Mulhouse to Dannemarie/Dannemarie to Montreaux-Chateau/Montreaux-Chateau to Montbéliard

We are now retracing our steps back along the Canal du Rhône au Rhin (River Doubs) so I will keep our blog short and sweet. 

We have been keeping an eye on this route because of the rain we had while in Mulhouse.  I found a website showing flood warnings and it has shown the Doubs to be on yellow alert, its back down to green at the moment but we will have to keep an eye on it.  The website is www.vigicrues.gouv.fr

We’ve seen that The Rhine has been on yellow alert since we’ve come off it.  We heard from our friends on Le Koala that it had risen over a foot overnight and they told us they were stuck in the marina at Briesach.  Their trip to Breisach on The Rhine had been really slow; on the stretches in the current they had only managed 1.9kph. They are waiting there until The Rhine calms down.

Thursday 24^th July

Mulhouse to Dannemarie

22 locks 2 lift bridges and 22km 8 hours including 1hour lunch stop

We had a good trip back up the hill to Dannemarie, the locks are so gentle to fill, it would be great if all the locks we come across in France are this easy.  We had eclusiers to man the automatic locks for us and they helped us with our ropes, so it made it extremely easy.

Friday 25^th July

Dannemarie to Montreaux-Chateau

15 locks 10 km 3 hours

We had a lovely day today and all because we had two really friendly young, female lock keepers called Amanda and Debra looking after us, they were a delight.

Montreaux-Chateaux is at the summit and is a lovely place to stop, the mooring is very reasonable only 5 euros per night including electric and water.  There is a Peniche (Barge) Restaurant there, we didn’t go as we had plenty of food onboard but it was busy which is a good sign.

One lock after another to get us up to Montreaux-Chateau

Amanda and Debra our friendly Eclusiers

Montreaux-Chateaux to Montbéliard

11 locks, 20km 5 hours

It was a bit wet today but it cleared up just as we arrived at Montbéliard.  We were lucky enough to moor back where we were last time, on a pontoon hammerhead.  We intend to stay here for a few days.  We are hoping some friends can come to stay with us for a couple of nights as long as were aren’t too far out of their way home from a holiday in the Dordogne.

We cycled to a Cheese shop this morning and bought a load of lovely French cheese.