From now on, until I reach the Rhine, I ride exclusively in artificial water, in a waterway enclosed by dams and walls, a canal (which also serves as a bridge over small valleys). And soon I reach the crest of this time-honoured traffic route, 345 m above sea level.
Since I left Port St. Louis a few days ago, I have gained 345 m in altitude! – In the next two days I’ll be lowered another 85 metres (the Rhine is 260 m above sea level at Basel), a few metres at a time from lock to lock – patience patience, it’ll be fine.
It’s interesting that I’m now crossing the watershed of Europe – ok, basically the Alps form the watershed between north and south, but here, at this ridiculous height of 345 metres above sea level, it’s decided which water flows into the Rhone and thus to the south, or which reaches the north via the Rhine. I find that really exciting.
With the crossing of the watershed, I also enter another department, and in this part of France, the locks are also handled differently: from now on, each lock is operated manually again, by a lockkeeper! But because I am the only guest on this section with the ArgoFram, it is of course not worth leaving a person at every lock (this is only done in the high season). In my case, the people in charge find the following solution: a staff member drives with me (alongside me on the road in a car) down the canal from lock to lock, fills up the lock chamber, opens the upper gates, lets me enter, closes the upper gates, lets the water out with me inside, opens the lower gates, lets me leave and closes the lower gates again behind me.
Because I am allowed to drive at a maximum of eight kilometres per hour, the employee overtakes me in his car to the next lock, lets me down a step, overtakes me again… and so on and so forth, until at some point he has his lunch break and closes for the evening. Then I also have to moor up and spend the evening and the night.
Dannemarie is the perfect place for this: manageable, ‘had-knit’ (and therefore not perfect), but functional because operated by people who love ‘their’ canal and the other skippers. So I can take a shower again, talk to Alsatians in our dialect – and I’m quickly in the centre of the village on my bike and altogether not far from Basel (I know the place from earlier bike tours). I am now where my home begins.