MOTORWAYS CAN BE FUN - SATURDAY 3RD AUGUST - GENT TO LONG

 

We’ve said it before, but it’s worth saying again.   

Europe is not a tiny place, it’s quite a large place which is comprised of a large number of small countries with a few more sizeable ones thrown in to fill out the map.

Therefore, despite our standing order for a small car at the car rental shop, all the better to deal with roads and lanes built at a time when horses were apparently quite skinny, when faced with a few thousand kilometres of motorway travel, we were not unhappy at the car hire place, to be offered a rather large “upgrade” complete with all the bells and whistles that promise to make long distance motoring a joy.

The trouble was that by the time we’d worked out which bell was attached to which whistle, how to programme the navigation system, and indeed how to turn off the front facing camera so we could actually see the navigation system (apparently looking out of the windscreen is no longer a "thing"), it was almost lunchtime.

No problem, we could just drive around the block and duck into the supermarket a few hundred metres back down the road we thought.   

The first turn right however took us onto the motorway, and we were off, no time for lunch, barely time for a roadside snack and a wee somewhere along the way!  

Which is how, barely four hours later we came to be relaxing in the saloon of Tiara, having a quiet little catch up with Ron and Robin, in what would have been the shadow of the Town Hall in Long, if the sun hadn’t gone down while we weren’t watching.

DRAWING UP A PLAN - FRIDAY 2ND AUGUST - GENT

So here we are, with roughly three weeks to go, and roughly three days from “home”, contemplating the irony of having to allow roughly half of our allotted boat time as a contingency against flood, fire, drought, pestilence and more likely, breakdown of canal infrastructure which may or may not create significant delay.

With a longer visa, that last month is simply absorbed into the programme, but at present to us at least is seems outrageous, particularly as nothing unforeseen has fallen from the sky!

We’d “planned” to get back to base, pack our things, and have a bit of a road trip at the very end, but as we strolled downtown in search of provisions, something reminded us that while there is nothing wrong with the quality of produce in Belgium, there are also plenty of fresh vegetables to be had in France.  As we aren’t short of friends we can visit in that general direction, our plans changed in an instant.

Armed with just enough foodstuff to get us through the evening and perhaps till the middle of tomorrow, we returned to the boat and logged on to the internet and typed in a very specific search term:

“Car Rental Companies - Ghent (Gent )”

FEELS LIKE HOME - THURSDAY 1ST AUGUST - MERELBEKE TO GENT

With the new day, came a new month, and with that, the shocking realisation that we have exactly twenty-four days left in Europe this year, or twenty three if you don’t count the one we are going to use to make our escape.

Merelbeke, for those geographically challenged, is barely five kilometres as the canal meanders, from the spot we like to stay in Gent, so pretty much straight after breakfast, having delayed long enough to ensure that at least the early risers might have vacated a spot at the port, meander we did. 

   

Perhaps as we slowly made our way through the inner city waterways, we should have been contemplating just how we might fill in those twenty-four days in some sort of constructive manner.  Instead we spent the time contemplating just how much it felt as though we were returning home after a short absence, slowing our pace to less than our normal crawl, all the better to simply take-in both the familiar and the less so.

As it often does with so many places we visit regularly, with familiarity comes a sort of snug comfort.

This isn’t really travelling any more, it’s more like visiting a favourite Aunt.

AND UP SHE RISES - WEDNESDAY 31ST JULY - TEMSE TO MERELBEKE

 

We were all bluff and bravado when we set out yesterday, unsure of just how we’d fare in our rather modestly powered craft if we actually got the timing wrong, but we didn’t and we wasted a few hours of just the teensiest bit of angst, and even managed to travel at an average speed (just) into double figures.

Today,  all we had to do was leave at the bottom of the tide, and we’d ride it like a surfer on some great tsunami all the way to Gent.  That’s what they all said at least.

Therefore, we left with expectations of twelve or fourteen kilometres per hour on the speedo, and perhaps even a micro rooster tail flying off our stern (the latter is a physical impossibility, but that really is the sort of journey we were expecting).

Alas, they were wrong.

They’d forgotten to mention it had been raining all summer and rain by its very nature flows down hill after wetting everything, swelling rivers and increasing their exuberance.  In this case the exuberance was sufficient to almost cancel out the incoming tide, leaving us to travel uneventfully for several more hours than planned albeit at a slightly higher velocity than is our norm.

When travelling upstream like this, we choose to do so on cool days, in overcast,calm grey, perhaps with just a hint of mist, all the better to bring the coloured highlights out of the photographs we take, which is fortunate, because that’s exactly the conditions we were given all day.

What a difference a day makes.

SUMMER IN BELGIUM - TUESDAY 30TH JULY - EMBLEM TO TEMSE

No matter what the weather; cold, wet, perfect, hot, miserable, happy, we’ve learned that by rolling one’s eyes just so,  and reciting the phrase - “Summer in Belgium, eh?” a conversation will ensue.

Today that phrase would describe a listless, thirty-six degree day of the sort that saps the energy out of every living thing.   

We had a bit of a complicated journey to make, down two rivers and up one, necessitating crossing the confluences at exactly the right time to avoid the worst of the tidal race from Antwerp.  

Thanks in no small way to Patrick’s expert tutelage, we’d calculated that we’d need to depart at exactly three in the afternoon to enable us to ride the tide both down and up the rivers concerned, and at exactly that time as we set off, the dock was lined with well-wishers each extracting promises of our return.

Naturally we were travelling in the hottest part of the day, so it wasn’t just our unearned popularity that was making us uncomfortable.  Through some sort of scientific miracle, no matter which direction the curves and bends in the rivers took us, we were looking directly in to the sun for the entire journey.

No one could describe conditions aboard as pleasant for those few hours, but they weren’t unpleasant either, as the newly monochromatic landscape swept by, the colour bleached out of everything, the water and the air so slick and heavy that it was like travelling through a paragraph from the ‘Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner’. 

The tide calculation magic worked precisely as it should and barely four and a half hours after we set out, we were safely secured and waiting for the cool of the evening not to arrive.

IT MAY AS WELL BE SUNDAY - MONDAY 29TH JULY - EMBLEM

Still overwhelmed by our welcome, which was ongoing, we thought we’d sneak unnoticed into Lier, a few kilometres, away for a little traditional sightseeing.

“Traditional” in this sense means “closed when we are visiting”.  We can’t say we’ve ever visited an entire town that was closed on our account before, but there’s a first for everything.

It’s as though they knew we were coming.

Unable to find anywhere that would serve even the most basic lunch, we popped into the only open bakery that we’d seen, to be greeted in English with those fateful words: “You aren’t from round here are you?", followed by; " Where are you from?”

“Australia! Oh you must be the ones living on a boat”

“Benita said you have invited her for a meal tonight and she bought these little cakes which are a specialty just of this town as a special treat for you.”

This startling revelation was followed by a general discussion about kids, grandkids, cousins seven times removed and a distant relative who had seen a map of Australia once, supported by photographic evidence on an iPad.   

Then we were asked to pose for a photograph so that we could join an entire ensemble of “international customers” proudly displayed with names and country of origin on the back wall of the shop which served admirably as an honour board of sorts.

Patrick did take a photograph of us all in the act of consuming Benita’s ruined surprise, and will take a copy to the couple in the bakery where no doubt they will feature as evidence of “international endorsement” of their rather tasty product.

IT REALLY IS SUNDAY - SUNDAY 28TH JULY - HERENTALS TO EMBLEM

When travelling, whether it be by boat, tent or on foot, inevitably we fall into step with someone who is travelling more or less in the same direction.

So it was that back in Tournai, on the day we decided to stay put because of the wind, we had a bit of a nod and a smile from a couple as we walked by their boat.   

A few days later they were waiting for a lock with us.  A few days further still we moored in front of them and we had a chat.

Then in Mons, Patrick suggested that we should visit his home port of Emblem in our travels.  It is, he said smiling, the best club in Belgium, with the best harbour master (with a finger subtly pointing to himself as he said it).  

So we made a date “we’ll see you on the 28th” we said, please keep a spot.  Since when we woke with the sparrows (or heron more like), this morning it was the 28th, (although after last night’s ruckus in town we suspected no one else will be awake till tomorrow),  a gentle ten kilometre cruise seemed to be an entirely plausible way of spending the latter part of the  morning.

It seems he really had been looking out for us as promised, because when we arrived, a welcoming party of club members swooped to take our lines, welcoming us to their club and to inviting us to spend the rest of the afternoon with them on the roof of the clubhouse (a converted Pusher Tug).  

We never did make it to the ad-hoc roof-top bar, as a constant stream of people stopped by to chat.  

Who knows if it’s really the best club in Belgium, but we can certainly confirm it is absolutely the friendliest!

IT'S SUNDAY AGAIN - SATURDAY 27TH JULY - GEEL TO HERENTALS

We’d heard that little harbour in Herentals had fallen into disrepair, and the had become a hangout for a certain kind of person involved in anti-social if not illicit activity, the kind some would describe as “undesirables”.   We’d also heard that new management had done wondrous things to the harbour and its surrounds.

Since it is barely an hour’s from Geel, even with the late weekend opening of the locks, we were there well before lunch and received a very warm welcome from Dirk, the harbour master and for want of a better word lessee, whose enthusiasm for the port and boats in general was palpable.

In just a few short months under his guidance, the port has been transformed, “orphaned” and abandoned boats already on their way to China to be turned into cars and refrigerators,  the disruptive element moved on, and everything cleaned and weeded to within an inch of its life.  

Located barely two kilometres from the village centre, it’s just far enough away from things to feel that it’s “in the Pampas” as Jürgen would say, the perfect place to spend a relaxing Sunday evening, even if it was Saturday, watching the wind turbines gently doing their thing, and the Carp fishermen sending their drones aloft to spot likely game, follwoed by their robot boats dropping their burley and lines precisely above the fish.

We did take a small excursion into the centre of town, but it was pretty much in the very late stages of preparation for the grand finale concert of it’s annual three day Festival, loosely based on cycling events and other outdoor activities.  What a concert that turned out to be too. 

On this, the first day of the Olympics competition, hometown hero Wout van Aert had won a medal in the Individual Time Trial (Cycling) and it was as though the town had expected nothing less!

We didn’t stay, preferring to listen to the music from the (relative) tranquility of two kilometres distance.  It seems there’s a different rhythm to life itself at Festival time as not everyone in other places in the world would would accept that being able to hear actual lyrics in a song performed two kilometres away is a good thing.

Let alone at three in the morning!

A LITTLE CONFUSION - FRIDAY 26TH JULY - MOL TO GEEL

It’s hard to escape the feeling that “every day is a Sunday” at the moment, it was certainly quiet enough all day to convince us that our wall clock was wrong.     

Now that we are back to a more normal few hours travel per day it does tend to make us think we are a little crazy when it feels like Sunday and it’s only Friday.

Have we lost a few days or gained a week?  We can say for certain that almost every date on the last week of posts was seemingly at random (since corrected), quite possibly a reflection of our state of mind at present.

We don’t really care, but if we did find ourselves in a bit of a spin we’re in exactly the right place, because the city of Geel is noted for its foster care system for people dealing with mental health issues. Foster families sometimes host their boarders for decades, making them an integral part of the nuclear family. 

The families see the care they provide as normal, because many have learned it from their parents, grandparents, and extended family. It’s not some new fangled hippy ideal either, it’s just how Geel has worked for a very long time, since the thirteenth century in fact.

It’s a quite extraordinary thing, and although there’s a visitors centre at the hospital and of course a little more information in the church of Saint Dymphna who started the whole movement, everyone had gone home by the time we arrived to discover more, so we returned to the boat none the worse (although with just a touch of guilt) for having not consumed any more historical data.  

There, wewatched the sun slowly sink in the west, and wondered if tomorrow would feel like Sunday too.

TOO MUCH HELTERING TOO MUCH SKELTERING - THURSDAY 25TH JULY - MOL

We might have left this morning, in fact we intended too, but somewhere along the line we just sort of forgot.

It wasn’t really a conscious decision, more a result of a complete lack of enthusiasm for doing anything but sitting right where we are.  Perhaps yesterday afternoon had been too much of a good thing, or perhaps it had been just enough.

Whatever the case, we hung around, lunched ashore, measured things that needed measuring, cleaned things that probably didn’t need cleaning, and read and napped and generally had the sort of day one needs after a week of helter skelter.

About to board after one of our dalliances ashore our little dwarf Joyeux seemed to have enjoyed the day too, not that he ever does not.   A gift from Cindy and Joel when we first named the boat “Joyeux”, or “Happy” after the dwarf of the same name, he has stood watchfully by that window mostly unnoticed, fading slowly and gracefully with the years.    

Sometimes we wonder what he sees during our absences, does he become just a little Grumpy or Sleepy, or is he really just a lump of painted plaster?

Should we add him to the list of things to be maintained we wonder.  

We think not, by the time he fades sufficiently to match the curtains, we may well have taken on that kind of colour ourselves.

A BRAND NEW DAY - THURSDAY 24TH JULY - BOCHOLT TO MOL

We had almost convinced ourselves that we had no regrets about  not being in Maastricht, and perhaps eager to erase the memory of yesterday’s rush, we left early enough so that we could stop at a quiet mooring in the middle of nowhere to eat an equally quiet breakfast and think about where we might end up for the day, although it was almost morning tea time when we did.

We found a place on our charts that looked as though it might just be the tonic for whatever malaise had befallen us yesterday; a marina with a resort, in the middle of a lake, in the middle of nowhere and barely an hour away.   

It’s still a novelty to us in a country which is quite heavily populated, to discover places that are apparently so remote that they are a destination in their own right, yet, surrounded by people sunning themselves on their boats in the middle of a large lake we could be anywhere in the world.

There’s something about being among so many boats and boaty folk that makes fiddling with things less of a chore, so after a polite time of lying around, the proper solar controller we bought in Bremen was installed and demonstrating why it was worth seventy Euro more than the el-cheapo one we’d installed temporarily six or so years ago.

At this rate we’ll have working navigation lights by the end of the year too.

HALF WAY THERE - WEDNESDAY 23RD JULY - MAASTRICHT TO BOCHOLT

Wind, rain, clouds, partially sunny. with a late storm

In a decision that we would later slightly regret we decided that we could always return in a more relaxed frame of mind and visit Maastricht properly in the future.  If we were going to be sitting in the relative warmth and dry of the boat anyway we may as well be moving. 

A few kilometres into our journey, the sky magically cleared and we felt on top of the world. 

A few kilometres later we passed what might have been an interesting place to visit, but with the bit firmly in our teeth, rolled past confident that there would be many more just like it.

That, in the words of the song, was our mistake.   Tens of kilometres rolled past as the wind increased and sky darkened and the conditions generally deteriorated without a sign of anywhere to stop, nor anywhere to explore.   

When a likely place did turn up it was as usual an awkward mooring, timed perfectly to match the most vicious squall of the day, but after finally securing ourselves, took a deep breath, and wondered why we had left in the first place.

Then as the evening storms rolled in, an explanation for the flatness of our mood suddenly dawned;  We are on our way home.   

Even though we are only half way through our time on the boat, we have a deadline and deadlines change everything.  There are some obstacles to clear on our route so we need some time in reserve lest we are forced to go round them, but for now have to work hard not to be in a rush.

GOT HIS MEASURE - MONDAY 22ND JULY - BREMEN TO MAASTRICHT

We’ve tried to find a way of making toilets fit before.  in cost-benefit terms, the savings of finding something that fits exactly would more than make up for the drive.

As it turned out, with our diversions on the way, getting to the shop was a bonus, which was just as well because after careful measurement and dissection of the seven different varieties on offer (just fifty fewer than Heinz offer) every one of them was exactly wrong.

It’s a big store, and a huge mail order business, with lots of specialists to help so we enlisted the expertise of an affable young man whose usefulness was sadly akin to that of a chocolate teapot.  He was able to demonstrate the latest in silent electric technology, a macerating device that let out a groan of displeasure not unlike that one would expect of a human being pressed into similar service.   The thought of the expressions on suddenly wide awake and terrified guests after a midnight flush was certainly enough to convince us that an electric conversion, no matter how convenient, is no longer part of this discussion.

We thanked him, and set about remeasuring everything in the vain hope that something had changed during our discussion.

Perhaps more toilet confused than before, we were able to pick up a satisfying collection of other “need-to-measure” parts, and made a list to arrange for delivery of others before once more heading towards the southern horizon.

New fangled silent technology may not be so brilliant in mechanical toilets but it really comes into its own on Autobahns, with adaptive cruise control providing just the right number of additional eyes while one pair scans the rear view mirror for Porsches and white vans approaching at two hundred and fifty kilometres per hour.   Almost five hours later, we had returned the car, mission nowhere near accomplished, tired but happy, still basking in the joy of the past few days.

Well one of us was tired but happy, the other, having slept very soundly till at least lunch time, was just happy!

BLIND DATE - SUNDAY 21ST JULY - WUPPERTAL TO OLDENBURG

Anyone with a basic knowledge of German geography, (or an Atlas) might have worked out by now that Wuppertal is not exactly close to Bremen in the far north of Germany, so when the new day arrived we were still several hours of Autobahn away from our destination and a day too early for the shops to open.

However, one of us has been quite heavily involved in recent weeks in the collaborative development of a new CNC machine.   It’s in the prototyping stage presently, with  half a dozen or so people putting in their tuppence worth and there's one (test) machine completed in the USA, and another in Oldenburg, Germany ready to make its first cut.          

“Now there’s a happy surprise - Oldenburg is only forty minutes from the marine toilet shop in Bremen!”

The world of internet communities is a strange and wonderful place, where faceless people appear to hide between pseudonyms, but spend so much time together over the course of any given project that they end up knowing each other almost intimately.   So it was, when bitingmidge met Tokoloshe face to face, after three or four years of collaboration that it was more of a reunion than a first meeting.

We spent hours with Phillipp and Andrea and their happy brood, drinking cups of tea, swapping stories and generally catching up on each other’s lives while poring over the finer details of the new machine and the software, putting it through it’s preliminary paces.  All the while four pairs of tiny feet attached to bodies banging and cutting things for their own projects in the background, never crossing the invisible line that brought them within the “danger zone”.

Eventually, the call of the “new toilet” tugged us away, and we left laden with gifts of precious things; some seashells collected on a holiday, a commemorative plaque made on the new machine, and a deadly shank with a pink handle lovingly crafted in our presence, which would come in handy if we encountered any dragons on our way.

ON THE SPUR OF THE MOMENT - SATURDAY 20TH JULY - MAASTRICHT TO WUPPERTAL

We were really looking forward to spending the weekend among the crowds, when one of us started talking about replacing the toilets again.   

To be fair, they’ve been on the top of our “to do” list for a decade and a half, and we’ve been terribly hampered by a complete lack of dimensional information which can only be solved by standing in front of a new model with a tape measure and a pad.

The other of us pointed out that there’s a nice marine shop with everything we need in the very far north of Germany, and with a stupid and complete turn around in the weather now forecasting mid thirty degree temperatures, a long drive in an air conditioned car might be just the shot.

We failed entirely to convince the man in the car rental shop that he might consider giving us a last minute deal, but one thing led to another and a few hours later we were sitting by Ele and Jürgen’s pool eating, drinking, taking terrible selfies (are you SURE you got everyone in the picture?), and doing what old friends do to while away a long hot summer evening. 

NEW BEST FRIENDS - FRIDAY 19TH JULY - LIEGE TO MAASTRICHT

Despite what might have been hangovers if we’d been imbibing any sort of liquid other than water, and despite everyone warning us that some banjo guy was playing in Maastricht, that we’d never find a place to stay, that it would be crowded and noisy beyond belief, we snuck out early and quietly and uneventfully made our way downstream.

It’s astonishing what a difference twenty kilometres can make to the character and demeanour of a city.

When we arrived in the early afternoon, Maastricht was indeed humming, crammed to the gills (if it were a fish) with people dressed if not to the nines at least to the seven-point-fives.  The entire old town looked prosperous and cared for and dare I say “clean”?   We tend not to judge cities by cleanliness scores, but the contrast to Liege is astonishing in every respect.

With no particular agenda (and none of the 4,000 tickets to the evening concert available other than the scalper’s 1,000€) we were just setting out for a bit of a reconnaissance when a pair of passers-by introduced themselves.   

One thing led to another as they so often do, and we spent a splendid hour or two circumnavigating the city with Sonya and Phil from Stuttgart, following the walking guide we’d purchased on the way, except for the part around the square of course, noting that there appeared to be standing room only in every one of the bars and restaurants in the city.

Wait till tomorrow they say.  Weekends, they say, are when it gets REALLY busy.

SHABBY CHIC - THURSDAY 18TH JULY - LIEGE

We set off late in the morning for some supplies of course and to a large electrical retailer in search of a vacuum cleaner, or as they say in France rather ominously; an "Aspirateur".  

Downtown was busy, and strangely run down yet not, all at the same time.  As many as two shops out of every three are closed, but of those that remain a fine assortment of very nicely fitted out retail establishments filled with high quality stock which did not seem to align with the dress or mood of those on the street.

In keeping with the overall feeling of the city, the electrical store, did not stock any of the more modestly priced items in its catalogue, just the three or four top line models in the hope that customers in urgent need of aspiration would simply fork out the extra few hundred Euros. 

From all we’ve heard of Liege, we really felt a bit guilty that we didn’t love the place more than two nights’ worth, but we’ll give it another go in time, and one of those nights was a very big one indeed.   

It’s not that there’s nothing to see, quite the contrary in fact, but we finally had a day of summer and we weren’t in the mood to do much at all except hang around with Frank and Els drinking fizzy water and using up our stock of ice cubes until the cool of the evening became the cool of the morning, by which time, despite all encouragement to the contrary, we had decided to move on.  

Sans aspirateur.

FITTING IN - WEDNESDAY 17TH JULY - HUY TO LIEGE

We were reflecting yesterday, on how boats, like houses, cars, and caravans at home, are getting bigger all the time.

This is a curious thing, as it’s quite clear that the skills of the skippers haven’t increased commensurately and we are discovering to our advantage that the spaces left in an apparently crowded mooring are more than enough for more modestly sized craft to squeeze in.

We are more than happy too, to sit on our very modest cruising speed, but it’s surprising what a difference one or two kilometres per hour can make to a day’s travel time.   

Today for instance, we left an hour before most of them, and were the thirteenth pleasure boat to arrive at the first lock, which after about an hour’s wait, had space for two ships, a ferry, and twelve pleasure boats.

During the next half hour or so, another three boats arrived as well as a large ship for us to share with.   The speed differential meant that they were already descending the next lock by the time we arrived, leaving us with the surprising statistic after having travelled for seven hours, of being stationary for three of them.

There are times when of course we would like the added security of perhaps another kilometre or two per hour, and yes, the early bird gets the worm when it comes to finding a place to moor for the night, yet here we are neatly squished between two of the big guys who arrived hours before we did, and for a day or two at least, tied to the dock, we’ll be cruising at exactly the same speed.

SUMMER IN BELGIUM - TUESDAY 16TH JULY - HUY

Every day we seem to begin our journal with “the weather forecast for today”.   

Being aware of what conditions one might encounter, even on a relatively small and protected waterway, is a fundamental requirement if one is to minimise risk and maximise comfort while living on a boat.

Yesterday, when the forecast suggested conditions with higher than comfortable winds in gusts and a little cooling rain to take the edge of it, we made a tentative plan not to go anywhere.

Therefore, when the new day dawned brightly and cheerfully, we were still sound asleep.   

A double check of the forecast over the first coffee of the day confirmed the wisdom of our decision and we watched a small procession of those more hardy than ourselves depart the safety of the harbour.   By half way through our second coffee, they were back, foiled by a malfunctioning lock and with ever worsening conditions putting paid to any hope of a lengthy cruise today. 

So we walked downtown, comfortable in our winter woolies and wet weather gear, spending a very pleasant few hours exploring, eating fancy meatballs for lunch, and watching fascinated as the Belgians in our midst gathered in the rain, peering into clothes shop windows gaily decorated with beachwear, no doubt wondering where in the world one could go out in clothes like that. 

Just say “whee”. - MONDAY 15TH JULY - NAMUR TO HUY

As is our usual form, when we set out to explore our new village, the unpronounceable (until you get the knack) Huy, “twenty minutes” walk away we had absolutely no idea of what we might expect to see.  

From long experience, our lack of research is one way of avoiding the disappointment of discovering the one attraction that we really wanted to visit is closed on the day we are there, and it gives far greater scope for surprise as we stumble around with no expectation.

Today’s surprise was the cable car spanning the river and taking passengers a kilometre or two beyond as well. 

Before one of us could say “I do love riding on cable cars”  and certainly long before we’d set foot in the village, we had conducted an arial survey of it and were exploring our second surprise of the day.

Sadly we were a bit late to visit the museum galleries of the fort, displaying the horrors of the lives of the 7,000 prisoners who spent time there in the Second World War, as well as another millennium of history but they are on our list for next time.

None the less as we wound our way down through the building, several people enquired as to whether we’d seen the pewt yet.  

We thought nothing of it, having no idea what a pewt was but it seemed to be something we shouldn’t miss.  

We were about to leave when the man on the door again asked and was quite dismayed when we replied in the negative, turning us round and telling us we mustn’t miss the pewt. 

The first lightbulb moment in this phonetically challenged day came when we saw the sign.   Ahhh not “pewt”.. “puit” (well) and a puit of uncommon size as well.   This puit was a beaut.

Why someone in the fifteenth century had decided to climb to the top of a very steep hill and dig a 90 metre hole, five metres in diameter to see if there was any water there, was not explained.   Nor was there an explanation as to how the last thirty metres were dug underwater.   

After that, we suppose that the thought of perching a chateau and eventually a fortress on top of it was a logical and relatively simple proposition, but not as simple as learning to pronounce “puit” or “Huy”.

STILL IN THE SHADOW OF THE CITADEL - SUNDAY 14TH JULY - NAMUR

We were a bit glad we didn’t tell anyone we had planned to move on today.  

We had topped up with the things that needed topping up, and were sort of in no man’s land this morning, loafing about to fill in a bit of time until one of the locks downstream that was due to open after a bit of maintenance.  

Then we realised that if we left tomorrow we would get to lay around in the sunshine all day instead of just an hour or two,  and didn't have to face the uncertainty of the work being completed by the time we arrived.

So we changed our plan, had a cup of coffee, and began doing nothing in a bit more earnest.

It’s not as though we were completely idle, but every now and then it’s nice just to be “retired”, and push all thought of doing "something" out of sight.    

Even after a gentle stroll to the other side of the river to photograph our mooring (that’s us in the blue), and another to observe first hand just how much water was still flowing over the barrages, we’d barely made half the recommended quota of steps for the day.  

Tomorrow is Monday.  We really should move on.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES - SATURDAY 13TH JULY - NAMUR

The last time we were in Namur we couldn’t understand what the fuss was about.   

Everyone we knew who had been here, was quite complimentary about it, if not raving.   As we recall, and we do, vividly, days of relentless forty degree temperatures had heated to wall we were moored against, just below the citadel, and our Joyeux was slowly being roasted along with all in her.  The town was deserted, dusty, half built or half torn down, and generally in need of a clean.  

It didn’t even have a tourist information office.

We walked and walked until the point of near dehydration, enjoyed a few hours in the citadel, but no matter where we looked we couldn’t find the slightest spark of magic referred to by others.

After that it doesn’t take much to imagine how enthused we were about getting out and about today, but the sun was shining so one of us managed a few loads of washing and a bit of a spruce up inside while cooking a batch of pikelets, and the other spent an equally industrious if not more trying morning attempting to unravel the many mysteries of the dashboard wiring.

By lunchtime the band had struck up across the river a the yacht club, the dancing had begun, the sun may have stopped shining but the world was still cheery enough for us to feel guilty about not getting out.

We never did find out what was going on in town, surely all of Belgium was there.  The streets are closed to traffic on weekends, which is just as well as there wouldn’t be room for everyone on the footpaths.

It’s cleaner, brighter and no longer under construction.  

Today at least it had a vibrance that seemed to lift the mood of everyone there.  Possibly the French beer festival in the square assisted in that regard, but we’re glad to say that Namur is now on our “must stay longer next time” list.

THE WIPER - FRIDAY 12TH JULY - AUVELAIS TO NAMUR

 

Yesterday had been a long day in conditions which required a little more work than we prefer, let’s politely say that we were feeling our age a bit when we creaked into life this morning.

It was raining too, and quite cold and not at all summery so we had a slow and gentle morning.  Eventually the other boat sharing out mooring departed, spurring us into action.

Curiously after conversing happily we thought for more than a dozen or so locks and bridges and as many harbours while travelling through Wallonia, today the young lady in charge of the locks must have decided that it would be easier for her to understand us if we spoke in English.  

It was certainly easier for us, as we are constantly in awe of how we are understood despite what we know are our sometimes unrecognisable pronunciations, which are a constant source of mirth for many (and ourselves).

Happily the windscreen wiper rebuild of a week or so ago passed it’s first significant test with flying colours, but since it covers only a very small small area of the glass, visibility in close quarters a little less than desirable.

Fortunately, after the reapairs we had thought to keep the old auxiliary system completely intact “just in case”.

ANOTHER KIND OF BEAUTY - THURSDAY 11TH JULY - SENEFFE TO AUVELAIS

What a glorious day, surprisingly hot it was too, and after travelling for far too many hours and kilometres we arrived feeling a bit like Charleroi looks - tired and terribly run down.

This may be a terrible conclusion to draw from a town which we have never visited and have only passed through on three occasions, but the fact that the economy airlines brand its airport “Brussels South” only reinforces that conclusion.

Some say that passing Charleroi by ship is not an attractive proposition, but they would be wrong.  Think of it as “Post Apocalyptic Industrial Chic”.  

With kilometres of huge piles of recycling waste glinting in the sun or floating in the air as the case may be, and factories that at first glance look abandoned, yet awful shrieks and bangs emanate from within, as once useful objects are shredded for future re-use, or perhaps they really are abandoned and aliens are rebuilding their wrecked ships within - whichever you prefer.  

It’s a super positive thing on the one hand, your old car or refrigerator being stripped to its component material, shredded and then shipped to who knows where, and there’s a kind of honesty and confidence about the place.  It is what it is.

Compare that to the cosmetic coverings of the nuclear reactor cooling towers we spent a couple of hours with while waiting for a lock.  Their glistening while forms and water vapour rising above silhouetted against the blue sky belie all sorts of potential catastrophe lurking within.

At least that pile of cubed cars is unlikely to suffer a meltdown at its core, which is more than we can say for the reactor, or for that matter for us if we’d pushed our day much further.  

UP AND OVER - WEDNESDAY 10TH JULY - MONS TO SENEFFE

It may look like something from a Star Wars set, but just because they built a taller one in China doesn’t make the Strépy-Thieu boat lift any less impressive. To get a better idea of scale, look closely at the lower road and find the tourist train.

It’s certainly a very easy way for us to climb to the top of a hill using only a boat, and something of a monument to engineers and of course to a certain Mr Archimedes, without whom the calculation of counterweight sizes would not be possible.

There are lots of facts and statistics that are very easy to find if that’s what floats your boat, the least of them or perhaps the most important depending on your perspective is that the height of the lift is seventy-four metres, and that the vertically moving watertight gates are designed to withstand a 5 km/h  impact from a 2000-tonne vessel.   

This is only reassuring until one starts to wonder about the consequences of a 2010 tonne vessel failing to stop while the basin was at the top.    There is a flood gate a few kilometres away which would stop Belgium emptying completely, but the thought of ships both small and large plummeting over a seventy-four metre waterfall and tumbling through flooded towns below is an entertaining one, if one isn’t a passenger on one of those vessels at the time it happens.

Anyone wishing to visit can ride the lift for a nominal fee,  and there’s a little train ride and a ferry too which would ask for a couple of other nominal fees but pleasure boats, presumably because they are part of the attraction are not charged at all.  

Therefore it would make a certain amount of sense for those more than mildly curious, to track us down next time we are passing and we’ll be happy to provide the thrill of a lifetime.  

CITY OF COLOUR - TUESDAY 9TH JULY - MONS

It’s a curious thing to hop on the bus after a lovely day in town, a super lunch in the sun drenched main square, and sufficient heat to believe that summer has finally arrived, to receive a notification from the weather man that says “Thunderstorm will cease in eighteen minutes”.

The sky was a bit overcast in places, but there was not a drop of rain to be seen. Perhaps it was a wrong number.

Ten minutes later we alighted from that same bus with the sky a little greyer perhaps, but still giving no sense of impending doom, and we set off on our eight minute walk back to the boat.   The bus had barely closed its door when a drop of rain the size of a cumquat landed on the concrete pavement in front of us.    

Then another.

We had just enough time to fish our umbrellas out before firehoses started blasting us from all directions, leaving us beyond wet, walking through inches of water.  Traffic stopped, we think the street lights came on, but we had to squint against the pressure of the water so can't be sure, yet on we trudged.

Precisely eighteen minutes more or less after receiving that notification, just as we were wondering how to get into the boat without filling it with water, the rain ceased. 

Fourteen millimetres in around ten minutes made us a bit homesick.  I’d managed to get the (thankfully waterproof) camera safely zipped into the backpack just in time, but such was the torrent that when it was all over, it was basting in an inch or so of water which had found it’s way through the zippers!  

Again I digress: Mons is a really nice city we think, filled with colour and interesting crannies, that could well do with further exploration.  One laneway was so colourful that all the cobbles were carefully painted in colours so vibrant that it felt like walking across a packet of Smarties.   

I can only hope that the colours haven't run!

THE DAY WE WENT TO SWEDEN - MONDAY 8TH JULY - PERUWELZ TO MONS

With no obstacles on our route we could probably have put the pedal to the metal and been in Mons for smoko, but that’s really not how we roll.  We did make it in time for lunch and by the time we’d done nothing, and had a chat with the Port Captain, the afternoon had been well and truly underway for some time.

We’ve not visited Mons before, and were recently made aware that the Vikings had settled far and wide in the sixth century or so but we were quite surprised to discover that one of the remnants of the Swedish scourge remained just a few kilometres away.

Navigation on foot turned out to be a challenge as we had to pass below or across no fewer than eleven lanes of freeway traffic on the way, with pathways so bio-diverse that jungle greens and a machete might have been appropriate.  For a time it seemed far safer walking on the road’s edge than battling with the nettle and blackberry and other spiky things including a bush that looked for all the world like the invasive species we called “Chonky Apple” when we were kids in the north of Australia. 

That particular name must be some sort of woke faux pas now, as a search for that plant turns up “Chinee Apple” which to this not quite objectively focused pair of eyes, seems to have greater opportunity to cause offence, but once again, I digress.

Eventually we made it to IKEA safely, having managed to steer one of us away from the temptation to pick a large bunch of wildflowers on the way : “we can do that on the way back”.

There, we quickly found everything on our list, stopped for a close to awful coffee and a less awful slice of apple pie, bought a very small flowering plant to match the time we will be on the boat this year, and made our way happily back the way we came, leaving the wildflowers to live another day.

SMELLING THE ROSES - SUNDAY 7TH JULY - TOURNAI TO PERUWELZ

Sunday is a funny day on the water in Belgium or at least in Wallonia.   

In the absence of almost all commercial traffic, the waterways staff seem to work a sort of “casual Friday” kind of day, stopping for lunch and appearing to not do too much at all.  

By eight, when we woke it was such a glorious morning that we were at sixes and sevens as to whether we’d even bother moving.   By nine, we’d decided to stay for one more day.

At twenty past nine, we cast off to try our luck with the last two large commercial locks we need to negotiate for the next few days.  

Since no one really wants to move fourteen million litres of water just so a boat that displaces barely six thousand, can move twelve metres upwards, there’s a policy of doing nothing unless three boats are present per lock movement or if no-one else turns up there is a maximum of approximately two hours to wait "just in case".  Naturally this is flexible because, well, even the waterways guys have to eat, and while we were really lucky at the first lock, the crews of the three boats who had already been waiting for almost three hours when we arrived were delighted to see us.

In any event, we had a very gentle day bobbing around waiting to the sounds of Mr Perkins throaty idle.

By mid afternoon we'd travelled a very slow (even by our standards) twenty- five kilometres or so, and were nicely settled into a pleasant little corner in the port of Peruwelz.  

There we whiled away the afternoon, wandering through the nettles and blackberries where once mown pathways lay, and generally admiring the wondrous biodiversity which we suspect was more a result of neglect than deliberate policy, but it works just the same.

THE SHIPPING FORECAST - SATURDAY 6TH JULY - TOURNAI

The weather forecast would have amused even the most sceptical person.  “Sunny conditions expected around 9:00 pm” it cheerily announced, right beside a little graphic that made it quite clear that sunset would be at 9:59 precisely, so you’d better get the chairs out and be ready.

Every hour before that there was one of those funny little “wind” symbols, which are a good indication that one should not venture outside with an umbrella or even a hat that isn’t firmly tied down.  A bit of investigation showed the forecast gusts would be around 65 kilometres per hour, which is somewhere around the “gale” category on the Beaufort scale and in the end we were pretty pleased with our decision to stay right where we were in downtown Tornai.

When the morning dawned clear-ish and windless, we had second thoughts about staying, but it was not long before the gusts came exactly when and as forecast and we settled in for a day of watching the slow procession of passing ships while surrounded by an assortment of washing hung in every corner of the boat.

There are a few pastimes which some describe as  being like watching grass grow, and watching washing dry is one of them.  Therefore we took the opportunity to sneak out for a few little necessities and to check progress on the Notre Dame Cathedral, which has been under constant renovation since our first visit, fifteen years ago.   

It’s not World Heritage listed accidentally, although every time progress appears to be underway, an even older part of the building is discovered.  There’s some thought that it may even have  some bits from the fourth century under those footings, but so far the impressively identified fifth century parts are winning the age race.

Like all renovation jobs, this one just keeps getting bigger, and without the budget of the better known Notre Dame, progress seems to be at about the pace we like to travel, which leaves us to wonder if we should move tomorrow, or join the cathedral team and simply down tools for one more day.

SOME DAYS ARE GOLDEN - FRIDAY 5TH JULY - OUDENARDE TO TOURNAI

We tried not to be too ambitious today with a weather forecast for unpleasant conditions tending towards horrible in spots, but as things always do, they turned out well enough with just the right amount of inclement to give the windscreen wipers a nice test to boot.

Wind can be a bit of a problem for us and it did blow quite hard from time to time, but due to some sort of inverse law of nature to the one that usually applies when we are on the boat, it dropped out just enough to make manoeuvring possible each time we needed to enter a lock or avoid an obstacle or a three thousand tonne ship.

At times, with wind and current against us, despite Mr Perkins’ valiant efforts to push us along, making headway was a bit of a struggle, but struggle he did although there’s been a return of his incontinence and we are seriously beginning to wonder if after four and a half decades, the pumps he drives are beginning to feel their age too.

Tomorrow, the forecast is “worse than today”, which makes us think we might plan to do not much at all.

Will we get out and explore Tournai?  

That’s a question for tomorrow.

SAME WINDSCREEN, DIFFERENT DAY - THURSDAY 4TH JULY - BEERNEM TO OUDENARDE

On a long day, one has nothing much to do other than concentrating on avoiding the hard bits at the edges of the water, staying as far away as possible (see the first “other than”) from the monster ships plying the narrowish waterways at speeds we can only dream of and generally moving about every now and then to keep a bit of circulation happening.

Between those various occupations is a significant time for thinking.

Recently, in Denmark, we visited the Viking Ship museum, where somewhat puzzlingly we discovered that one of the load carrying ships was capable of transporting the weight of one and a half female Indian elephants.   

Meanwhile somewhere in North America about the same time, a sink-hole had appeared in a “sidewalk” the size of seven refrigerators.  

Perhaps it’s got something to do with wind turbines breaking up the 5G wavelength but it’s clear that more tried and trusted means of measurement, (think cubic metres or kilograms) are no longer adequate, but none the less it occurred to me that the largest of the ships passing us every half hour or so, was capable of carrying around 30,000 refrigerators, or indeed 750 female Indian elephants. 

This led me to be quite grateful that we weren’t travelling with a flotilla of Viking ships, because the queue to each commercial lock would be the 750 elephants divided by one and a half, or precisely 625 Viking ships long.

Yes, it had been a long day, and yes it was a bit tiring, but it could have been worse.  Had we been travelling at the speed of light, in the same nine hours we could have travelled around the sun sixty-five times rather than just seventy or so kilometres to Oudenarde.

WE CAN SEE! - WED 3RD JULY - BEERNEM

 

Rain is not our preferred weather when moving on.   

We have to put up with it of course from time to time, but with the forecast looking quite miserable today we abandoned our admittedly hastily drawn plan to leave this morning, and replaced it with “let’s fix the windscreen wipers”, a job that’s been on our list for quite some time.

Fortunately I’d bought a new blade and arm a couple of years ago and they’d been rolling around underfoot in my little helm station to remind me they needed installing “when I had ten minutes to spare’.  

This lack of activity has meant that things have been a bit awkward on board from time to time while moving in the rain, as one of us has had to don her wet weather gear, duck outside with a squeegee in hand while the other had to multi task, contemporaneously steering and pointing to bits she had missed all the while ensuring his coffee didn’t spill.  She swears she didn’t mind, but even someone with fewer than fifty years of bliss under their belt would be aware that there was probably an end date to that arrangement.

A “ten minute job” on a boat of the age and heritage of ours never takes ten minutes, so it was not unexpected that the boat interior resembled a car boot sale by the time we’d finished.

However, with new electrical connections at both ends, a note to replace the switch at some time in the future, and a new wiper blade and arm assembled from components of various bits and bobs that “might come in handy” it is with some relief and a good deal of satisfaction that we can say we have a reliable wiper for the first time in a very long time.

Tomorrow, we will be on our way, rain, hail or shine!

SLUIS - TUESDAY 2ND JULY - SLUIS

Despite the impression we might accidentally give from time to time, our cruising life is not just about lolling about and eating chocolate.

There are waffles as well.

And there’s walking, quite a lot of walking.  Walking to get groceries, walking to take the rubbish to the bin, walking to see things.  There’s no escaping it, even on those rare days when we don’t leave the boat, we can do many thousands of steps (but who’s counting?) and the boat is only ten metres long overall, barely seven inside.  

Therefore when Dave and Ria suggested we might like to go for a little drive this afternoon we leaped at the chance to walk the kilometre or so to their garage, buckled in and headed for the Netherlands.  It’s easy to remain quite nonchalant at the prospect of trans border travel, when one realises the distance to the border is barely as far as it is to the hardware store and back, but the village of Sluis is at least twenty kilometres away.  

It’s a pretty, quasi touristic shopping centre that seems to exist almost solely for Belgians looking for bargains, and a range of local foodstuffs, or simply an afternoon out.

There is even a working windmill to pose for photographs.

Just to demonstrate that we don’t require a boat for lolling about there was coffee too.

And yes, (rolls eyes), poffertjes.