  That means the lock is 'en panne' and is not going to respond to anyone unless they're in a little white van with the VNF logo on the side. Leaving Ligny, we decided on an early start to 'beat the heat'.  The locks switch on at 7am for commercial traffic and 9am for pleasure boats.  But there's little commercial traffic and plenty of pleasure boats were starting then.  We found the 'deux feux rouges' at 7.30.  Calling VNF...

We turn right onto the Canal de Rhin au Marne.  Lots of canals have names like that - it's because they start by making a river navigable by adding weirs and locks.  Then they link them together by building canals that link the river valleys together in order to make long distance routes.  That's the tricky bit as you have to climb up a valley side and find a water supply to keep those boats afloat. There's often a tunnel at the summit when they ran out of water and supply and that's where we were headed.  Stopping in Void, a nice man from the waterways people popped along to discuss our plans.  It all seems very personalised.  He took away our lovely remote control because that one only works on the Meuse. The next morning we head up a chain of 12 locks to the summit.  These ones are dead clever.  You break a light beam at the bottom and then all the locks are automatic and waiting for you as you get there.  A nice waterways man popped...

Time to get cruising again after nearly 10 days tied up.  Once you've lugged a few shopping bags, you learn to take advantage when you're near supplies.  Here we are after a visit to Monsieur Leclerc's establishment 300m away.  Fortunately his trolleys don't lock when you leave the car park.  It's getting rather hot so we stock up on refreshing soft drinks (and just one or two beers for special occasions). My, doesn't that roof look good? We need to book a time for the locks out of Verdun so we visit the office.  We want to avoid the 9am rush and suggest 9.30.  Non Monsieur, neuf heures s'il vous plait.  So, we arrive at 8.30 along with half the population of Holland.  At about 9.30 we get through the lock.  C'est la vie Francais. It's an important day.  Son-in-law Chris is dropping off Marille the Poodle for a fortnight's boating while they head to the Riviera. We've given him our target mooring.  At lunchtime we turn...

Carry on south and further up the Meuse.  Automated locks come to an end but helpful folks from the VNF whizz up and down in their little white vans to operate the locks for us.  They're usually on their own and it's polite to hop out and help open one side to save them running around.  It's getting hot too and the lock keepers always appreciate a bottle of beer passed over as we leave.  This interesting lock has sloping sides which must have been a bit challenging before they installed the handy floating pontoon which makes it really easy! We're headed for Verdun and will be staying for a while.  Julie is heading to the UK for a week carrying out Grandma duties.  Rob has a very large (and expensive) can of white paint that is to be applied to the boat roof. There's a very nice harbour in the centre of Verdun.  It's completely free and that includes water and electricity.  And there's plenty to see and do in Verdun.  It's therefore alw...

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...