The Somme canal to Lille
we finally left Jac and Chris on ‘Joli Roger’ Friday morning and had a good trip down the Somme and onto the Canal du nord. They are great company and no doubt we will meet up again later this year
A rare glimpse of sun on a wet journey down the Somme
The constant rain is beginning to dampen the mood, see what I did there.
Amiens appears in the midst.
The empty moorings on the town moorings
I wonder why?
Three long days saw the first stop at Corbie and then Saturday onto the Canal du Nord and up the first flight to Moislains where we spent a comfortable night,before setting off early on Sunday morning to complete the canal du nord.
Its a little unnerving passing commercials in the middle of the long tunnel.
The end of a long 5 kilometer tunnel on the Canal du Nord
This canal has a scary reputation but that is not deserved as we have always had a pleasant trip. OK there are not many stopping places of note but if you plan it and with a bit of luck you can complete the canal in a day and we got to Douai and found a quite spot to moor overnight.
A sudden vibration in the engine caused a quick stop and clearing the weed hatch.
A large white plastic bag was pulled from the weed hatch and then all was well.
Today we pushed on with constant rain preventing any long stoppages and we made Lille in the early afternoon.
The only other moment was this car in the canal. It looked like a new car and it was empty,hope nobody was hurt.
I phoned the lovely Camille to book the Roubaix passage for tomorrow morning and due to the football tonight went on to Wambrechies a couple of kilometers past the Roubaix turn. A good stop with all facilities and we met up with Marc and George the Aussie couple we met on the Somme, A small community is the boating one.
This post was written by Terry Barrett
Photographs by Tes
Jacqui
Been great spending time with you both again, look forward to hopefully seeing you later when summer finally arrives on the Somme.
Terry Barrett
Looks like summer will arrive this weekend, hope so. will probably see you late July but as you know I don’t like planning too far in advance as it never works out as planned.