Watten to Bethune to Basin Rond to Cambrai

Saturday 26^th July

Watten to Bethune 7 hours engine running time 48km

In the morning after a big thunderstorm had passed we set off for our next adventure.

We get past St Omer and we have two locks to get through.  Kev amused the first lock keeper over the VHF with his unique French pronunciation, a bit like Del Boys’ “Mange Tout’ language skills.  All went well at this lock, the second lock was a rise of 13m, huge!  For both locks we just used a stern rope and used the engine to control the boat.  The locks are very gentle so far.  We’ve hardly had any traffic, possibly as it’s the weekend.  We arrive at Bethune at around 3pm, we moored up by the side of the canal, again using our thick, 25m ropes to reach to large but extremely well spaced apart bollards.  The barges have to slow down for a narrow section so we don’t get too much movement, but we can tell when a barge is coming around the corner the boat starts to move on its ropes.  

We walked into Bethune town centre about a 2 kilometers away, have a quick look around the centre of town and then shop at the Carrefor supermarket, we bought some wine among other stuff, and we were amazed at how cheap it is.  We bought some very nice Muscadet for under 3 euros, and some bubbly wine for under 2 euros!  We luckily decided to eat on the boat that evening as there was a terrific thunderstorm, really heavy rain and very very windy.  We would have got soaked if we’d walked into town.

 

A new view from the galley window at Bethune

Sunday 28^th July

A long day 9 ½ hours engine running time 70km 4 locks

We were aiming for Douai today but we couldn’t find a good mooring so as we found nowhere else to moor we continued onto Basin Rond, another 3 hours!  We were glad to stop, Basin Rond at Estrun/Paillencourt is a beautiful place, a real quiet haven after the large canals.

We easily moored up and then went for a stroll around part of the basin in the evening sunshine. When we returned to the boat, an elderly gentleman dressed in grey shorts and a white sleeveless vest very purposely walked over to us from the house we were moored outside……we immediately assumed maybe we had moored up in the wrong place….he then gabbled some French at us and I understood a couple of words one of which was ‘collection’ so we got our money out and offered some to him but he said non, gabbled a little more then disappeared back to his house.  He came back with a folder with his coin collection and then we understood.  He wanted samples of the British currency, he had all sorts of nationalities so we gave him the complete set of Sterling and he was very happy!!  He then disappeared back to his house and came back with lettuce and a huge marrow from his garden!!

Les Fontinettes Lock, over 13 metres

Floating Bollards make life easier

Large commercial on a large canal

Small canal into Basin Rond our refuge for the night

Our neighbour at Basin Rond taking back his coin collection under his arm

Monday 29^th July

A short day today 3 ½ hours, 5 locks

We got up to another lovely sunny morning, our friend from last night dropped by and gave us some hydrangea flowers from his garden.

The canal to Cambrai was lovely, but quite weedy and not that deep, the handling of the boat felt quite different.  We tackled 5 locks, all very easy, so much smaller than what have been in since we arrived in France.  We were met by the VNF lock keepers at the first lock and they gave us a hand held controller that we used to operate the locks.  The hand held controller prepares the lock, opens the gate etc all very easy.  We arrived at Cumbrai around 12.30 and we have found a lovely spot at the port du Plaisance.  Plenty of room for us, which is great.  We are out tonight for dinner, looks like there is a good choice of restaurants.   We have found a Boulangerie for our baguettes tomorrow morning.  We are going to stay tomorrow night as well and have a chill out time.

 

Cambrai a lovely spot