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| Moored at Demange |
2.4ºC Overcast and chilly after a cold night.
Set off at 9.30am. Lock 1 Tombois was ready for us. I walked up to the lock
with a short boat shaft to hook the mooring line, and when the lock was full we
topped up our water tank. Several VNF men were buzzing about. One collected the
zapper and one said he was our support cyclist (he makes sure we’re OK as he
cycles along the towpath in the tunnel with us and checks in at designated
intercoms to call base to say we’re all OK – Health and Safety gone a little
bit OTT). It took us and our attendant cyclist an
hour and ten minutes for the
passage of Mauvages tunnel 4887m in length on the summit level of the
Marne-au-Rhin canal west branch, at a height above sea level of 281m. We were
now out of the Seine basin and into the Meuse valley. Started downhill at
11.30am following the valley of the little river Mèholle, down a flight of
twelve linked locks (each lock activates the next) each lock drops the boat
2.9m and the pounds between are all under 1km in length. The first five locks, Mauvages,
Villeroy, Chalède, Grande Charme and St Esprit, no longer had lock houses. All
the rest had lived in houses except for lock 9 Biquiottes which had no house
and lock 12 Void whose house was bricked up. We had lunch on the move as we
carried on down the flight. All the locks were easy to work, just lift the blue
bar and each one worked a treat. Mike spotted lock 10’s control cabin (only
used when there are problems) was full of flies, thousands of them and more
hovering about outside wanting to get in – had something died in there? At the
last lock a
charming, chatty VNF man in a van came to ask which way we were
going, we told him towards Toul – if we’d gone north on the canal de l’Est we’d
have had a new zapper, but on the route we’re taking we don’t need one for a
while. It was 2.35pm when we finished the flight. The sky was a hazy grey-blue
with flat clouds and the light was weak like you get at the start of an eclipse,
I took photos as we followed the N4 on an embankment looking down on all the
traffic. Under the N4 bridge and out into quieter countryside. Dust came across
the canal in great clouds as vehicles moved in a cement
works on our right,
fortunately not as we were passing. Mike paused on the aqueduct over the river
Meuse to take a photo of the weir, which looked like it was about normal water
level. At 4pm we turned right at the junction with the canal de l’Est,
following the railway which was high up above us following the contours of a
hill. Round meandering bends into Pagny-sur-Meuse, where we moored on a pontoon
at 5pm behind a ginormous Belgian three-decker cruiser (no one
on board must have been left there for the winter). The alternator belt had
been
squeaking, so Mike changed it, and was surprised that it was a lot more
damaged that he had suspected
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| Top lock - 1 Tombois |
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| Old engine shed abv Tombois |
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| Old tunnel tug now in retirement |
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| Entrance to Mauvages tunnel |
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| Exit to Mauvages with barrier and safety boat |
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| Church at Pagny-sur-Meuse |
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| Old towpath traction engine |
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| Another old engine by VNF offices and workshop at Void |
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| Church at Void |
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| Pale sky overlooking N4 |
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| Weir on river Meuse from aqueduct |
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