Friday
We had to set the alarm as we needed to be away early and it was probably just as well as it rained so hard during the night I hardly slept 😒. It didn't take us long to pack up as the awning was taken down last night. Jim managed to get the motorhome off the pitch quite easily - the motorhome is renowned for being difficult on wet ground.
It was 112 miles to Boofzheim where we picked up the boat. We drove through a tremendous storm which wasn't very pleasant. We arrived at the Le Boat base only to discover that no-one really spoke any English - great for the handover! Richard and I put a few things into the boat and then set off to drive to Hesse to pick up Penny and Jim. We have a one way hire so needed vehicles at both ends - it took us about 3 hours!
Back at Boofzheim we finished loading the boat - talk about a quart into a pint pot! We had a very long handover - thank goodness Penny's French is better than mine. The problem in this area is that the locals all speak German so they are having to translate into French and then we have to understand them! We then had a REAL storm with hail stones the size of our Glucosamine tablets!!
There is too much water in the Rhine so they are running some through the canal which meant that we needed an eclusier to operate the first four locks. We decided to move out of the marina and go down to the first lock to wait for the eclusier at 10am. It was a lovely evening so we sat up top drinking sparkling wine and eating our dinner.
Saturday
Not a good night for any of us 😵 The beds are very hard and even with my memory foam topper out of the caravan it was hard. Also with my sleep apnoea I couldn't use my CPAP machine as we can't have the mains on overnight. This will mean that we will have to stay in a marina every other night so I can get some sleep!
The eclusier arrived at 9.50 and we tackled our first lock. It was good to see that the French locks leak nearly as badly as the British one's. We were told at Le Boat base that we have to wear life jackets I the locks - here are the crew modelling them! We notice that the eclusier doesn't wear one so I wonder how much the rule is adhered to.
We had to set the alarm as we needed to be away early and it was probably just as well as it rained so hard during the night I hardly slept 😒. It didn't take us long to pack up as the awning was taken down last night. Jim managed to get the motorhome off the pitch quite easily - the motorhome is renowned for being difficult on wet ground.
It was 112 miles to Boofzheim where we picked up the boat. We drove through a tremendous storm which wasn't very pleasant. We arrived at the Le Boat base only to discover that no-one really spoke any English - great for the handover! Richard and I put a few things into the boat and then set off to drive to Hesse to pick up Penny and Jim. We have a one way hire so needed vehicles at both ends - it took us about 3 hours!
Back at Boofzheim we finished loading the boat - talk about a quart into a pint pot! We had a very long handover - thank goodness Penny's French is better than mine. The problem in this area is that the locals all speak German so they are having to translate into French and then we have to understand them! We then had a REAL storm with hail stones the size of our Glucosamine tablets!!
There is too much water in the Rhine so they are running some through the canal which meant that we needed an eclusier to operate the first four locks. We decided to move out of the marina and go down to the first lock to wait for the eclusier at 10am. It was a lovely evening so we sat up top drinking sparkling wine and eating our dinner.
Saturday
Not a good night for any of us 😵 The beds are very hard and even with my memory foam topper out of the caravan it was hard. Also with my sleep apnoea I couldn't use my CPAP machine as we can't have the mains on overnight. This will mean that we will have to stay in a marina every other night so I can get some sleep!
The eclusier arrived at 9.50 and we tackled our first lock. It was good to see that the French locks leak nearly as badly as the British one's. We were told at Le Boat base that we have to wear life jackets I the locks - here are the crew modelling them! We notice that the eclusier doesn't wear one so I wonder how much the rule is adhered to.
We were soon on our own operating the automatic locks which in some ways is good but others its a bit boring hovering around while the locks prepares itself. As we approached Strasbourg it started to rain right at a lock. I was on the bow and got so wet. The water went straight through my jacket and was running down inside my clothes - not pleasant! We had one more lock to do and even though I had changed into dry clothes I put the wet ones back on again 🙁 We tied up in Koejac Marina and everyone dried out.
Penny tried to get a take away pizza delivered but failed as after all her hard work the website said that they didn't deliver to us! We decided to walk and fine somewhere to eat and came across a very good steak house. I wasn't too sure if I could actually eat a steak but I managed it.
The steak house was in one of the Armament Seegmuller buildings. This was one of three buildings built in 1932 - a commercial warehouse, a grain elevator and a general building. When Armament Seegmuller went into liquidation in 2000 the City of Strasbourg decided to make the building into the heart of a new district.
These two photos were taken in the marina. How about this for a rudder - or three!
16.4 miles
9 locks
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