We set off from Valence at 10.10 a.m. after saying our au’voirs to the residents – M&R. Turned the pole below Valence lock, N°30, and waited while the chamber emptied. There was a fair amount of water coming down the canal, cascading over both sets of gates. I got off at the wooden landing stage and walked up while the lock emptied. As soon as the boat was in the chamber I pressed the green button, collected the centre rope that Mike had thrown up on to the lockside then the gates closed and the paddles opened. The lady keeper came out from the VNF workshops, wrote down the name of the boat and took photos. She smiled when Mike told her we were heading for Lyon and the North. Lock 29 Pommevic was also full, so I jumped ship at the landing and walked up. The house was derelict. The cherry tree by the house was loaded with ripe red cherries so I scrumped a handful while the lock emptied. Mike passed me a boat shaft and I reached a few more but the best ones were higher up, needed a ladder, no time! Loads and loads of towpath walkers with backpacks went by. A lone LeBoat hire boat was moored at the quay at Pommevic. Next lock, N°28 Du Brague, was empty and deserted except for two hikers having a rest, watching the boat. I made a cuppa as we went along the 6 kms pound. At Malause there were only three boats moored, a converted péniche, an ex-hire boat with window ledges full of model sailing yachts and a UK yacht. We passed loads more walkers in groups of about ten or so, a few fishermen and a couple of cyclists. Petit Bèzy N°27 was empty, the lock house inhabited but no one around at 12.20 p.m. It was lunchtime. Another 4 kms to D’Espagnette N°26. It was full, so we hovered below until the gates opened. As it was a shallow lock I stayed aboard and went up the ladder in the recess where the gates used to be before they lengthened the chamber. When the lock was almost full Mike took a deck brush to the hull and started scrubbing off the debris that had been washed off the wreck we’d been moored next to over winter at Valence and was coating last year’s new paint. At 1.50 p.m. we moored just downstream of the VNF workshops in Moissac, opposite a sewage farm. A couple of old lags were boozing (quietly) on the seats at the top of the bank. The ‘fridge started playing up, the thermostat was not switching off; so Mike turned it off overnight. Next morning he said the two foreign vagrants who had been sitting on the seats by the boat had stayed there talking loudly until 2.30 a.m. keeping him awake.
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