Kerr Barging Blogs

The Cathedral spire

We were very keen to visit Valenciennes, the last town of note in France along the Escaut River. The tourist information looked interesting but neither our club mooring guides nor the official charts showed anywhere in the town where we could stop. However, an old, general guide to French Waterways mentioned a place to stay "in the branch of the river leading to the weir". Emboldened, we turned into the back stream, away from the lock, and found an excellent mooring spot complete with well- spaced bollards.

Valenciennes Railway Station
From this excellent spot we explored the town. The first place to catch our eye was the huge Railway Station, built in grand style, and providing a departure point for many varied destinations. Valenciennes also has an excellent modern tram system which seemed to have plenty of passengers.

Valenciennes was greatly damaged by bombing in World War 11 and as a result some of the oldest buildings were lost. some remained though: the Tourist Bureau was located in an old wooden fronted Spanish house and the beautiful Town Hall building seemed to be intact, fronted by an impressive and active town square.

The Reubens Room

The Art Gallery was the highlight of our trip to Valenciennes. Our Art Education continues! There were also some exquisite ancient works of art from Valenciennes' very early days.

Sculptures by Carpeaux

 Crocodile, early 6th Century

Valenciennes Town Hall

2nd Century statuette, the god "Lare"

A staggering number of deaths in the world wars

At last the tasks were done and we are now into new territory. We headed towards Cambrai, the town from which "Cambric" takes its namThe Rubense. This is still the territory of Belfries and Giants, in this case Martin and Martine who stand tall outside the beautiful Town Hall clock and help to strike the hours. Legend has it that they were also responsible for saving the town from invasion in the 16th Century.

Martin and Martine

Like so much of this area, Cambrai was very badly damaged in World War 1 but much has been restored. Some buildings were spared, including St Gery church built on the remains of a Roman church building.There we found a beautiful Rubens, the Entombment of Christ. 

On the 20th of November 1917, British troops attacked the Hindenburg Line. 381 tanks were involved. In this terrible battle, 44,207 British and 50,000 Germans were killed or badly wounded.

Best Regards,

Penny and Dave

 In the Gardens of the Caves

 The Hotel de Ville (Town Hall) with Martin and Martine

One of the old city gates

 The Public Gardens

The Public Gardens

The Public Flower Gardens

Walks through the Public Gardens

So far this year's route has been mainly on rivers and large canals dominated by commercial traffic. Many of the barges travel widely and we have seen them year after year, in the North, South, East and West of France and in Belgium. The owners often have a sense of humour when they name their boats, particularly in the double peniches each of which carries a separate name. So we have seen the front barge: Why Me and the back Why Not; Crazy and Trucker; Leader and Outsider; George and Victoria. There are apt combinations: Neptune and Trident; Comet and Planet.

Many of the single names have a story to tell. We spent one whole day travelling with Yacht, matched by Sail and Surfboard (all huge commercial barges which take 40 trucks off the road); Baby Love similarly underestimates the size and Giraffe the shape. We did worry a bit when we saw All Nerves because we depend on these big guys to be calm and confident. Betty Boop is one of our favourites. We have come across Canberra and Sydney and the names of most of our daughters and grand- daughters (the boys miss out).

Barging is a family affair and we often see play equipment on the deck, wheelhouses full of greenery and a man and a woman, old, middle aged or increasingly quite young, working as a couple on the ropes, cleaning decks and sharing the driving, so we will end our list with: Together. 

A common sight. One barge pushing another. These are the smallest commercial barges on the system. Each 390tonnes. Sometimes they will split up on a small canal and the husband takes one, the wife the other.

We left the boat yard with a few tasks undone and unfortunately several of these involved the delivery of large objects. How to manage that when you are on a barge moving every day? If it's a parcel, Post Restante works very well and we picked up a large drill and a drill tap at the Post Office in Peronne. But what about batteries or a water tank! An internet search revealed a system of "Relais", shops which are willing to accept courier deliveries and hold them until they can be collected. So we tried to send two large batteries to an Andresy newsagent, but that didn't work out, so they ended up at a hairdresser, unfortunately a bit further away. The water tank went to a bike shop in Peronnes and last year we picked up a parcel at an optometrist near Armentieres and one at a supermarket. This system works very well from our point of view because often we have no idea exactly where we will end up at a particular time and no courier company would be able to fit in with our nomadic existence. It is just as well that we have a solid trolley: David walked over 2 kms with the two 20 kgs batteries. Luckily the cumbersome  60 litre water tank was only 300 metres from the boat.

The cygnets have been appearing the past two weeks
So our trip North from Paris along the Oise River and Canal du Nord was busy with making good time on the waterways; picking up parcels; and installing batteries and water tanks. There was a strike of lock keepers for a day, protesting against the reduction of expenditure on the waterways, inflamed by a statement from the new Minister from Transport that seemed to ignore the river systems . We were not travelling on that day anyhow but there was a lot of built up traffic the next day as a result. The locks on the Oise are large and double, that is, two operate independently, sometimes to take one boat up and another down at the same time, at other times to clear a backlog quickly. At one of the first locks of the day we had a little wait as both locks were bringing boats towards us. Then the gates opened at the same time, and thirteen huge barges exited. Together they carried the load of 250 sem-itrailers. Sorry, no photos, we were fully occupied keeping out of their way as they charged down the river past us.

As we had travelled this way before we did not spend much time exploring. Instead David succeeded in installing the electric hot water system and then connecting it up so that the engine can heat the water as we go along, a project he had previously discarded as impossible, so even more celebrated when completed and very effective. With the new batteries the bow thruster thrusts much more powerfully and is quite scary when one is at the bow waiting to throw a line onto an approaching bollard.

The Canal du Nord

There are two choices of route North towards Belgium and the Netherlands. One is via the Canal St Quentin, a smaller canal with many locks which are basically Freycinet size. For us the main problem with it is the tunnel at the summit. Whereas boats are allowed to drive through other tunnels we have been on, boats are towed through this tunnel which is 5.67 kilometres long. We have heard some sad stories of people sustaining quite serious damage during the tow if the ropes on  their boat or those in front are not properly adjusted. There are only two passages of boats a day in each direction so the row of craft might be quite long, with the heaviest at the front. All engines are turned off so one is entirely at the mercy of the tower and the other people in the line.

Penny working the lines in a large lock (with another barge)

We have therefore preferred to avoid this route and instead use the Canal du Nord though it carries more commercial traffic and is probably less scenic. It was begun in the early 1900s but massively damaged especially during the First World War. It was finally finished in the 1960s but is not adequate for the number and size of barges which use it. We have already described the 13 barges exiting from the lock on the Oise River; the locks on the Canal du Nord could have handled only one large or two smaller of those barges at one time, yet the two are in effect a single route. Similarly the "Large Gauge" Canal to its North has enormous locks which take very large boats, which cannot fit into the Nord locks. As a result there is a new canal being built to take the bigger boats and the extra traffic, to be called the Seine-Nord Europe Canal, estimated to be in use by 2016. Boatrs each carrying the load of 150 large trucks will be able to use the new canal.

Last year we had an excellent run on the Canal du Nord. This year the Nord was much busier and we could see how much difference it will make when the new Canal is in operation. Estimates are that the opening of the new canal will lead to an instant doubling of the amount of water traffic moved in France.

Best Regards,

Penny and Dave

Notre Dame de Paris- straight ahead!

We had a fast non-stop trip through Paris. It began slowly because we had to time our passage through the Port a l'anglais lock so that we would reach the Traffic Lights near Notre Dame at the right time. However, once we were in the lock, the lock-keeper got us to move way forward to the lock gates. Then we were joined by a further four large commercial barges. There were several thousand tonnes of them and only 36 tonnes of us. But, everyone was very calm and polite and finally the lock mechanism got going. At one time, there was only 20cm between the boat behind and our stern!

Going downstream, you can only cross that part of the Seine (near Notre Dame) for 15 minutes each hour. All went well- no blankets in the propeller and no boarding by the Paris water police to tell us to go faster!

Overnight stop- Ile des Impressionistes

We reached our stopping place 57Km down stream and had a pleasant time at the Ile des Impressionistes where Renoir and many others did a lot of painting. We visited the good museum Fournaise and learned more about early days on the Seine. Then on Saturday, we pushed off for our first short day for a while- to Andresy, which is at the confluence of the Seine and Oise River. Andresy is 263Km from our starting point at Migennes, so we have gone 10% of our projected total distance this year in under one week!

Here, we expected to pick up a couple of replacement bowthruster batteries, but things went wrong, so we are staying here several extra days. We hope we will have the batteries tomorrow and head off up the Oise River towards the N.E. of France and Belgium.

 Museum Fournaise

Here at Andresy, they have just opened the Annual sculpture exhibition (which we attended last year). All the sculptures are different (there are 60) and most of them are only visitable on the Ile de Nancy. There is a free ferry provided five days a week. We enjoyed the stroll around the island and found the sculptures generally excellent. A couple of the exhibits were attended by the artists, who explained what they were about. However, there was also an excellent free book with detailed descriptions.

Unfortunately, the National barging Museum at Conflans is still being refurbished so again we will miss it. We had looked forward to a visit this year.

 Conflans- Barging Capital of France

We have ordered a new electric water tank (we still have the working diesel-fired heating system) and hope to pick it up by the end of the week.

Anja was 111 yesterday. Happy Birthday Anja.

Best Regards,

Dave and Penny

The headless women

Sculpture from tree branches & elephant from recycled materials