It’s seventy-something kilometres from Diksmuide to Bruges, and last year (twice) we travelled that distance in a day. To achieve that requires stamina, persistence beyond doggedness, a bit of luck, and all that the spirit of cruising is not.
We are not of a mind to demonstrate any of those qualities at the moment. With the throttle stuck in “C” for “cruising”, the three hours and thirty-three minutes that it took to cover seventeen kilometres today seemed about right to us, the delays merely served as practice for all we had planned for this afternoon.
Our intention was to spend some time lazing around in a tea house we’ve passed many times, always noting it as a “place we should stop one day”,
It’s exactly opposite a public mooring where one is able to stay for a maximum of twelve hours per day, connected by a giant lifting footbridge. By arriving just after midday, with something less than twelve hours to run this day, we figured that tomorrow’s clock will start again at midnight, so we should be sweet to stay the night if we work our shifts back to back.
To our astonishment, there was a vacant berth exactly where we had hoped to stay barely fifty metres from the establishment in question, and even more astonishingly against all odds the place was open for business.
That sadly is where fine sunny glorious day took a turn for the worse.
The “foot” and “bridge” parts of the structure connecting the two canal banks were missing in their entirety, after what a local resident described as a catastrophic structural failure. The swing mechanisms stand on each side as a reminder of what once was, and what will be again at some time in the future, but for now they simply taunt, and pointing two fingers at the sky as if to tell us in no uncertain terms that we can go anywhere but across the river.
Yes, it’s only a few kilometres to walk around the long way, and it might have been a lovely gentle exercise with an indulgent reward at the end, but when we thought about it, no part of the few kilometres that we would have to walk back seemed consistent with anything we had a desire to do.
So we stayed home, had a day off, and lazily dreamed of what might have been.
2 comments
It just never ceases to amaze me how you two can find any, ANY way to make sure an establishment you want to visit is either closed or, in this case, unreachable, when you are there.
BTW, accepted an offer on Oldtimer this morning. I guess I'll be moving on...
Yes it's true, we spend our lives saving admission fees! Happy sad news re Oldtimer, I hope that moving on is all it can be, and heck, if ever you want a bunk for three nights, give us a shout!
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