Douai to Arleux

We left Douai, which had a beautiful bell tower, quaint and quiet 14^th century cobbled streets and clear blue skies – but also an element of social unrest which made us quite glad to leave.

We headed for Arleux at the junction of the Canal du Nord and the Canal de la Sensee and hoped to find a chandlery or boat yard there and our spirits were lifted when we arrived and saw a large number of commercial barges. 

Moored up among these workhorses Lobelia, with her flourishing garden and hot tub, resembled a supergroup tour bus parked in a coach park off the M4. Cars, cyclists and boats all slowed down to take a good look and were usually rewarded with a blast of a water pistol from a small bass player in the hot tub.

On our first day we had a visitor. He was the cousin of Lobelia’s previous owners and had known the barge when it was working. He was amazed at its metamorphosis and took lots of photos. He also showed us some photos of the previous owners on their wedding day stood on the bow of the boat which was bedecked with flags and flowers.

Later that day, which had been unbelievably hot, a working barge motored into view. Lobelia is 39m and there are plenty of barges around which are exactly the same size. However they are not commercially viable, so the trend now is to tie another 39m barge infront and push it along, controlling its systems via a long umbilical. Anyway, this double 39m came by at speed and moored up in a tight spot infront of us as if it was simply pulling into a space at Sainsburys. We looked on in awe. The skipper appeared. She was built like a Russian shotputter and scowled at us. Her mooring tasks were done within 5 minutes (a job that still takes us about 20) and then she dived into the canal with her dog and splashed around to cool off (and probably do some underwater welding at the same time). We ran and hid.

The next day we decided to have a day off (for fear of meeting the shotputter in a lock). Cycled a few km along the towpath to a water park and lounged around in the sun all day as the boys played mini-golf, somersaulted on bouncy castles and caused chaos in the water fountains.