Dizier and Orconte
Seascapes Travel Log
Michael Grew
Fri 17 Jun 2011 19:23
St Dizier 15.06.2011 48:38:41N 04:57:08E
A beautiful morning, trouble was we got up late and three of the cruisers (including the QE2) had already left. Oh well we should have a quiet run up the canal without them. We left the moorings at 08:20hrs and pottered slowly up the canal passing under several lift bridges that we surprised to see were being raised by the Eclusiers (lock-keepers) using a manual winch. We arrived at St Dizier at 14:15hrs having covered 32 kilometres and passed through 13 locks (they are all going down now, so they are very easy to deal with). We wandered around town for a couple of hours doing all the usual sightseeing. Nothing very much to report really. That evening there was a free “Spectacular” promised along the quay where a company of players would put on a show on a specially built stage on a barge that was moored in the middle of the canal (once all the locks were closed). We thought that would be really good to watch So at 20:30hrs we took our picnic chairs and made sure we had a grandstand view. The show was put on to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the VNF (the inland water authority of France). It was a costume drama all in overdramatised French. They started half an hour late and by twenty minutes into it I had had enough and left Maureen to it. I was not alone half the French audience left at the same time. Maureen returned to the boat 40 minutes later and said it had not got any better so she had given up on it as well. The racket carried on until midnight and then finished (thank goodness!) It was still a noisy night with traffic and railway freight trains going through.
Orconte 16.06.2011 48:39:97N 04:44:03E
We had a wet start, leaving the mooring at 08:30hrs in heavy rain. We then had a journey where the canopy was up and down like a fiddlers elbow and our macs we were on and off like a light switch. On this stretch of the canal it follows the main road and is dead straight for around 17 kilometres and has eight locks on it. We were surprised to find that in some of the locks, in the crevices, were freshwater mussels and as we slowly went down past them they would spit water at us. We arrived at a deserted, very small quay at Orconte at 11:50hrs, where we were very surprised to see there was water, electricity, toilets and a shower! (and only 6 Euros a night!). The weather was very overcast but was not raining so after lunch we went for a bike ride down to the largest man-made lake in Europe called Lac du Der, which is 7 kilometres from the mooring. However we got lost (we didn’t take the map with us!) but we eventually found it and rode along the edge in a gale force wind and heavy rain (lovely!). As an indication as to the water shortage in France, the water level was something like 10 metres below what it should be for the time of the year. By the time we cycled back to the boat it was bright sunshine and we had ridden about 30 kilometres (20 miles approx). After dinner we were entertained? by four teenage lads in a tiny two cylinder diesel, Dacia car that turned up at the mooring and proceeded to play their radio flat out. I think the radio was worth more than the car and all the occupants will be deaf before they reach middle age. (at least I hope so!). They were being deliberately provocative which we chose to ignore but then they started throwing cherries at the boat, I went and told them in no uncertain terms to pack it in. They didn’t speak English but they got the message and we had no further trouble from them and about half an hour later they left and we had a very peaceful night.