Turnhout to Lier

Turnhout to Lier

We left friends Anja and Jeroen late in the morning after final coffee, tea, chat, photos, presents etc and regretful farewells, and headed for Turnhout where we stopped for lunch.

The next few bridge keepers either saw us coming or were listening on the VHF (although they made no reply to our request for bridge passage). Then suddenly, about 2 kms before the first of the locks the hitherto silent radio crackled into life, “Blah, blah, blah, Riccall, blah, blah, blah.” “Oh help, it sounds like somebody is calling US.” “Riccall receiving, over”. “I am sorry, you can’t get through the lock tonight, there is a problem. You can moor outside the shop and the lock will be OK at 8am tomorrow.” “That’s fine, but it will be a bit later than 8 o’clock for us! We are not early risers!” “OK, I will look out for you in the morning.”

So we are moored 100m from where elements of the British 146th brigade, part of the 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division managed to bridge the canal and drive the Germans back, despite fierce counter attack, and began the liberation of the north Belgian people, in the village of Rijkvorsel.

We have also been able to stock up at the GB store (Carrrefour) where we are moored. Regretfully, Alex is on the wagon at the moment as the only antibiotic left in the medicine chest to counter an abscess in his gum is Metronidazole (strictly no alcohol with this one). This means we can’t savour the delights of the bar 20m away!

The next day saw us merrily on our unhurried way, and when we were waiting for a bridge at about 12.15 a man suddenly appeared saying he was from the Jachthaven opposite, had a tjalk for sale and was sure we must know lots of people in the UK who might like to buy it! Why not come, have a drink and look at it. So we moored up on his moorings as suggested, had a look/tea, took on some much needed water and promised to advertise his very nice tjalk:- 23m long, 4.5m wide, well fitted out, 500 hours on a new engine. His price is €155,000 (valued at between €185K and €200K and with commercial certification to 2018, so it can run on red diesel.

When Frank came to look at Riccall, he actually said “I like yours better than mine”!! and he obviously did. We thought that was so nice. Alex tactfully said, “Not nicer, just different”. Just before we parted Frank thrust an envelope into Alex’s hand. He looked in it and saw that it contained photocopied hand-written charts. We thanked him and thought no more about them till much later when Louise remembered them and we discovered that they filled in all the information missing from our other charts – most useful.

We carried on after lunch and at 3.30 we came to a lock which obviously had problems. This was also the first lock we had seen in Belgium or Holland that was still hand operated. The lady lockkeeper couldn’t get one of the paddles in the bottom gate to shut. We watched for a while then moored up and Alex went to help. But before he could explain how to take the pressure off the paddle by emptying the lock again, one of the old stalwarts appeared and did it for her.

By this time it was 4.15pm and suddenly a new ‘Hitler’ appeared, frenetically conversing with the other two lockkeepers and then told us in no uncertain terms that this was our last lock and we would have to moor up before the next one. Alex offered, “I thought you stayed operational till 5pm”. But Adolf was adamant. We don’t care, it’s a nice mooring anyway, and we had a long chat with several boaters from the group of barges just up the canal.

The following morning, Mein Furher, who penned us through the first lock, could not have been nicer (!) and we passed from lock to lock and bridge to lift bridge with little need for speech, as the lockkeepers knew we were on our way, and we noticed that the locks are slowly being mechanised on this stretch.

That evening we moored in a Jachthaven in Schoten – at €18 the night – but with free electricity, water and wi-fi signal, shops within 100m but, Oh! the cost of fresh milk in Belgium is 3 times that of Holland. (Louise says “I said we should have frozen more, now didn’t I?!”)

After a late start we finally got through the last two locks on the Dessel-Turnhout-Schoten Kanaal and out onto the big boys’ Albert Kanaal.

The first lock on this large waterway, the Koning Albert II Sluis was a triple, and after a half hour wait, being buffeted against the quay, while we hurriedly ate a buffet lunch, we were allowed into the biggest chamber of the three with another huge barge – Somtrams 2.

It was a 5.7 metre rise, but very gentle, and soon we were out onto the wide canal above following Somtrams 2 past other moored craft, blue-flagging the two barges coming the other way as they made to enter the lock. Well!!! Somtrams 2 had a metre-square blue sign with scintillating light in the centre as per the European regulations: we just stuck our blue-cloth-covered picture frame in the window of our wheelhouse!!

Soon we reached Viersel Sluis which leads off the Albert Kanaal onto the Nete Kanaal. The lockkeeper said we would have to wait outside for half an hour while his lock filled as it was set for coming the other way. Half an hour? What was he doing, filling it with a bucket? Anyway, he was quite right, it did take half an hour while we twiddled about outside, then of course once in, it took half an hour to drop us down 5 metres.

Worth it though as the Nete Kanaal is lovely – the best parts of the River Trent without the currents, and a few more places to moor. Eventually, we wound up at Lier Jachthaven – €13 per night, with the advice that we must visit the town – a small version of Bruges apparently. That means at least two nights, possibly three, depending on whether the locks ahead are observing Sunday opening times or not, and the time of the tides. The town had better be worth it!