ACCIDENTALLY THERE ALREADY! MONDAY 24TH JUNE - DIKSMUIDE TO BRUGES

 Having decided that we were definitely leaving, we made a half-hearted attempt to get away early, which is to say that we each opened one eye in serendipitous synchronicity, then quickly closed them it lest each should realise the other was awake, and in that way we blissfully resumed our repose through what some say is the best part of the day.

We were actually  up and about and away pretty much at Danish breakfast time, which wasn’t bad under the circumstances, and since the route to Bruges is littered with obstacles like locks and lifting bridges that seem to be there for no other reason than to delay boats for random amounts of time (if you ignore the vehicles crossing them) we were resigned to arriving some time tomorrow.

We have some friends who once accidentally circumnavigated the planet on which we live.   They left Brisbane more or less to visit the Whitsundays, and each day they just seemed to sail a bit further until one morning they woke up and realised they were in Greece.  

That’s the kind of day we had.  Every bridge magically opened with barely a delay, and by half past lunchtime we were so far ahead of where we thought we would end up for the night that we just kept going.

I know many will think that travelling 57.24 kilometres in a day at an average speed of 5.5 kilometres per hour is hardly the stuff one reads about in the Guinness Book of Records, but given that our last voyage over this route took three complete days and at least double the travel time, it’s the sort of thing our grandchildren will be hearing about for a very long time!

Dave and Ria were on hand to film our triumphant arrival of course, and  Dirk, our Port Captain welcomed us with open arms and placed us in a special spot among the big boys (that’s us in blue, right behind Chihuahua) where no doubt we will bask in our achievement for days to come.