Wednesday
7th August
An
unplanned 46km 17 locks 9.2 hours engine running time
We
were woken at 5am this morning as a big commercial barge that had moored up just
along from us went back on the move, in the dark, their wash made our boat
clunk against the side and move around quite a bit, we were glad we had big
bollards to tie up to and not mooring pins, they wouldn’t have held.
We
got up and to set off around 9am but the couple from Geneva moved on just
before us. This delayed us quite a bit in the first few locks. When we left Berry-au-Bac we almost
immediately joined the canal de l’Aisne a a Marne. The Aisne-Marne Canal was
dug in 1866 to join the River Aisne to the River Marne and link the city of
Reims to the waterways system. We didn’t
like this canal, mainly as it didn’t seem to encourage boats of our size to be
able to moor easily, the bollards are set so wide apart, perfect for the
commercial peniches, but not us. We also
got bitten to pieces by nasty flies, in one lock I was at the bow sorting out
the ropes and I looked back and saw Kev inside the wheelhouse having a fight
with a fly that was out to get him, it won to begin with, it got him twice, even though I felt sorry
for Kev it was very funny to see.
It
rained gently most of the morning but cleared up in the afternoon.
We
were aiming for Sillery, a marina about 10km from Reims, we went through Reims
on the canal and agreed with our guide book that it wasn’t a good place to
moor, very noisy by the side of a big main road. Unfortunately when we got to Sillery there
was no room for us, so we thought, simple we’ll carry on a little
further…….13km and 3 locks later (about 2 hours), after not finding a suitable
place to moor, we got to the entrance of The Billy Tunnel and finally we found
bollards on the left that weren’t to far apart to moor our ropes to. This was 7pm, and we were very tired.
In
a way were weren’t too sorry not to be able to moor on this canal as we have decided
to go back to our original plan and go to Paris via The Marne. This is because
we are making such good time, not always on purpose. We feel we have time to make Paris and get
through the locks south of Paris on the Seine that were closing for a month
from 29th August.
Thursday
8th August
39km
and 13 locks 4.9 engine running time (we didn’t need to use the engine in the
locks today)
We
were up early for us these days 7.15am, woken by the alarm so that we could get
through the tunnel before the big peniches got moving. It was very difficult for us in the tunnel as
our windows all steamed up on the outside.
We could hardly see.
It
was a bit misty this morning but developed into a lovely sunny day but not too
hot.
We
then carried on down the Asine-Marne canal to join the Canal Lateral a la
Marne. A beautiful canal, we loved
it. Fantastic scenery, vineyards
everywhere. We stopped for a break at
Bisseuil, and had a beer. We asked if
they had a menu…..une Baguette?.....the lady sitting at a table at the tabac
disappeared through a sidedoor to her little shop and came out with a
baguette! Not exactly what we had in
mind but we bought it and went back to the boat and had a jambon
Baguette….delicious.!
We
carried on and we came to a place called Mareuil-sur-Ay, they had wonderful
moorings and plenty of space and we couldn’t make our mind up, should we stay
there or carry on. As Bisseuil had great
moorings, and this place had them too we thought maybe this canal was different
and they encouraged tourism……it still took us a while to find a good mooring.
We
joined the The River Marne, its beautiful.
We are at Damery, on a really good floating pontoon, free electric and
water and a real Champagne center, there are Champagne houses every other
building. So were are staying here at
least two nights. Until we found this
mooring we were bemoaning the fact we hadn’t stayed at Mareuil, it looked great
and I would recommend it.
We
plan to ride our bike to Epernay tomorrow lets hope the sun continues to shine
for us.
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| The couple from Geneva squeezing into the lock |
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| A convenient Bollard |
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| Our mooring at Tunnel Billy |
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| Through the tunnel, the wheelhouse windows are very clean now from wiping the mist off |
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| Operating the lock |
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| another mooring we could have been on but already taken |
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| Damery a beautiful spot |
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