We had the car with us so drove round and spoke to a pleasant young lady, Melanie, who was very helpful and assured us that an engineer might be able to look at the damage, and that her boss, who spoke English, would also call us.
Needless to say, nothing whatsoever happened and after several unanswered emails, we had to abandon this very local possibility and look elsewhere.
We’d used De Schroef on the Belgium/Holland border before and had been very impressed by their helpfulness and reasonable prices, but after contact with them we were told they had been taken over! The manager with whom we had previously dealt sent us their new prices – now astronomical! (Utterly ridiculous - €150 to provide a ladder for us to get off the boat, €150 just to plug into their electricity supply and €1000 just to check the stern gland!!)
So, we decided to make a year of it and return to SRF in Harlingen in northern Holland. They gave us a reasonable quote on the basis of our photos of the damage and we felt confident that they would be fair with the other work we needed.
We entered the precise route we wanted to take into our PC Navigo program and set off.
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| Sapeurs-pompiers' activity made for an interesting lunchtime stop! |
We used the Pommeroel Conde Canal, recently re-opened, to access the Nimy-Blaton-Peronne Canal and passed through the Frensies Lock and then the Pommeroel Lock. Both are deep but this second one is a very deep lock indeed and has some amazing sounds to accompany you on your rise!
When we got to the Strepy-Thieu Lift we were informed that due to a collapsed former bridge ahead, the canal was closed for some indefinable time. A redundant motorway bridge was being demolished when part of it collapsed onto the waiting barge below, killing the driver of the digger being used in the demolition.
PC Navigo was determined that we COULD take this route so, of course, we began to wonder whether our regular downloading of stoppages on our route were actually being heeded. We took the decision many seasons ago not to update PC Navigo annually - at a cost of some €80 or so – so maybe that was the problem? We did a few tests on routes we knew were closed for various reasons and yes, the program is now useless for closures.
We now had to change our planned route and this added four days to our journey, which was not in itself a problem as we had time in hand, but it did cause us to have to consider a route to Ghent instead of Namur, and a downstream journey on the Schelde to Antwerp, never our favourite waterway! As it turned out, the tide times were not in our favour (high tide at Merelbeke at 5 am) so we decided to go via Terneuzen, the Westerschelde and Oosterschelde instead.
We traversed Terneuzen without difficulty and the Westerschelde was not too choppy but the huge sea-going vessels passing us in both directions did knock us about a bit. However, we had timed it well, so that the rising tide gave us a few kph extra speed.
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| Ships in Terneuzen |
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| Westerschelde |
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| Westerschelde |
By the time we got to Hansweert we had both had enough and turned onto the Oosterschelde and into Wemeldinge Haven. Louise had put her foot down and was prepared to pay whatever was charged, which turned out to be €60!!!
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| Wemeldinge €60 mooring! |
A quiet night followed, but tomorrow was the Oosterschelde! It turned out to be somewhat more difficult than the Westerscheldt, as we had less help from the rising tide, more wind and more splashy, splashy over the bows. Of course, the water is saline and thus the boat was now utterly covered with salt, all of which would have to be washed off as soon as fresh water was encountered.
This turned out to be Tholen. Louise rang the port in good time and was told that they did indeed have a place for us. Thank goodness! BUT, it turned out to be a ‘box’, into which we would have to reverse. This is not something we normally do, and when box number 65 came into view, we had just passed it, but Alex decided that if we stopped immediately, our prop walk would take us in quite well, and it DID! much to the amazement of the other boat owners, and us! Well sometimes it just works and sometimes it just doesn’t. Tholen was still pricey, at €40, but then so are all the other ‘sea havens’ everywhere in the world.
The following few nights were free – the first on literally a ‘fence’ in the middle of the river at Steenbergshe Vliet and then at the start of Mark-Dintel Canal at a lovely village mooring at Stampersgat. The village had taken to its heart a downed British pilot in the 2nd world war, Denis Lee. His body was buried in the village graveyard and the town had named one of its roads after him – Denisleestraat! A friendship had built up with Cheltenham where he came from and regular twinning activities still occur, apparently.
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| Stampersgat |
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| Denis Lee's grave in Stampersgat . . . |
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| . . . and a bench in his honour |
From Stampersgat we cycled 6 kms to stock up at a Jumbo supermarket – hard work in the wind but very good for musculature and continuing health! And just look at the inventive way of stacking rubbish waiting for collection!
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| Brilliant! |
We spotted an inviting-looking quay down a short arm off the Mark Canal, so we did an emergency stop, nosed in and managed to turn round with inches to spare before we moored up. We took the ferry across the canal and cycled into Breda for a look-see (unimpressed) and lunch in a bit of a dive cafe but it was excellent. On the way back Louise spotted a plant nursery. Maybe at last we could stock up on the flowers we always like to have on the boat in the summer. The quality of the plants was amazing and the prices were amazingly reasonable! The main problem was getting them back to the boat in one piece on our two bikes, but they survived to live on, and on, and on.
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| Terheijden - a great mooring if a tight turn. |
We trundled on north via the eastern route through the Biesbosch stopping on a lovely rural mooring, on the unlikely named Ruigt Ruegt or Nerzien Plaatje on the Gat van Paulus!
And so on to Gorinchem: advice from the lock-keeper, when he asked us our destination of Meerkerk, was that we would NOT be getting there for some days if not longer, as the Bazelbrug bridge, just before Meerkerk was out of order. This was very concerning, but the lock-keeper suggested we go onto the Linge Canal/River to find mooring. Now, we know this area, because our good friends Paul and Diane on BEATRICE winter-moor at the De Gors Haven. Louise immediately called up the Haven and yes! they could accommodate a 19m barge. The havenmeester, his assistant and several other gentlemen of the haven came out to greet us and help us moor. Subsequently, when it became clear that the bridge wouldn't be open for 10 days, we confirmed that we would like to stay on the mooring till then, collected the car from Cambrai (5 trains and a 3 hour drive!) and set off for home and 8 days in the UK.
Our short cruise north to Vianen went without incident though we knew that there might be some delay in Vianen due to the tug boat festival being held that weekend and so it transpired. Some small problem with lockgates meant a 3-hour wait for us, but the upside was that we were in prime position to watch as at least 20 tugboats left the lock not once but twice: they’d had to wait outside the lock on the Lek while the lockgates were repaired. How had they managed to get so many into the lock on each lockage? We were impressed and amazed – so much so that we forgot to take any photos!
Our original plan had been to stay for a week in the historic harbour in Vreeswijk (Nieuwegein) but by now it could only have been for one night, having lost a full week waiting for the Bazelbrug to re-open, but when we crossed the Lek and expected entry through the Koninginnensluis into Nieuwegein, we were told that because of water height difference, it wouldn't open till 6pm, several hours later. We decided with others to take the alternative route via a short section of the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal before being able to enter the Nieuwegein Zuidsluis and a decent mooring for the night: too late now to cruise down to Vreeswijk, we had to ‘give backword’ and admit defeat: we wouldn't be able to make it to Ton’s harbour that night. So Vreeswijk would have to wait until August where we have booked a month’s stay while we return to the UK, for this, that and the other.
Our final few weeks of our journey took us through Blokzijl (one of our favourites) and we spent nights here and there until we eventually reached Franeker two nights before lift-out at SRF. We entered the dead end canal that makes up the mooring at Franeker and as we came in felt sure there was enough room to turn round. However, several moored small boats meant we had to go well in before we could turn. What we had not realized was that the channel became narrower as we progressed, so we started the turn and at the last degree got stuck! Alex had to leap off the front of the barge and push her back round. Then we had to reverse back up between all the small boats while their owners looked nervously on. All of this happened of course in howling winds, making the job even trickier.
A short 6 km journey the next day and we arrived at SRF with a whole day to prepare the boat for the work to start on Monday.
It hasn’t been a tranquil, restful cruise by any means, but once released from the shipyard in a week or so, we hope to be able to wander around aimlessly for a while and get back to enjoying the boating we know and love.
