Wednesday 18th April 2018 Nomexy to Thaon-les-Vosges 7.25kms 5 locks

Nomexy from lock 24 La heronniere

4.8ºC Sunny and hot, tiny breeze. We went shopping at Carrefour in Jeumexy (close to Epinal) and got stocked up with groceries plus I bought some feed for roses and Mike had a pair of gardening gloves as locking with a rope was making his hands sore. Got two containers of diesel for the boat (80€) Back at 11.45am and I stowed the groceries and Mike put the diesel in the engine room. Set off at 1pm. Up lock 24 La Heronnèire. Lots of dust from lorries from Liebherr concrete

Information post for towpath cyclists

works crossing the tail end bridge. Had a ten minute pause above lock 24 as we had another blockage in the cooling water system, short lengths of straw and reed. Noted that the lock was programmed to empty after up boats. The wind had blown the boat against the bank, which had ancient sloping bricked edges so we listed slightly and had to shove off with boat shafts. Up lock 23 Vaxoncourt. The lock house was lived (probably not VNF). A VNF man with a little digger was loading a small dumper truck with stones ans hardcore rubble. This was the infill for the twin plastic culvert pipes in the bank below the lock. Above the lock there was a brand new run off weir. Up lock 22 Igney whose old lock

Lockhouse 22 Igney

house was empty and the Marinier’s garden decorated with anchors and rudders, etc, was long gone. As we left the lock I took a photo of a house by the canal with a very unusual double pitched roof. On the pound leading to lock 21 Plaine de Thaon there were tree branches stripped completely of bark – only one big rodent does that – more beaver. Lots of people on bikes had stopped to watch the gravel-extraction barge at work lifting big bucket loads of gravel from the old river bed in a lake alongside the canal. On past the

Unusual two pitch roof on house below lock 22

berth for the three specially adapted barges that take the gravel from there up the canal to unload at a wharf below lock 17. There were loads of gongoozlers on the lockside and on the tail end bridge as we went up lock 21. They all started telling us that there was a péniche coming - it was one of the gravel barges coming down the canal to reload, unusual as it is steered from the bows. A woman on the bows was waving a zapper about while the boat was still tens of metres away from the zapper

Gravel-extractor below lock 21 Plaine-de-Thaon

post (most of them you have to be with 3 or 4m for it work). Perhaps because they're commercial they had a more powerful zapper. We've discussed attaching a kilowatt burner to ours but that would probably activate several locks on the canal at the same time. Seriously though, it would be helpful if the zappers were more powerful or the receivers were more sensitive. Up lock 20 Thaon, with more gongoozlers watching. On into Thaon and tied up at the quay by the big boules court just as a DB was also heading for the same mooring from the opposite direction. We tied up bows to bows.

Moored in Thaon-les-Vosges with first plaisance
boat seen on this canal