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!