We made good time through our tunnel and 13 locks on Friday and caught up with Kevin and Debbie early afternoon. It seemed strange to start going downhill for the first time since long before we left Belgium. The first lock was quite deep, and therefore manned, and the Lockie took my our RCU from us and didn’t give us anything back in return! We found out later in the day that the navigation was closed at that lock shortly after we left – no idea why as there are two separate locks to choose from – he probably wanted an early start to his weekend as the weather is so glorious! The next 12 locks were all automatic and set for you when the boat breaks a beam, so all were ready and waiting for us. After the next 5 or so I was getting a bit bored so jumped ship and walked the dogs in the sunshine; although I had to put Baxter back on board after 30 minutes. Muttley and I continued on to walk into Toul, raising the activating bars in the locks as we went.

Once in Toul we found Avalon breasted up to a huge Swiss cruiser below the lock and beside the old castle ramparts but, being narra, we could moor behind without making life difficult for the peniches coming out of the lock. It took less than 2 minutes for Daisy to come home with her first mouse.

After a catch up on Avalon we went back to MR for lunch before heading into town for a looksee but, just as we were about to leave, we had a knock from John who had moored his beautiful hotel boat opposite from us – we had met John in Lumes in the beginning of July and his was our first ‘repeat visit’ from someone we’d met over here.

This young cat was dangling high in the rafters, over the pavement, trying to catch birds – I just hoped it could get down again. I like Toul, it’s still small enough to be friendly but has everything you need and some lovely architecture.

We got chatting to a French chap in a cafe – he called himself Rocky and was a bit of a Jack the lad but he took a shine to us and ended up taking G to the nearby cave and buying a bottle of the local speciality liqueur for Debbie and I to try (oops, sorry Debs I’ve still got it!). Kevin got himself man kissed when we said goodbye!

2 locks out from Toul and we were down onto La Moselle and back to giant commercial boats and giant locks again, it’s a lovely river – we also saw a Great White Egret; very rare in Western Europe according to my bird book

We also caught up with Jo and Peter again – the delightful Aussies that we’d met in Pagny. Jo writes a blog for their grandchildren that Peter illustrates in ink and water colour. If you look at the second blog in August you’ll see their take on a narrowboat; it’s lovely frompapa