Friday 8th April 2016 Maizey to Belleville-sur-Meuse. 34.3kms 9 locks (all manually operated)

Tunnel under the fortifications at Verdun

-0.1° C. Glad we put the heating on overnight. Sunny start, but with grey banks of cloud and mist that didn’t last long. A few spots of rain fell not long before we stopped. Set off at 8.40am, with cold weather gear on again, to get to the first of the manually operated locks for nine. Lock 11 Rouvrois was ready, both gates open and our man-in-a-van (the Chef, we later found out) was waiting for us, sitting in his van. I stepped off with the centre rope on the left of the chamber as the keeper was on the right and

Lovely old houses in Verdun

Mike got off and closed the gate our side. The Chef closed his gate then ran down all the paddles with a held-in-the-hand tube device (wished I’d have had one of those forty years ago to lower UK paddles with, used to do it with my bare hand and it caused callouses – I was told a few times by BWB to wind them back down as it could give the wrong idea to hireboaters who might just take catches off and drop them which could cause damage) Mike got back on board and I held the rope while we descended 2m. Mike had told

Weir below the lock at Verdun

him we only needed one gate, so we left through one and said see you at the next one. Just 3kms to the next, all canal today except for one short river section in Verdun. Watched several trains pass over the long TGV bridge over the Meuse flood plain. Alongside the canal all the way into Verdun was the busy D964 road. Mike had problems with the moped so he started work on it, first problem was the fact that he had forgotten to turn the petrol off the day before before when he put the bike back on the roof

Mooring pontoon in Verdun

and now the engine was full of the stuff. As we went under the TGV bridge a muskrat surfaced right next to the stern of the boat and then went down again. The towpath, we noted was covered with grass but there were no tracks down it, so no one drove or walked on it except the mower. Still two gates open at 12 Lacroix, OK give up. New sloping concrete wing walls had been built at the top end of the lock and the house had been nicely renovated. Same procedure for working the lock for all of them.

Walkers and cyclists are forbidden to enter the park during
strong winds and storms due to the high risk of falling branches

Down 1.6m and out through one gate. 5.4kms to the next. There were several overwintering boats on the long pontoon at Lacroix, two ex-hireboats, a small yacht and a small cruiser plus a Dutch steel cruiser, which had someone on board, a woman leaned out the doors to wave as we went past (second one since Condé). There would have been enough room for us on the pontoon, but we weren’t stopping today. Mike carried on drying the moped engine out. At lock 13 Troyon my fender decided to do a somersault in the ladder

Empty commercial port in Verdun

recess then flipped over on to the lockside, flicking its rope off and parking itself there very neatly. Never had a fender do that before, ever. Down 2.5m and out through one gate again. Nice lock house at 13. 2.8kms to 14 Ambly. Its house had a sign over the door saying bureau (in other words office, a péniche’s papers were checked here in days gone by). Our Chef’s van was parked there plus another one and a VNF car and two more cars. Busy place. Saw no one but the Chef, working the lock. 6.4kms to the next. Took a photo of an information notice which looked new. Meadows and flat fields had opened up to

Needle weir at Belleville - an ancient system many 
now being replaced by modern automatic hydraulic ones

our left and the forested hills were now in front on our right. Passed two very smelly cattle farms and a sewage works before a steel fabrication works on the outskirts of the small town of Dieue. Down another 2.5m in Dieue lock 15 and I started getting stuff ready to cook for lunch as we went along the 1.75kms pound to 16 Dieue-Aval. Down another 2.5m on to a longer pound of 4.3kms to 17 Haudainville. I cooked bacon and egg sandwiches for a nice hot lunch as it was so cold. Just had time to eat it before we arrived at the lock. There was a big stretch of wind-blown floating rotting vegetation above the lock which gave off a really foul smell as we went through it into the lock chamber. (Mike reminded me that we’d spent

Needle weir and canal entrance at Belleville

ages last summer waiting below this lock to go up it while the VNF loaded tons of cut weed into a flatbed here). Down 3.5m. The river had been running right alongside the canal on the left since Dieue and now there were fields between the canal and river. 3kms to 18 Belleray. The lock house didn’t look lived in. This was the Chef’s last lock so we said au-voir as we left, heading on into the city. 2kms of canal and 1km of river into Verdun, the river entering and leaving over weirs on our left. Past a moored VNF tug called Hugo and through the tunnel under the fortifications and into lock

Moored on pontoon at Belleville (next morning, misty)

19 Verdun, which was ready for us. A younger man with glasses worked the lock. Very chatty, he was interested in the boat and asked the usual questions about it. I spotted the Chef arrive in his van at the workshops behind the office buildings on the lockside. Down another 3m and out on to another river reach with a long weir pouring fast flowing water to our left. High walls through the city guarded it from flooding. There was one boat on the long pontoon, a motor yacht. On the opposite bank two large trip boats were moored. As we passed a park Mike started laughing at the danger notices. They forbade entry to the park during high winds and thunderstorms as there may be falling branches – the trees were mainly ancient plane trees which do have a habit of shedding bark rather violently too. Noted the commercial port in an arm was empty. A bit further downriver and there was the first unmodified needle weir next to the canal section. Just inside the canal section there was a pontoon we’d never stopped at before which was in the adjacent town of Belleville-sur-Meuse. Two teenagers were sat at the upstream end. We ignored them like they ignored us and tied up with the passerelle next to the bike so we could get it off easily. It was 3pm. Gave Mike a hand to get the bike off the roof and he carried on fixing it then he went out on it for a ride to test it. Blocked up exhaust again so he changed it for the spare.