Pont l'Eveque

Bonjour de Pont l'Eveque, a lovely, quiet village at the junction of Canal du Nord and Canal Lateral a l'Oise which offers free quayside moorings.  We're actually moored opposite some houses with a pharmacy, bar and boulangerie just metres away surrounded by splendid weeping willows - very quaint.

Reward on the quayside mooring at Pont l'Eveque

Friday 24 May
We cast off at 0740 with Ken & Katie on "Stardust" and chugged 25 miles to Pont l'Eveque in pretty much day-long rain, though lighter rain than the previous day's hail downpour x 2!  We went through 7 locks (3 ascending, 4 descending) and a 1km tunnel.  We had a pretty much clear run through the locks as we didn't have to wait for barges to enter/exit before us so that was great.  We moored up at 1630 so we had a 9-hour day but it was worth it.

Total locks: 30
Total miles: approx 105

We decided to stay 3 nights as we needed a couple of days to thaw out, relax and explore - plus we thought our next stop - the popular port de plaisance at Compiegne would have more space after the weekend.

Saturday 25 May
We awoke to bright sunshine - hurrah!  We had a walk around Pont l'Eveque on Saturday and met a retired 12th generation barge skipper who told us all about the area and canal life and he knew the route we were taking well.  He said that Napolean actually brought his boat up to this region as it is a place of strategic value - we're not sure we understood that correctly but perhaps we (or one of you?) will research that a bit more when we have time.

We've spent some time with Ken & Katie aboard 'Stardust' sharing one another's stories (and fruit tarts!) which has been great.  We plan to catch up with them again at either Compiegne or Jaux. 

Sunday 26 May
We walked into the nearby town of Noyon to take in the fantastic 12C Gothic Cathedral - a  masterclass in Norman architecture and where we saw 4 boulangeries/patisseries doing a roaring trade (the 3 staple businesses in France are bread, flowers and coffee) - the favourite pastime by far though is fishing - carp poles galore!

So that's our news for this weekend.  Photos to follow as my Domino wifi gizmo doesn't like downloading photos.  Tomorrow we're off to Compiegne and Paris by next weekend - ooh-la-la!!!