Mid July - 10 Aug - 2004
We have just spent a few days at Isle d’Adam, a delightful town with a good pontoon to moor alongside but with no services such as water and electricity. We had relaxed and rested from the many guests we had enjoyed during the past couple of months and now felt it was time to continue our voyage of exploration.
Next stop up the Aisne River was St Leu d’Esserent. Not a wonderful village in itself but very close to the magnificent Chateaux Chantilly, Grande, Petite and of course the famous nearby horse racing and breeding establishments. To say that the Chateaux are ‘grande’ is an understatement in the extreme. These are HUGE estates and buildings, until quite recently still owned and occupied by the Prince and his family. The Prince de Conde built his home here to entertain the king and other courtiers as the nearby parks and forests provided very good hunting.
We took the scooter off the boat, having greatly upset a fisherman who believed that the port facilities were his personal fishing spot. Having disabused him of that fact we drove off to see the chateaux, some 7 or 8 kilometres distant. The buildings are in beautiful condition and are now part of the Academie Francais and obviously get plenty of money from the tourist visit income to keep them in good condition. Conducted tours take you through the many rooms, still furnished in original 16th and 17th century style. The hundreds of paintings and sculptures are the former collection of the Prince and his family. Unhappily the last Prince was without descendants so he passed the properties in their excellent condition on to the government with the condition that they be open to the public.
And so we continued north towards Compiegne which also boasts a Royal Chateau, this one originally owned by Charles V and rebuilt by Louis XV, then in turn modified by Marie Antoinette, Napoleon I and III and now open to the public with their furnishings on display. Attached to the chateau is the Musee of Touring Automobiles (currently closed for renovation) another horse breeding establishment and huge gardens. I have to add that these buildings are magnificent in their detail and sumptuous furnishings. One can only wonder who did all the cleaning - they are vast.
On the way to Compeigne the bracket holding the throttle cable broke its weld and required a quick (wire) fix until we arrived in Compiegne where more appropriate repairs could be made. It was while doing this that I discovered the limitations of 220v power as supplied by 12V batteries. Using a grinder to prepare the bracket I blew the top off a very large 12V 220Amp battery. Apart from giving me a hell of a scare, as I was right next to it when it exploded, it then necessitated replacing it and it’s partner - another i350. Still, since we had been experiencing reduced battery performance it was probably the right time to get some new ones. I persuaded the supplier to deliver the new and take away the old. The driver even assisted in their placement which required some modification to the external plastic casings to fit.
At Compiegne we discovered my barge handling teachers, Tam and Di Murrell. In order to operate one of these big boats in France, one has to have qualifications. These are taught by the Murrell’s on their barge and the examinations take place (in French) at their base in Cambrai by the examiners of the VNF. I completed mine in September 2000 prior to purchasing Van Nelle. As they were just enjoying the time between courses we were able to enjoy a couple of afternoon aperitif sessions and a visit to a local restaurant while in Compiegne.
Near Compiegne are a couple of other attractions. The first and most interesting is the Armistice Clearing in the forest of Rethondes, about 7km from the city. In this forest setting is a large clearing where the Germans were forced to accept the terms of the Allies at the end of the 1st World War. As an act of revenge, Hitler had the carriage brought out of the shed where it had been on display for 20 years when he forced the French to sign his conditions having overrun France in 1940. The carriage was then taken to Berlin, displayed and then burnt and is now replaced by an identical carriage which has been outfitted as it was in 1918 and is built into a very good museum.
On the other side of the river and at the next lock up the system at Janville is a very good barge museum which displays and explains the life of professional peniche operators in France. This town is a centre of retired and still active boats so there is a great deal of material available.
We spent hours discovering the secrets in the various attractions in and around Compiegne before moving on again. Our next stop was Peronne where the outstanding WWI museum in France is built into a 16th century fortified castle. Called the ‘Historial’ this building has a number of vast rooms set with uniforms, equipment, display panels, artifacts, explanations, videos and films of the period 1914 to 1918. It also has an excellent bookshop where many books about the war are available, including Major and Mrs Holt’s Battlefield guide book and map. We bought a copy in order to be able to find the many places the Australians had campaigned from their arrival in 1916 having been ‘blooded’ at Gallipoli.
The Germans had rapidly deployed through Belgium into France and had finally been stopped in the Somme District where the British and French had maintained a stalemate sort of battle for some 18 months. Reinforced by Indian, South African, Australian, Canadian and Newfoundland troops, Field Marshal Haig was, in concert with the French commander Foch, planning the ‘meat grinder’ battles of attrition in this region.
During 1916, hundreds of thousands of allied and German troops were massacred under millions of artillery and small arms rounds. Areas once occupied by troops were so devastated that soldiers were buried, dead or alive by the barrage, then dug up by subsequent attacks and re-buried. Huge areas were literally pulverised and over 150,000 men were never found, their bodies having been shredded by the actions of both sides.
In 1918 the Germans tried their last desperate action, breaking through the allied lines and heading for the channel ports which were the supply lines of the Allies. Desperate defence was put in place but it was the actions of the Australians, now commanded by Monash, who turned the tide. At Pozieres, Monash organised a coordinated tank, aircraft, artillery and troop attack, the first of its kind. Using a rolling barrage ahead of the troops, who were accompanied by tanks for the first time, and resupplied by air drops from their aircraft, the Aussies smashed through the German lines and made huge advances into the rear areas, causing the ‘blackest day of the way’ for Ludendorf, the German Commander.
France’s President changed his plans to visit French lines when he heard of the Aussies battle and immediately travelled to be with them stating that ‘you have achieved a miracle in your actions’. Monash was knighted in the field by the King of England and the Australian tactics were adopted as the Allied method from that time on.
Australian memorials exist at Villers Bretonneux and Pozieres and there are Australians in battlefield cemeteries (brilliantly managed by the Commonwealth Graves Commission) in many other places. One of the most outstanding is the black marble concentric walls at Pozieres that stand in front of some remaining trench lines.
However, we had not reached Amiens and the other key Australian battlefield locations yet. We took in the marvellous Historial at Peronne and looked at British and German positions nearby, using the scooter to get out to places up to 15km away, then again started Van Nelle’s motors to continue on to Amiens - up the Somme River - we thought.
The confluence of the Somme and the Aisne ais just a few km from Peronne and we left early in order to get half way up the river towards Amiens in time to take in the nearby memorials at Le Hamel and Villers Bretonneux. Arriving near the Y junction, Nellie slowed down and yawed menacingly with her head swinging away from the port bank. We slowed and slowly stopped, hard aground - or should I say - hard a mud. With no commercial boats now using the Somme, silt has been shifted away from the channel on the Aisne to the entrance of the Somme, causing a bank that proved to be less than a half metre deep. This in a channel supposed to be 2 ½ metres deep !
We radioed the next lock as we tried to manoeuvre Van Nelle using the engine in forward and in reverse - to suck a channel backwards to freedom. The eclusier was not very helpful, telling us the channel was supposed to be 2 ½ metres deep and how much did we draw ? I insisted that he provide more water to this section of the canalised river in order for us to be able to float off. He did not seem to be in sympathy. A couple of loaded barges came by and chatted with us on the radio, all offering advice but not willing to get anywhere near us to give au a tow - they knew what the eclusier did not ! They did however have an effect on the water level as they insisted to the eclusier that we were a normal boat and were stuck and that the water level did appear to be significantly reduced in the area. After about an hour and a half we drifted free and reversed into the Aisne Channel.
Plan B - which now did not include the Somme by boat. We would continue north to Calais / Dunkerque and hire a car to discover the Somme River area later.
So, on to Inchy and Douai. We took a place downstream of the lock which was perfect for using the crane to get the scooter on and off but decided to use bikes instead as we were not planning to go any great distance. Douai is an interesting town and the weather had changed for the warmer so we spent a couple of days doing the tourist thing here. Climbing the hundreds of steps up the belfry to the bells at the Mairie is the big attraction here and so we had to do it. Before getting into the belfry - one of 3 major carillon in France - we were taken on a conducted tour of the magnificent public rooms in the Hotel de Ville (Town Hall) which dates back to the 1500s. These included a magnificent council chamber with 17th century furnishings and a white chapel room where the weddings are conducted.
The many bells in the belfry are perfectly tuned and have a keyboard to allow visiting players to give concerts. The belfry also tolls out the hours and their divisions automatically. The bells - including the huge big bass bell - went off while we were in the bell loft - what a racket. This set-up makes the Perth foreshore bell tower look like a toy.
On to Lille which in 2004 is the ‘European City of Culture’ with many outstanding events spread throughout the year. Unfortunately we arrived on a Monday therefore missing the last weekends events and being too early for next weekend’s. We stopped beside a major highway and wondered why such a city did not have a decent port. We did stay for a couple of days to do justice to the sights and sounds and moved on to the River Lys, which, we had been told, we would enjoy. We did not.
The River Lys is small, narrow, shallow, subject to algae and with the exception of Armentieres (nice shady canal side moorings but no tourist attractions) and St Venant (nice small town and port with facilities) has little to recommend it. In fact, as we approached the lock at Merville we noticed it was being used by a gang of teenage boys as a swimming pool. This in itself is forbidden but it appeared the eclusier had lost control of his facility.
Maureen debarked and went to the ecluse to get it open and found the eclusier slow to respond and obviously in fear of the gang. When the gates eventually opened and I took Van Nelle in we endured about 20 minutes of abuse, rocks and dirt thrown at the boat and other threatening behaviour. When eventually one of the ring leaders abused Maureen I went ballistic and leaping off the boat grabbed him by the throat, throwing him into a nearby bush with suitable threats that if he or anyone else moved I would follow up the action with something more damaging. They got the message but we were very please to leave that rotten place behind !
We arrived at what would have been a pleasant stop (St Venant) too late to get through the lock and so spent the night on the unkempt side, near the water treatment plant. We were pleased to get out of the River Lys and onto the major canal to Calais / Dunkerque. 13kph took us to within 10km of Dunkerque by 6.00pm that day. We called it a day for a cold beer and a barbecue before retiring after the big commercials had stopped for the night, mooring against a concrete wall on a corner.
The commercials on this stretch of the river / canal are huge. Minimum size is 98 metres long, they can be 148 metres and carry containers, building materials, bulk fuels and grains.
We arrived in Dunkerque (you might spell it Dunkirk) at about lunch time on Friday, 6 August and fell for the town almost immediately. We found a quiet (free) mooring in the commercial Gare d’Eau, about 5 minutes from town by scooter, with electricity and water supplied by a clever electronic device available from the VNF office nearby at reasonable cost. The town was the site of the Allied evacuation in 1940 so it has lots of history and museums etc, it has a lively arts and culture program and a huge beach.
Opera on the Street. This is something else ! Friday night was the date for s visiting troupe who performed in five different city locations on pre-prepared stages. The cast and crew led the audience (some thousands) through the streets from one stage to the next, complete with music broadcast to two travelling speaker pods and controlled by another, larger, mobile control station. The technical side of the production was enough to make you gasp and the quality of the production was every bit as outstanding.
I spent the day before the opera looking for thick stern gland grease. There are no oil company offices in Dunkerque so I went to six different outlets before one suggested I go to the biggest ship building / repair yard here. I wandered in looking like a gypsy and was passed on from the receptionist to the chief engineer to the Managing Director Mr Wally Salamon who took me in his car to the workshops, introduced me to his foreman and advised him to give me whatever I needed from his ‘private’ store. Seems he owns a barge and had just the grease I needed. Wonderful people here !
Saturday night saw us attend the Eglise Sacre Coeur for a Gospel concert. Singer, black, big and brilliant, sound system and room acoustics - DISASTER. I just about left during the first half but was determined to have my money’s worth - besides there was a decidedly eccentric Elvis impersonator in the front row who was causing the singer (Mme Segan) a deal of trouble and who was worth keeping an eye on. During interval I went to the accompanist and explained the problem that was causing the audience to under react somewhat - he took me to see the manager. Turn down the amplifier volume and ask Mme Segan to use it sparingly as the reverberation in this room is causing the sound to turn inti confusing noise. He took it on board and then dragged me off to speak to the Diva herself. We chatted about technical things, she had the sound turned down, desisted from using the mike except when absolutely necessary and at the end of the second half received a standing ovation - twice. Elvis left the building !
The weather now was hotting up and so we took in the beach, the evacuation museum and the fantastic Maritime Museum which includes a rigged three masted ship and a peniche.... And on Sunday hired a car for the somewhat postponed visits to Amiens, Pozieres and Le Hamel.
While en-route to Le Hamel the phone rang. ‘Admiral Ian Palmer calling, I’m in London, where are you and are you taking in visitors ?’. Of course we are.
Today is Monday - we expect to see the scion of the laser fleet on Tuesday - so - more later.