France 2011

July 27^th

It seems along time ago that I sat down to write my blogg. We have passed through many towns that were highly industrial and not that exciting.

Our first place in France was a place called Lille. It is here that we picked up our German friends, Dietmar and Margrit.

                                                            Town square of Lille

                                        Dietmar and Russel in Lille

We had a great mooring in Lille but no electricity so after three days things were getting a bit grim. We even had to turn off the drinks frig.  It is also a lot harder to communicate as the French have little English. We have been spoilt by the Dutch and the Germans.

 

We have very little information of where to stop overnight and if we do find somewhere it has few facilities.  We had been sailing for about7 hours and decided enough was enough so we pulled into this little area where some Belgium people made room for us.

Russel then had to turn the engine off. We hadn’t been able to switch it off all day, so we pulled the floor up and Russel went down to try and turn the engine off manually. He ended up with a part coming away in his hand. Oh horror from me.!!!

He decided to get help form the Belgium, who claimed it had happened to him 2 weeks ago. He managed to turn the engine off. Next day Russel repaired the part that had come loose and we are now in action again.

                                          This is the spot where we stopped overnight -Estrun

At about 7pm we received a text from the Gilberts “Where are you?

We turned the Tom Tom on to see where we were and after telling them the Gilberts turned up and parked on the road.

                             These guys passed by the next morning

The next place we stayed at was Cambrai – here we had power and water and were fairly close to the town – riding bikes to the town showed we were definitely out of the Netherlands – we had hills to go up.

 That night I refused to cook so Dietmar and Margrit took us out for dinner and we all had mussels. Even though they were from Zeeland they were not as big as the previous ones.

We have now started the locking scene and it is quite strenuous. We hit a lock about every 1-2 klm today and now we are sitting outside the Riqueval Tunnel. Tomorrow morning we will go through. The tunnel is 5.65 klm long and you are towed through by an electric boat which pulls itself along a very large chain. . You are not allowed to have your engines going. You are tied to the next boat by a 30 meter rope that is crossed at the front. They take all our details and then send the charge to your home address.

Once again we received a text from the Gilberts for our location and after a while we could see them walking up the long walk way for a visit. This time they couldn’t get their van near us, so after a cup of tea they headed back to their van. 

 

If you look close enough you can see Gilberts walking towards us

 

                                                   Gilberts arrive

At about 9am the barge arrived to pull us through the tunnel.

 

                                 We are about to enter the Tunnel

The Carr’s are being towed from our boat. They are about to enter the tunnel.

Well we managed to get through that tunnel and the next one. We have had to pull our binini down a couple of times. I expect this will happen a lot in France as the Bridges don’t lift and are sometimes quite low.

We made it to Saint Quentin in the rain and we are here for a few days. Dietmar and Margrit left this morning and so did the Gilberts and the Carr’s so we are here on our own doing washing, cleaning and boat maintenance. I am also nursing a really bad cold and I need the rest. We leave tomorrow.

Aug 5^th.

 The Gilberts finally found the cheap phone. “Lebara” it enables you to ring a home phone in Perth for 1c /minute. We still haven’t found internet so will be visiting MacDonald’s today if the rain stops. We have had the odd sunny day since leaving St Quentin. I even put my bathers on once. The weather really has been appalling this year.

 We continued to travel down the St Quentin canal and stopped at Chauney, Pargny-Flain, Berry on Bac and then arrived in Reims after many locks and one tunnel. Below are a few photos of our travels.

Our tie up in Chauny at side of canal

                                   One of many many locks

Near Pargy Flain was this water playground in the canal water supply pound

Entry to a 2.5km tunnel

                               

                                  Following the Carr's

Reims is the beginning of the Champagne country so yesterday we did a tour of the Mumm company which ended with a great glass of champagne. We went underground through their maze of tunnels (25 km in total- we didn't walk that far) where they store  millions of bottles of champagne. Did you know that some 80% of Frances champagne production is consumed within France.

                                  

                                 Outside Mumm Champagne house

The previous night we went to a light show on the cathedral. It was extremely well done. For those that will visit Reims it’s a must. They hold it on most Friday and Saturday nights at about 10.00pm.