Tuesday 9th September 2014 Pommeroeul to La Louviére. 38.1kms 2 locks 1 lift

After a month at Pommeroeul we finally restart the journey back to France.

The pier at Pommeroeul -Snail, a Dutch boat and DB Albertine  

9.8°C Warm and sunny. Clear blue skies to start, then wispy hazy streaks of clouds, turning into a Simpson’s sky later. Breezy. An empty commercial went past on the main canal, heading the same way as us. We said our au voirs to Anne and Oll, they said they’d be back in the UK November so we’d meet up somewhere. Said bye to Andy and Clare as we were all taking photos. It was 10.10 am as we turned on to the Kanaal Nimy-Blaton-Peronnes heading uphill towards Mons, noting that the quay on the corner where several large

Wandering Snail at Pommeroeul

commercials had moored for several days at a time during the past month had a large “No Mooring” sign and an arrow pointing along the quay “for 110m” ie the length of the quay. A large bird of prey picked a fish out of the canal and flew off with it, my guess would be that it was a fish-scavenging black kite. The pink flowers of marsh-mallow were blooming all along the canal banks. A loaded Czech boat was moored in the darse at Villerot, Magrit from Decin, (80m x 9.0m) at the chemical works of Yara. A nearly empty tanker called Vira

Loaded boat Satanas overtaking

(77m x 8.20m 1082T) from Rotterdam was finishing unloading. I missed a good photo of a house by the road bridge in Baudor that had a long line of at least a dozen big, tall banana palms along the towpath. Remarkable plants that grow new trees each year from the previous year’s roots. Sandpipers flew yodelling across the canal, they are a definite feature of this canal, there were several pairs of them at the basin at Pommeroeul. A loaded Dutch péniche called Rimar from

Empty Samarinda overtaking Satanas 

Moorhoek was moored at the end of the long quays at Ghlin. A container crane was using chains to load some steel coils into a lorry. There were no moored boats, just a a long series of quays full of concrete pipes, containers, steel coils and coal besides whatever was stored in the warehouses. We could see a loaded boat in the distance behind that was fast catching us up. Bright yellow button flowers of strong-smelling tansy were growing along the canal banks in between big banks of Japanese knotweed. The loaded boat went past us just before the flood lock at Ghlin, Satanas from Visé (51m x 6.6m 668T) and

Satanas by the old boat lift at Thieu

we got caught on his stern wash and had to do a hard reverse to get off it. A DB had just left the moorings at Mons, followed by a cruiser. Mike spotted a narrowboat on the moorings called Mabel Rose. He put the revs up to try and keep up with the three boats in front of us. When we arrived below Obourg lock the commercial was going in and the cruiser and DB were hovering just outside the lock. The DB, called Pendragon, took the right hand wall and we followed the cruiser (Fair Lady, German flagged with Roermond on its stern, R.Maas

The old boat lift and new lock at Thieu

in NL) on the left wall. He stopped short and the keeper tried to get him to move forward, but he either was ignoring him or didn’t speak French as he didn’t move. There was just enough room for us to get in and I slung a centre line around a bollard. Mike moved the rope up the six bollards from the roof while I made some lunch. The commercial set off followed by the DB but the cruiser was slow to move and hadn’t taken his ropes off when we moved over and followed Pendragon out of the lock with the German skipper shouting the odds at Mike as he went past him. Needless to say he soon overtook us.

Below the new Strepy-Thieu boat lift

We followed the queue to Havre with the cruiser right up behind the commercial. A Dutch tanker called Voja (81.3m x 9.60m) had just left the chamber, but something else was going up in the lock so we had to wait, hovering in the middle of the canal with the other three boats. There was a covered conveyor belt running along the left hand bank and it was covered in graffiti, we wondered what it was carrying that needed a cover. The lock emptied and Satanas got green lights and so we followed the others into the lock chamber – this one, Havre, is bigger than the last lock at 124m long and has floaters, while Obourg was only 96m long. Satanas went up to the top end, the cruiser went forward and attached to a floater opposite the commercial and the keeper called everyone forward as another boat was coming in, an empty péniche called Samarinda. We had troubles getting to the left hand floaters so the skipper of Satanas invited us to hang on to his side bollards. We had a long natter (in French) as the lock

View from Strepy lift of the boats waiting below the lift

filled. The skipper and his wife liked our boat, they said they wanted to sell their boat and retire, but they said that the Belgians wanted more for a cruiser than they were selling their 51m boat for! They asked how much to buy a narrowboat, so we told them roughly the price of new ones and second hand. They seemed impressed and said they might buy one! They agreed with what Helen had said about the wheat harvest being bad this year so there wasn’t much work about (although they said the Dutch undercut the Belgians by 1,50€

Strepy lift - Bounty (commercial in front end of caisson)
German cruiser, Pendragon and Temujin 

a tonne, how they didn’t know as they have to pay the same out for diesel, etc) They had a cargo of industrial soil that had been cleaned to remove heavy metals, etc (he rolled the cover back to show us) which he was taking to Liège as the Arabs were buying it up. We laughed and said is that true, no joking, - yes it’s true; so we asked what they were buying it for, he didn’t know but there were lots of boats were carrying this cargo of treated soil. Whatever next!? We followed the cruiser out of the lock at 2.55 pm. The others soon overtook us, all heading for Strépy. A loaded Belgian boat called Njord (447T) went past heading downhill, followed by a loaded French

Moored above the old boat lifts at La Louviere

péniche called Jewel and 670T Espoir (55m x 7.25m). The empty péniche we’d locked with wound up the power to overtake Satanas as we were going past the long quay at Villers-sur-Haine. It was 3 pm. Shortly after we went past the long quay below the new lock and the bottom old lift no 4 at Thieu which was full of fishermen and their parked cars. Into the deep cutting that the new canal follows to the big new lift. There was a queue below the lift. The cruiser had moored on the left below the right hand caisson and the queue of commercials started with Bounty an 85m empty, then Oceanic a big Dutch tanker, then Samarinda the empty péniche from Marchiennes and Satanas had tagged on the end. When Conbar from Sherringham (British newbuild DB last seen in Mons a month ago) came out of the caisson we followed Bounty and the cruiser in and took the right hand wall, DB Pendragon came alongside us and we chatted with the crew as we rose 73m in ten minutes. We were last out – the others shot off into the distance and we resumed normal pace as we no longer needed to keep up with the commercial. After a few kilometres we turned right on to the historic canal - which is still closed to through traffic and provides us with a nice quiet mooring above the top lift no 1 Houdeng-Goegnies. It was 5.30 pm when we tied up.

Saturday 9th August 2014 Ville-sur-Haine to Pommeroeul. 27.7kms 2 locks

In Obourg lock

15.9°C Very windy in the night, which woke Mike (the last blows of hurricane Bertha from America?). Grey clouds but sunny spells and still a stiff breeze blowing. Set off at 9.15 am following a loaded boat down to Havré lock. The lock was full and Espoir (Hope) from Thuin (B) was watering up, so that ruined our chances of getting any water in the lock. A cruiser called Zigzag was moored very precariously above the lock next to dolphins designed for big boats with horizontal supports that were almost higher than the cruisers cabin, the skipper said he would be going down later. We went in behind the commercial and waited. I did the chores and made a cuppa while we waited. They finished filling up and we descended 10m attached to a floater. An empty arrived at the top and a Dutch empty, called Chasseur (hunter) from Maasbracht, arrived to go up, followed by a cruiser.  A short distance to the next lock, past long quays full of more rubbish for recycling and a moored loaded boat called Memphis. There was an

Derelict old mill at Villecot

enormous cement works called Holcim above Obourg lock. The commercial had motored on at a pace we couldn’t keep up with, but he had to slow down to enter the lock and the keeper kept the gates open for us. A Dutch cruiser had just come up. This was a much shorter lock (96m) than the previous one (124m) so we had to go alongside the commercial rather than behind it and he kept his bow thruster going and his prop turning as we dropped down another 5m, changing the ropes down 6 bollards recessed into the concrete wall of the lock chamber. The couple on the commercial were preoccupied with what looked like some damage to their fore-end cabin, which was covered with a sheet of plastic held down with a long hard plastic fender.

Moored on the pier at Pommeroeul,
looking towards the disused lock

Unusually, they motored out of the lock first (Normally the commercials want us out of the way for more manoeuvring room in the chamber). Loaded tanker Calcit 10 was moored below on a short quay. We went across the Grand Large lake to the Mons boat marina to get some water. We moored among the Dutch cruisers we’d seen the day before and Snail came alongside us. While the tanks filled up I took a walk to the Capitanerie (they’d now got a posh lift!) on the second floor and paid 2€ each for the water (water is included in the price if you stay overnight). Two British boats were moored there among the cruisers and yachts (no one on board either), replica DB Pendragon and a large chunky steel boat called Conbar from Sherringham (where

Moored at Pommeroeul, looking towards the main canal
along the length of the pier

Anne’s daughter Amy lives in Norfolk) En route again at 12.30 pm, back across the lake with one sailboat and a jetski making waves. Not long after we went through the flood lock at Ghlin and the canal changed its name to the Nimy-Blaton-Peronnes canal. Two tugs were moored at the south darse (dock) at Ghlin, Spes IV and Romina with an empty pan. Signs said beware dredging in progress, but they were obviously having the weekend off. In the north darse Espoir (the boat we’d locked with) was moored ready for unloading Monday and was craning his car off. I made some lunch. Lots of long quays bordered the canal covered with piles of sand, soil, rocks and rubble, beyond which were steel coils and piles of containers then stacked concrete pipes. A cruiser was catching up (it was Zigzag again) and an empty called Ludovica from Evergem (it used to be called Anita, which was embossed across the stern) went past heading for Mons, motoring hard and making a lot of wash. The concrete quay walls surrounding the entrance to the darse at Baudour were very high and opposite them a fancy new power plant had been built belonging to Electrobel (GDF & Suez). The cruiser Zigzag was moored next to the berths for an oil berth by a fuel station. He said he was trying to get some petrol, but the access to the bank was blocked by a gate. We wished him luck and Mike said he’d do better mooring by the next bridge and walking back with a can. The water had changed colour from a dirty muddy brown filled with bits of rubbish to a bright chalky green as we passed the old windmill opposite the darse at Villecot. Three Dutch cruisers went past, all doing the same speed and all but the last one were making a lot of wash. We arrived at Pommeroeul at 3.10 pm and moored by the disused lock on the waiting area – a long pier. No other boats were there except an old cruiser and two old sailing dinghies moored on the other side of the wall. Set the TV up then Mike got the moped off using a short plank (the quay was almost cabin height, but there was a big gap due to the timber fendering along the wall) and went to collect the car from Ville-sur-Haine. Be interesting to see how long we have to wait before the boat can be hauled out for painting. Hard work here we come again – got to keep the boat looking good!