Saturday 16th May
We travelled upstream 18km and 3 locks to Stenay today. Mostly on the river and fortunately the stream is much less than when we came downstream at the start of the week. The last lock was on double red and we had to wait over an hour for the lock keeper to arrive. There was nowhere to moor but the cut was quite sheltered so we turned off the engine and D. used a long pole to keep us off the bank. At Stenay we again moored at the high quay opposite the weir.

Sunday 17th May 
We are moored up in Dun-sur- Meuse (12km and 3 locks) by 11am.  After the next lock it is back to manually operated locks so we booked our departure for 9 o’clock with the VNF office in Verdun. Five more boats arrived during the afternoon also travelling upstream. When they ring the VNF they are all told to leave at nine! Well we think we are first in the queue and the little Aussie boat that arrived after us is second but certain nationalities don’t understand queuing and always expect to be first out in the morning. We warn the Aussies to be ready to nip in behind us in the morning or they will be travelling last.

A full pontoon at Dun-sur-Meuse

Monday 18th May
We and the Aussies were first at the lock this morning. The nice German couple, who had decided to delay their departure until 11am, gave us a cheery wave. The other three crews looked a bit put out; we are not usually so competitive. Tonight we are moored at Vacherauville on a pontoon that is part of a new garden and cycle path from Verdun.

The Aussie boat follows us through a guard lock

New country mooring just before Verdun

Tuesday 19th May
Strimmer man tidying up the new garden woke us at 6am.  We appreciate that they are taking care of the new garden but why 6am? We timed our arrival in Verdun very nicely, a large cruiser had just left leaving enough space for us on the otherwise full pontoon. There are 2 other Piper barges here, Siyabonga and Amarok.

Three piper barges in Verdun

Wednesday 20th May
We join Peter and Barbara from Siyabonga, hire a car for the day, and tour the battlefields around Verdun. The battle of Verdun took place in 1916 and resulted in the death of almost 1 million French and German soldiers with very little gain in territory by either side. There are excellent audio tours of Fort de Douaumont and Fort de Vaux. The Ossuaire de Douaumont contains the remains of 130,000 unidentified French and German soldiers.

Fort de Douaumont

Ossuaire de Douaumont

Tranchee des Baïonnettes.
137 french soldiers were buried alive with only the tip of their rifles showing

Fort de vaux

Former village of Fleury changed hands 16 times during the fighting

Friday 22nd May
Yesterday we stocked up with food, wine and water. In the evening Stuart from the little Aussie boat came for a drink, his wife and daughter had gone to Paris for a couple of days. They were round the world yachtsmen and the French waterways are a new experience for them. The lock at Verdun is by the VNF office and the keeper there opened the lock for us before nine but he was expecting a second boat. When no one had arrived by five past he let us through and we travelled on our own up to Lacroix-sur-Meuse where we stay for a few days.

Lacroix-sur-Meuse

Sunday 24th May
The weather has been very good over the weekend (back in Tshirt and shorts) we have used the opportunity to paint some rust spots on the deck and catch up with the washing. This morning there was a great shoal of large fish close to the boat. Some of them were a metre in length and there were more than a hundred fish circling around for a couple of hours. They disappeared when the first fisherman arrived. Tomorrow an engineer is coming to service the boiler and we will leave on Tuesday.

Over 100 large fish circle the boat!