"Elle" - Exploring the European Inland Waterways: Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne (Canal between Champagne and Burgundy): Soulanges - Orconte

19 June to 24 June 2018

Tuesday 19 June – Soulanges to Orconte. 24 kilometers, 9 locks, 5 hours 10 minutes (including 1 hour delay at Vitry-le-Francois).

Leaving the Canal Lateral a la Marne after passing through the drab city of Vitry-le-Francois which was leveled by war in 1944 and 1945, and passing the packed and ugly port we were very pleased that we had decided against stopping there – surely the grimiest port setting we have seen.

A cool morning.

Remains of an old factory?

Cruising across the aquaduct.

Vitry-le Francois outskirts.

A very complimentary picture of the port - entrance through the bushes on the right.

But ahead is a string of seventy one ‘uphill’ locks, many in the three meter plus height of rise and many of which fill to overflowing so one has to be careful and it is quite hard work especially for Lynn.

The Carters aboard Njord had found a gadget at a chandler which assists the user in attaching lines to hard-to-reach bollards so I made up one in South Africa; basically a piece of aluminium tube bent and attached to a cannibalized windscreen cleaner attached to which are two cut-down water pipe brackets, the type used to attach water pipes to walls. This was then attached to a 1,7 meter (2 meter would be better but I could not find one at any of the supermarkets we have been to here although they do exist) extendable handle and it works like a dream!

The gadget.

How easy was that!

Despite being held up at Vitry where a fully laden commercial, doing one kilometre per hour from its mooring to the first lock about five hundred meters away but which was tied up at the top of the lock when we finally exited thus allowing us topass,

The biggie negotiating the bridge before the lock.

we made good time and arrived at the pretty mooring at Orconte with its +/-50 meter quay with a shower, toilet, water and electricity for sixteen Euros for three nights, shortly after one.

Clean water.

The commercial coming out of the lock really rocked us around.

The view from the very full lock.

On our second day we were joined by Namaté, (which had been in the Châlons-en-Champagne port and which had tied up behind us at Soulanges), a small, man-and-his-dog cruiser, Jimbo (a woman appeared the next morning), and a laden commercial, Cindy - what the latter was doing tying up just outside the lock was a mystery; mechanical issues perhaps?

Cindy

The time spent here mainly entailed sanding and varnishing in the most beautiful, warm weather (followed by a cooler, cloudy spell on our second day)

as the town itself only has a modern Mairie, a small church, a boulangerie which is open in the mornings, and a brocante which is open on Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings, and nothing else – and the nearby villages appear to be much the same.

The main road through town.

Town hall.

Very melodious - who can identify it?

Friday 22 June – Orconte to Saint-Dizier. 16 kilometers, 8 locks, 4 hours.

Strangely, Steve from Piper barge Kokoro had asked if they could lock through with us to St Dizier – we’ve never known someone to want to voluntarily lock through eight ‘uphill’ locks with another boat before – but his wife decided that our earlier-than-usual-for-most departure time did not suit her, so on a breathless, clear morning we set off up the canal which was pretty but somewhat uninspiring.

A lock keepers house.

Most still have the old name of the canal viz, Canal de la Marne a la Saone.

What kept us entertained was the coming and going of the fighter planes from the Saint-Dizier-Robinson Air Base and one flight of five jets taking off as we entered the Hallingcourt lock nearly deafened us; unfortunately, taking photographs and maneuvering into a small lock are in conflict hence no pics.

The air base.

The grave of a pilot and navigator who presumably crashed next to the canal,

Arriving through the pong from the YTO auto parts factory, the three hundred meter long quay at St Dizier was deserted and, having been alerted to the possibility of night-time disturbance from the club at the upstream end of the mooring, we tied up just after exiting the lock – by nightfall there were five other boats in place; American, Australian, Dutch, New Zealand and British – quite a gathering of nations!

The mooring is free, you are allowed to stay for seventy two hours and you are given free tokens for electricity and water –thank you to the citizens of Saint-Dizier!

Kokoro arriving at St Dizier.

St Dizier is a bit of a gritty town around the port which is close to the station but the space around the town square is typical small town France and has some lovely buildings. On the station/aquatic center side of the river, stretching north in the direction of the big shopping area, the town is largely fifties suburban possibly reflecting the fact that St Dizier was heavily bombed by the Allies during WW2 to prevent interception of bombers flying into occupied territory from the German held air base.

Mooring-side view.

The popular aquatic center.

There is however a big E.Leclerc Express supermarket nearby, a Saturday morning fresh produce market and an assortment of tatty take away joints but not a single restaurant which carried any kind of appeal. Not being in a rush to go anywhere we just relaxed, did some chores and watched the world go by.