Maxilly to Piepape

Monday 18 July

We managed 13 locks and 1 automatic bridge this day.  The automatic bridge refused to open so I telephoned the vnf man who said it was broken but someone was coming, and at that moment a young man drove up in a van and lifted it for us.  We are most impressed by the service provided by the vnf.  There are little vans that run up and down the tow path, checking that everything is alright and they sort things out quickly if there’s a problem.  Most of the locks operate with the ‘telecommande’ remote, which you click when about 300 metres from the lock and that sets the operation in motion.   A few were automatic which means the operation is activated when the boat passes a radar beam.  At our first automatic, nothing happened.   I phoned the vnf man and he asked if we were a small, plastic boat.  Well, that sounds so dismal, but I agreed that we were.  He said, that’s the problem and you will have this problem all the way up.  Don’t you have a reflector?  Ah, yes.  We grabbed our reflector out of the locker and waved it at the radar beam and Voila, the green light went on.

The locks are endlessly challenging - slimy, weed laden, spider web laced metal ladders almost always on the opposite side to the operating mechanism, badly positioned bollards and sometimes turbulent water.  Mike holds the boat against the wall by the ladder and I clamber up (very carefully) hauling both ropes, slip them round one or preferably, if possible, two bollards, pass Mike’s rope back to him, snub mine off and then walk across the bridge to the other side, lift the blue rod, scuttle back across the bridge and take my rope, then hold on tight whilst the lock fills.  The ‘telecommande’ remote control locks are easier because I can use the remote to activate the process and don’t have to cross the bridge and lift the blue rod.  It’s a tiring, dirty business but we are becoming quite proficient.  Every day we bless our new fat fenders which hold the boat quite steady.   The canal is full to overflowing so the rain has finally made some real difference. 

Just after the lock at St Seine, and as we were beginning to worry about finding somewhere for the night because there was nothing marked on our chart, we found a small picnic mooring (PK197) scarcely big enough for one boat and tied up in another torrential downpour.  Half an hour of heavy rain was followed by brilliant sunshine for about an hour, then it clouded over again and has remained cloudy, occasionally drizzling.

Tuesday 19 July

Next morning, still gloomy and cold, we set off and only had six locks to our next stop at Cusey (PK 181) an extremely nice Halte Nautique free with electricity and water, where once again we arrived in torrential rain.  Rain is good but we’re getting a bit weary of it now.

There is a small mobile home functioning as a restaurant open midday and evening serving salads and snacks, but although there were four boats here, none of us availed ourselves of their services (which I felt was a shame).  We took a walk into the little village but found absolutely nothing commercial – there’s the inevitable church and Mairie and I saw a post box, but that’s it.  The New Zealand sailing boat, Isis, took their bikes on a long search of various villages in the area and found not one shop.  Isis has a very long mast and trail a dinghy, making them a bit unwieldy, and they also have 1.8m draught so they get grounded rather often.  They are a laid back and resourceful bunch, particularly their teenage son Sam, and they manoeuvre their way out of all sorts of mishaps. 

Wednesday 20 July

Once again it was gloomy and cold, but we set off at 11 am and took in 11 locks.  Along the way, in the middle of a lock manoeuvre, we were approached by a lady from the lock keeper’s house and sold a jar of Acacia Honey.  It wasn’t cheap but Acacia trees are common in Zimbabwe so we know this honey.   We also admired Madame’s sense of commerce.  Although some are derelict, many of the old lock houses are now inhabited by ordinary citizens, some of whom are friendly and like to pass the time of day and others who ignore us.  I don’t get too many opportunities to practice my French any more so I chat away to anyone who will oblige.  No one has ever offered to take our lines or lift the blue rod.

Curiosity stops many people passing by in cars, on bikes or on foot, to watch the boats struggling in the locks and it’s nice to have a little chat, except when you’re having problems tying up, in which case you’d prefer not to have an audience.  I complained, quite gently, to the pretty young woman in the vnf van who’s been monitoring us for two days now about the fact that the ladder is always on the opposite side from the blue rod.  She agreed that it is totally impractical and offered as an excuse that the locks are very old – the implication being that folk were less logical back in the early 1900’s.  Basically, of course, the locks are designed for large commercial peniches and not small pleasure craft.

We arrived at the Halte Pique-Nique just beyond the lock at Piépape (PK169) at 3.30 pm.  We’d been told about this picnic spot by two yachts and assumed the depth would be good but it wasn’t and we’ve tied up with the keel firmly in the mud and our stern sticking out.  It’s a long bone jarring jump to the shore.  At least today it has not rained, though it has remained mostly cloudy and cool.  There are sunny bursts, we peel our jackets off and I get the camera out, but they never last long.  We hear it is going to stay this way till the end of the week.

Tomorrow we have a continuous chain of 11 automatic locks, which will bring us to our highest point and the last of the up locks.  We have been coming upwards since Port Saint Louis.   It is rumoured that going down is easier than coming up. 

We are hoping so.