Telecommande Woes!

Telecommande Woes!

Vouecourt 52320

Day 27.  Tuesday 10th July. Rowed 18.5 kms and 7 locks to wild camp pk 24 Halligncourt, Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne. Cloudy 24 degrees. Now rowed 375.4 Kms Driven 533 miles 

Day 28. Wednesday 11th July. Sun and cloud 25 degrees. Rowed 18.5 Kms and 8 locks to Bienville wild camp pk 42. Now Rowed 393.9 Kms and Driven 548.6 miles. Cycled 130 miles

Day 29. Thursday 12th July.  Sun and clouds 28 degrees. Rowed 20 Kms and 10 locks to wild camp at pk 63.5 Joinville. Now Rowed 413.9 Kms , Driven 568.3 miles and Cycled 147 miles.

Day 30. Friday 13th July. Sun and clouds 30 degrees. Rowed 26 Kms and 9 locks to Vouecourt pk 89.5. Now Rowed 439.9 kms, Driven 586.1 miles and  Cycled 165 miles.

Days 31 and 32. Saturday and Sunday Sun 29 degrees. In Vouecourt.

Ok, on our way again or are we! 3 Kms later at first lock the Telecommande didn't work. 

A young girl clearing weed there went through the labourious task of opening it manually and a replacement Telecommande was delivered to us. We proceeded on with this one not working either and made more call outs. We were told that we were not pressing the buttons properly, not waiting long enough, too low in the water, etc. Consequently a lot of wasted time, not much progress and to cap it all the only stopping place we could find turned out to be just a few hundred metres behind the trees from a military airport with jet fighters practicing bumps over our heads until late.

Wednesday turned out much the same as yesterday with us now on our 4th not working Telecommande. After St Dizier I moved into another region starting with a low lifting bridge in the charge of a smiling little chubby guy. He drove to the next lock to see me through and saw my Telecommande problems. He rattled it and immediately diagnosed the battery being loose (the previous 3 had rattling batteries too!). He gave me his and it opened the lock immediately just like turning a light on! 

We were just unlucky perhaps, but who knows. All I know is that I lost a day's progress, had a lot of frustration and sat in the sun on my sore bum in Oggi for several unnecessary hours.

That done though he informed me that a working peniche was coming through so I must wait and then follow him. It duly arrived after half an hour, locked through in another 20 minutes and motored away at 1.5 km/hr slower than my normal rowing speed causing us to have to wildcamp early due to the 6pm lock closure time. Our friendly eclusier realised his error and apologised.

He turned up at the 9 am lock opening time the next day and did his best to make up for his error by driving alongside all day thinking he was helping. With him watching me I felt obliged to plod along with enthusiasm and no breaks so as not to lose my cred. His only cock up was to insist on pulling me through a lifting bridge with a rope rather than letting me row and it came back down again before we got through, so the exercise had to be repeated with me rowing. We willingly forgave him for showing up and correcting the Telecommande problem. We parked for the night in the only place we could find under the high arches of a busy road bridge and then the cooking gas ran out, such fun!!!

On Friday we managed 26 Kms and 9 locks including a 40 minutes delay for manual opening on one due to maintainable and a portage over another blocked by 3 openings for boats coming the other way. All very m worth it though to the lovely camp site in the pretty village of Vouecourt which is normally very quiet except perhaps on this Bastille Day and could be even noisier tonight if France wins the footy World cup!