Wednesday 21st June - Lutzelbourg to Niderviller

We left Lutzelbourg just before 10.30 and had four quick locks before a kilometre run to the Arzviller inclined plane which takes the place of 17 locks.  After that two tunnels, the first being 2.3 km long.....it's a long way in the relative dark and was quite tricky keeping the boat from the sides as it was fairly narrow.  The second was much easier, it being only half a km long.  At least it was cool in the tunnels!!  The Arzviller inclined plane is a magnificent piece of engineering and takes boats up in a sort of big bath in next to no time....very impressive.  We came across a crew of six people with hearing impairments, who were pretty dramatic in everything they did and seemed to fight amongst themselves quite a lot!  They came in behind us in the lift and made quite a performance tying off.  One of the men was holding a rope and for some reason started to topple into the water......somehow one of the women got there and saved him just in time!!  Really don't know how he managed not to go in - we secretly rather enjoyed the performance though!!  They followed us into the long tunnel shortly afterwards and about halfway along, an enormous bang was heard....could only assume that they had come into contact with the tunnel wall!!  We moored in Niderviller around 1.30' got settled and had  some lunch.  No shops in Niderviller so......siesta time!  We had a simple dinner nearby and retired to Aphrodite for cards and digestifs.

14 km 4 locks 1 lifting plane 2 tunnels 3 hours