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Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Lost on the Meuse – 6 September

It feels now like we are in another place.  There does not seem to be Wi-Fi to be had in this part of France so we don’t know what is going on in the world – nor do we care for that matter.   We have had a few days of lovely weather and our best mooring, so far, in the little town of Revin.  On a secluded backwater of the river with lovely flowers and grass and quiet – yet 2 minutes walk to the supermarket.  It is popular with the season’s cruisers returning home – mainly Dutch and Belgian – and very friendly and helpful.  Even a washing machine.  What more could we want?

It seems that diesel fuel on the river is very rare in France and when you can get it, quite expensive, so today I invested in two 20L jerry cans and trekked back and forward to the supermarket gas station with by little hand trolley four times.  Here you fill up and the drive to the little kiosk to pay – it was weird to be standing in line with my trolley in a line of cars, and then I had to crouch down to see the cashiers hand to pay.  We didn’t need the fuel now as we have a good sized tank but you never know when it will be as easy to get or a reasonable price.

The Meuse now is beautiful – steep wooded hillsides right down to the river which wends it’s way around hairpin bends.  We motor along at a stately 8.5 kph and just soak it all in.  A couple of days of this and then we get to the twin cities of Charleville-Meziers and maybe even internet.  The other cruisers have given us good tips on where we might leave the boat for the winter but we now need to get a full list of “chomages” (canal closures) to figure out where we can actually get to.  Seems that this time of year they like to close some of the canals to do maintenance for up to 3 weeks at a time so it helps a lot to know where they are – and sometimes they just have lock failures that can have an unknown effect. Two leading contenders are Nancy if we keep going straight up the Meuse or Sillery) near Reims if we turn right.  It is good to find a harbour that is isolated from the rivers by a lock in case of floods.

This morning was beautiful and we had our first lunch out, but while we were there the sky clouded over and now it has turned grey and windy, which is a shame because we are now in a lovely secluded mooring with free water and electricity and it would be so much prettier if the sun where out.  Oh well, it was great while it lasted.

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