Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Château-Regnault to Pont-à-Bar 33.4kms 7 locks

8.9° C After heavy rain in the night which woke Mike (he could hear dripping – it was the rainwater off one of the solar panels dripping into a jug – water for our house plants) great

Adding new flags and flagpoles to Nouzonville bridge

grey clouds and a cold wind, brief glimpses of sun later. We could just hear the forge hammers at Bogny as we set off at 9.10am. Jackets on again. Up 45 Levrézy and on upriver. In Braux there were some women walking the towpath with their children. Mike waved to one toddler who was pushing her dolly pram – to his amazement and her mother’s – instead of waving back she did a beeline towards the boat! Fortunately her mother grabbed her before she went in the river. Further upriver we could see flashes of

Loaded Dutch boat Jenny from Hasselt
heading downriver at Nouzonville

orange hi-res jackets through the trees where men were working on the railway track. Past the shiny new pontoon at Joigny, under the road bridge then kept hard right to follow the narrow navigation channel to the right of a small island leading to 44 Joigny lock. A huge black cloud came over so Mike got the brolly out expecting rain (the insurance worked, it didn’t rain). The flow off the weir shoved the boat sideways as we went crosswise into the lock due to the motion sensor being on our right and the rod in the chamber on the left, it almost shoved us into the corner of the lock wall. An old yellow dog was sleeping on a

Houseboat peniche by island at KP77

patch of grass opposite the lock house door, he didn’t move as we went through the lock. A short lock cut and we were back on the river. The barragiste’s house was beautifully maintained with a panelled fence around the garden and a very neat and tidy needle weir on the far side of the house. As we came into Nouzonville we spotted a pénichette from Pont-à-Bar tied to the rocky bank and thought what a strange place to moor. At the road bridge in the centre of Nouzonville there were men adding flagpoles and flags to the bridge and a loaded péniche coming

Sports hall mural.
 Sad little boy looks like he's about to burst into tears!

towards us. We passed the loaded Dutch boat, Jenny from Hasselt, under the navigation arch of the bridge. It was motoring hard downriver – oh dear there’s a hireboat tied to a rocky bank just downriver, we hoped they survived the experience and maybe it taught them a lesson – not to tie to a rocky bank even though it seems that there is no traffic on the river. Shortly afterwards an Eau-Claire hireboat from Pont-à-Bar went past heading downriver. Then at KP77 by a small island we saw another péniche heading downriver towards us, this one was a houseboat, flying a large French flag on its stern. After that flurry of traffic activity, there was no one around at lock 43 Montcy and the lock was full (we reckon the locks are programmed to refill). Under the high road

Two barragistes at work on a needle weir

bridge with massive stone re-enforcements put there after the last huge flood and into Charleville-Mézières. I made some sandwiches for lunch as we came up in the deep lock 42 Mézières. Deserted, no signs of life. On upriver to Romery lock 41. There were lots of cyclists on the towpath and fishermen along the bank as we came up to the lock. Saw the first orange tip butterfly of the year. Up the lock and another 2kms long lock cut. At the end of the lock cut Mike took photos of two barragistes practising their dying art of tending the needle weir,

Two way working through the right hand arch
of the railway bridge at Lumes

only nowadays they have electric hoists to help shift the tree branches that come downriver and smash needles out of the weir (there are lots of busted needles in wood piles and floating in the river) and they have to wear life jackets even though they are tethered with safety lines to an overhead wire. Soon all these very dangerous wooden stick weirs will be gone, replaced by modern technology - the automatic hydraulic weir, and the job of barragiste will no longer exist. Under the motorway then hard right for the navigation arch of the railway bridge. Here they have made an error with the signs for the bridge, there is only one navigable arch and so it has two way working (boats up and down river have to use it) therefore it should have two yellow diamonds. When we first saw it we thought one diamond had fallen off, nope there is a single yellow diamond on the other side of the bridge too and what are the chances of two of them falling off (and not being replaced)? No traffic about. We paused at Lumes to see if the water supply had been turned on – it had! Hooray for that, we don’t have to go up to the hirebase to buy some water. We filled up. Noted that there was still no passerelle to the bank from the pontoon, keeps the kids and fishermen off it, unless they can jump or they’re brave and walk down the supporting A-frames (boaters use their gang planks!). Up lock 40 Dom-le-Mesnil and noted there was a herd of various types of goat on the lock island. Fingers crossed that lock 7 (Meuse) Dom-le-Mesnil would work OK for us today. It did, except once we left the chamber for some reason the gates failed to close. Now back on the canal des Ardennes, we tied to the steeply sloping grassy bank at 5pm. Almost eight hours again, tired.  A few days of R&R....