31st July - 5th August. On along the Canal de L'Oise à L'Aisne to Pinon for shopping, fuel and table tennis in the park. We join the Canal Lateral à L'Aisne from Bourg-le-Comte to Berry-au-Bac, then the Canal de L'Aisne à la Marne to Loivre.

Guny lock was beautifully kept, with flowers everywere, including the bridge and the lock gates.

The sun set very majestically over the bridge at Pinon, still on the Canal de L'Oise à L'Aisne.

Early next morning we were treated to the sight of mist over the water. It was an extremely busy day, starting with table tennis in the park, followed by two trips to Carrefour supermarket. As we were moored near enough to bring the shopping trolley back to The Puzzler, it was a lot easier than the normal heavy rucksack loads. Andy did two fuel trips too, at 40 litres a time.

After lunch we moved on up four locks to Pargay-Filain, mooring opposite the Monapteuil Reservoir, which can be seen here beyond the canal. On the far side we could see a lot of people on the large beach, so thought we would walk round the reservoir, passing the beach at the end of our walk. All went according to plan at first, as we crossed the canal and found the track on the near side of the lake. We walked the full length of the lake, then left-handed across the end, before returning back on the other side towards the beach, which starts by the red arrow. Disaster then struck, in the form of a high metal fence, designed to prevent nice people like us from visiting the beach! With no alternative, we had to retrace our steps round this 40 hectare lake, making a much longer walk than we had anticipated.

Our resident kitchen spider had been busy again, but this evening's catch had him sitting there in the middle of his web outside the window, thinking, “Wow!”

Carrying on on Tuesday, it is a really deep cutting on the approach to Bray tunnel.

A heron made the mistake of flying into the tunnel ahead of us, then had to continue all the way through. Each time we caught him up, he would fly just a bit further until eventually he reached the other end safely.

We think that this ventilator fan is used as needed, as it was not put on for us.

We met Ton and Yanne, with Juultje, another Shih Tzu, at Bourg-et-Comin, and spent a pleasant evening together. The dogs do not seem to have realised that the table should be out of bounds! We are at Bourg-et-Comin, where the Canal de L'Oise à L'Aisne meets the Canal Lateral à L'Aisne.

This unusual craft came to spend the night on the mooring too. It looks rather like a raft, but they have cruised in it all over France.

Maizy was an interesting village, with a variety of different houses to be seen.

These were two more different ones.

It is harvest time again, with the champagne grapes growing on the far hills.

At Loivre, unusually, there are two lock cottages. However, the one on the right belongs to the “conducteur des voies navigable”, rather than a regular lockkeeper. We are now on the Canal de L'Aisne à la Marne. From here we went on to moor at Courcy, beside the Dutch Tjalk, Johanna Maria.

23rd - 30th July. On the St Quentin Canal at Cambrai, followed by the Canal de L'Oise à L'Aisne

At Cambrai our canal becomes the St Quentin. The locks are much shorter than on the Canal du Nord, with one barge filling the chamber.

The locks come in pairs, but nowadays only one is in use each time, so watch those lights! We have a remote control to operate the locks. At lock 16 we met a double red light, but a phone call found help, even though it seemed to take a long time to come.

We waited overnight before Riqueval tunnel, but this Dutch hotel barge arrived on Monday morning, having also had lock problems yesterday. He is on one tow line behind the electric tow tug, but we did not realise this until they set off. The men wanted us to be behind him on two 30 metre lines, crossed in front of The Puzzler. After half an hour of trying and failing to get the lines both even and long enough, they told us to follow them using our own engine!

This tunnel is 5670 metres long, which is 3.53 miles, and is the longest canal tunnel in France. It was cut in the time of Napoleon. We expected to have to pay for using this tunnel, but it now seems to be free, which is good.

In some parts of the tunnel there are bricks on the walls, but some of it is completely cut out of solid rock.

Here is the tow tug. The electricity, coming from an overhead line, turns the drum on the boat, which pulls the chain over the boat, all the way through the tunnel. It can pull up to thirty barges at once, but the canal does not now seem busy enough to need the tug at all.

A little further along the canal is Lesdine tunnel, but it is a mere 1098 metres long, with no tug. We are still on the summit level, where the canal is at the bottom of a leafy canyon.

There is a large marina at St Quentin but we chose to carry on out into the country.

On a small island in the middle of the canal is an idyllic mooring. There were several picnic tables, and a barbeque table, ready to use, with a supply of wood. From the far side of the island we could see the start of the Upper Somme Canal, which closed in 2004. The lock had been newly painted, while several men were cutting the grass there. It certainly did not look closed! We were joined on our island by a yacht, on its way back to Norway from the Mediterranean. They will collect their mast in Amsterdam, then continue by sea from there.

Moving on to Chauny, these monkeys were swinging above the flowers. We were pleased to find fuel here, beside the canal, having failed at both Cambrai and St Quentin.

Inside the church, the best part was the wall painting above the altar.

Just to the south of Chauny, we turned left on to the canal de L'Oise à L'Aisne. The first lock is a rise of 4 metres, but is very gentle. If I had known it was a nice lock, I wouldn't have climbed that long ladder, to tie The Puzzler securely to a bollard! Immediately after the lock is an aqueduct over the river Oise, which is the same river we cruised up, on leaving the flooded River Seine in June. We had to squeeze into the side after the lock to let a large barge through, before we could go on to the aqueduct.

We are now at Guny, another pleasant mooring, with a wash day in progress. At last the blog is up to date!