Saturday 22nd April 2017 Bayon to below lk 32 Plaine de Charmes 10.4kms 6 locks

1.2°C Grey skies, but the wind had died down quite a bit. Mike went to try and get some coal

First new ducklings!

and boulets as we were fast running out and more cold weather had been forecast. First we looked online for Bricomarchés and found two close by, one in Charmes and one in Mirecourt. He went by car and found neither had any coal. He came back to the boat to tell me the news and went on to Lunéville, the Brico was a Mr Bricolage and he got three 4kgs bags of charcoal boulets at 7,50€ each and a pack of brown coal briquettes 5kg for 3,50€ - all far more expensive than we usually pay, but when no proper coal is available what else can we do? While he was away I got up to date with the blog and did the chores. Mike was back at 12.30pm and at 1.00pm we decided to move on

Derelict building across weir into the river-
but what are the two vertical walls on the left for?
Any ideas?

even though it was very quiet and peaceful at Bayon. After no boat movements all day, there was a cruiser coming down in lock 38 Roville as we were getting ready to move, so we waited until he’d gone past and into lock 39 before we set off. 1 km to Roville, up another 3m (all the locks have a 3m lift). Mike asked me to look for photos of the mooring quay we used in 2002. Photos back then were 35mm and we had digitised the prints. We went digital photographically in

A close up of the walls, note they are
at 45 degrees to the house wall

2005. We’d only taken two 35mm photos in July 2002 and neither of them were of a quay. Shows how careful we were when photos were (relatively) expensive. When we first arrived on to “The Mainland” we had a film roll of 36 done in Belgium and nearly fainted when they cost £22 for prints back in 1993! After that we found it was much cheaper for us to send them back to the UK to Prontaprint. Up 37 Chaud Rupt and I made a hot sandwich of fried spam and egg for lunch. Up 36 Bainville. First signs of life! Cyclists and walkers and a bunch of not very happy looking paddlers. Up 35 Gripport closely followed by 34 Moulin de Gripport. Mike shinned up the ladder with a rope and chatted with the VNF man at the lock house. He told Mike they have no péniche traffic now, he didn’t say why but I think the guy at the silo had the answer – too expensive. As we neared the next lock there were cars and fishermen everywhere among the flooded gravel pits and right by lock 33 Socourt there were wooden chalets and a big car park almost full of cars. Fishermen’s paradise! We stopped above Socourt, tied to an old wooden edged quay just before the next lock Plaine de Charmes as we didn’t want to stop in Charmes which has a quay for boats

Paddlers

with all facilities. Mike said when he went past in the car the moorings were full and boats were doubled, moored side-by-side and there were lots of campervans at the same spot where the facilities are shared. They also charge for car parking throughout the small town. Last time we were there (in 2007 with Billybubbles) we moored towpath side and Bill was incensed that they charged boats (7€/night)1€ more than

Moored by a very old quay near Charmes

campers (6€/night) for exactly the same facilities. A VNF van went past just after we’d tied up, but he didn’t stop.