Ronquieres Inclined Plane and the StrepyThieu Boat Lift
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Before making the exciting journey on either of these engineering marvels, we made our way along the Meuse and joined the Sambre at Namur, mentally preparing ourselves for running the gauntlet of Charleroi for a second time. But despite our good intentions of getting to Ronquieres and beyond in reasonable time, unfortunately (or luckily, depending on how you look at it) we found out about a lock closure at the Ecluse Mornimont further along the Sambre, which added a few days delay to our journey plus a further potential delay due to a backlog of commercial vehicles ahead of us. This would obviously change our timings, so we adjusted our plans and traveled to the small town of Floreff (as it appeared to be the last possible stopping point before the closed lock) intending to layover there and wait for the lock to re-open.
Yet again, things did not go quite to plan as on arrival in Floreff it seemed that we were not the only ones with that idea and the small mooring area was fully populated! Plan B was quickly put into action and we journied back 1 Km to the previous lock (Ecluse de Floriffoux) and moored nearby there for a couple of nights. Keith on Jeanne came along a day or so later and joined us, and after popping into the town himself on the second day, he came back to tell us that the mooring in Floreff had emptied and so we ‘rushed’ off to moor there for a final night.
Next day, leaving Keith behind, we carried on to the (hopefully) now-open lock, expecting to see lots of commercials hanging around waiting to go through, but in fact there was very little activity and we were able to pass through fairly quickly. We were on our way again thank goodness, and this time made it to Auvelais, overnighting just below a railway bridge near a nice spot for the dogs and with an Aldi just along the towpath. Oh, and a Chinese takeaway fairly close by.
Now we were about to take on the monster that is Charleroi – but despite some of the horror stories that we still keep hearing about the canal through the city, once again we had an uneventful journey and didn’t meet any commercials coming towards us. It was almost a let-down really!
After all that excitement, we spent the night at Ecluse Viesville before our push to the Ronquieres Inclined Plane, and what an amazing sight it was as it came into view ….
Surprisingly we were the only boat waiting to travel down in the basin, and on the journey down we decided that as it didn’t appear that we would be holding anyone up, at the bottom of the incline we would just move along the canal a short way, turn round and go right back up – why not, we wouldn’t be coming this way again for a long time.
Having arrived at the bottom and turned ourselves around, we duly waited to travel back up the incline, but then a commercial arrived behind us, also waiting his turn. Of course, being British and not being in a hurry, we said he could go ahead of us, after all we were quite happy enjoying the views and relaxing for a bit. Up he went, and the basin returned back down bringing another commercial with it, but by this time another commercial was waiting behind us to go up. Again, in no hurry to proceed, we let him go ahead too – then not one, but two commercials arrived behind us and we realised that if we carried on like this we could be there all night, so we had a quick chat with the ‘lock keeper’ and arranged to go up on the 5.30pm return slot. What we hadn’t bargained for though was that he managed to squeeze in another three smallish commercials as well – a bit daunting but they all knew what they were doing and it went really smoothly.
Because of the ‘late’ return journey, on leaving the basin we made a late (for us) stop much further along the canal than we had originally anticipated, but we had had a good day and were more than ready to rest up by then.
So, onwards and upwards – literally. Waking up the next day, we were ready to tackle the Strepy-Thieu lift, arriving at mid-day and apparently the only boat around waiting to go in, that is, until a rather large commercial came steaming up the waterway and (naturally) took priority for entering the lift. Luckily with a bit of diagonal mooring by him, we were also able to fit in, and we made the descent to the lower level.
Exiting from the lift we moored up nearby and strolled back into the visitor centre to look around and see some of its history, and take in some of the awesome views from the top.
(SHENSI is moored along on the left – the small boat just in front of the bridge)
