Orconte to Autigny-Le-Petit

24/10/2012

Early start even though it was only 8°C this morning! Our planned destination is Bayard, as recommended by whoever wrote in our guide book, and by Rival and its 32km away with plenty of locks, so no time to waste!

The rhythm of this canal is so different from the others; there is a lock about every km or 2, so by the time we're through, the ropes are tidied, logbook updated, settled back in our seats, only to press the button right away to prepare the next lock! We usually drive through lunch but now there is barely time to prepare lunch and eat it without a either a lock or a remote control swing bridge getting in the way!

A keeper told us there was an ice breaker (?!) moored where we were aiming for, but not to worry, there's space for two boats so we persevered, and stopped for lunch - as much to warm ourselves up as to ward off indigestion!! The mooring is also between a lock and a swing bridge, the second activated when you leave the first, so the keeper advised he'd have to send someone over to close the bridge as our stopping would mean it would stay open all night.

So, at 17.00 we came out of our 'last' lock of the day, only to find the ice breaker was taking the whole quay - but also that the bridge opening had been cancelled, so we were between a lock and a bridge with no mooring! Fortunately the keeper hadn't knocked off yet, so he opened the bridge and advised we continue through the next lock and another 2 bridges needing his help, to a spot we could moor.

Sometime later, still no spot to moor! So we push on - the locks close at 19.00 - and the keeper tells us if we get a wriggle on and pass the next lock there are a couple of mooring posts (we call them Peniche posts) afterwards - they're for the commercial barges but we've not seen one, and its getting dark, so first come first served!! Then we really pushed on - wake and all, and just made it through, exhaustion not helping the rope throwing arm and 3 VNF employees watching but not helping, and in the dark tied up - 5 ropes onto one peniche pole, as they're too far apart for us to use both!!! Phew.

Taken the next morning - precarious mooring, but it worked!

What a long, cold day! Although we didn't beat our previous record of 18 locks over 21km in a day, it felt like we doubled it! In fact, we did 17 locks in 41km, with 8 swing bridges to boot, so record well and truly broken methinks!!