Monday 16th May 2016 Auvelais to Pont-de-Loup. 12.8kms 1 lock

Dependant waiting above Auvelais lock

7.4° C. Grey skies, damp, sunny spells late afternoon. Boats started moving around opening time, 6am. We didn’t rush to get moving as we hadn’t got far to go. An 80m boat loaded with steel coils went down Auvelais as we were getting ready to move at 10am. Shortly after an empty called Dependant arrived, a square-fronted, square-sterned boat, it made a sweep into the lock waiting area skimming past us more closely than was necessary. I noted that the corners of its square

Willie wagtail

stern were battered and rusty from the times it had missed when skimming past close to things. It had to sit above the lock to wait as the previous boat had only just left. We set off at 10.30am, jackets on again as it was chilly and, although not actually raining, the air was damp. A long reach of 11.5kms to our one and only lock of the day. I got on with a few chores before making a cuppa. There were, as usual, loads of sandpipers and goldeneye ducks on the river. Amazing that there is so much wildlife on the Sambre when you consider that beyond the narrow belt of trees there are close packed towns and industrial estates. At Farciennes there was an offline loading basin with a low quay and the 4m high wall

Wash-eroded concrete

surrounding it had dozens of gulls, two herons and a cormorant using it as a lookout post. Under the railway bridge below Roselies lock and we could see there was a loaded 80m called Ave Maria moored by the lock, tied at the base of a 4m high wall. The lock gates opened and we had a green light so we went in after saying hello to the skipper of Ave Maria who was doing some work on his boat, lying flat on the gunwale by the cabin.

Czech boat Apollo passing Ave Maria (blue and white boat)

Started attaching my centre rope to a recessed bollard in the wall at the back end of the 112m long lock chamber when the keeper came out of his cabin high up above the lock and indicated that we should move forward. OK, we thought, he’s going to use the half lock. But when we got in the top end he wanted us to go right up by the sliding gate as he said there was a big boat coming. No way. Mike backed out and said the big boat can go in first and we’ll sit at the back. We went alongside the wall opposite Ave Maria. Five minutes later an old brown boat called Apollo from Decin in the Czech Republic arrived, 71.5m

Sharing Roselies lock with coal boat. Note keeper's cabin top left. 

long and loaded with 1,000 tonnes of coal (we know where that’s going! Steelworks in Charleroi) and went into the chamber. (Haven’t seen one of them since the Mittellandkanal in Germany!) The deckhand put one rope from the bow on a bollard in the right hand wall and the stern went over against the left wall (no rope), we had the last bit of the right hand wall and used fore and aft ropes. Glad we used two ropes because the Czech skipper kept his engine running and (most of the time) his prop turning. Up

Heron on a mud boat

3.7m fairly slowly and without too much trouble. Waited until the commercial was almost out of the lock before we took the ropes off and followed him. There was a long unloading quay on the left above the lock, an empty 80m was moored there and three mud hoppers – a heron was perched on the gunwale of one of the mud boats. The river from here through to the far side of Charleroi is very industrial. The next quay was piled with aggregates and an 80m boat called Ecoutable was moored there, his hold full of grey granite chippings. On the far side of the quay were piles of cullet

Moored in the basin at Vankerkhoven's

(broken glass) glinting in the weak sunlight. The river was turning a dark chocolate brown where the coal boat had been churning the mud up from the bottom. Not far before we were at our destination and scratching our heads as to where to moor as the place is full of boats. We went into the basin where an old tug and a smartly painted commercial were along the outer wall, we turned left to moor by a high quay wall at the end of a long side slip. It was 1.45pm. Mike needed our ladders to get off

The side-slip trolleys

the boat up the overhanging concrete-topped steel piling. There was a man working on one of the boats that were on the bank by where we’d tied up, he said he was surprised to see a narrowboat. Mike went to check the car was OK and to have a look round. I made some lunch.

The empty dry dock. One peniche (on the right) sat on the bostocks.
Enough space for 3 peniches 40m long x 5.50m wide