Day 58 & 59: 9th and 10th August 2017 Rolampont and the summit.

Yesterday we had a longish day and were all pleased to arrive at Rolampont. After a day of many locks (again) we stopped at a small halte where I got out the craft stuff for the kids to play with at a picnic bench ashore. All seemed to enjoy themselves!

Today we reached the summit of our climb into France. We finally reached our last ascending lock where there was a small hut with a sofa in to mark this momentous occasion.

We've been a bit lazy with boatschool over the past few days as there have been so many locks to negotiate but today Esmé enjoyed putting a skeleton and various organs together like a jigsaw puzzle.

She also finally convinced us to let her go ashore in locks so had a great time playing with the crew of Polux.

We were a little unsure what to expect of the 4km Balesmes tunnel, but in the end the instructions were pretty clear. We had to wait and leave a big space between Polux and Laurin so after their entry we were left waiting for a good 10 minutes or so.

Then eventually we were given the green light.

And into the tunnel we went. We had to follow the green lights and not catch up with the red.

Finally we made it to Piépape where we had dinner and then went aboard Polux for celebratory drinks. Downhill all the way to the med now!