Lesley, Stewart and Janie with relief happily moored in Paris.

The route we took to make the journey from Lille to Paris:

• Lille to Douai via La Deule across the Scarpe (where we took the detour to Arras) and briefly on the canal de la Sensee. Covered in our last blog.
• Just south of Douai turning onto the canal du Nord to Noyon (near Pont l’Eveque) where we used the canal lateral a l’Oise to Compiegne.
• Compiegne to Conflans on the Oise and into the Seine.

This final leg of our journey for 2011 seems to have gone on, and on, and on! Mostly because of yet more technical and mechanical problems. In Douai we were determined to get our Hurricane (oil-fired heating system) working which had been on strike since our trip away for 12 days to Cornwall.  Always a bit temperamental it had completely given up and would not restart.

The rather eerie boatyard at Douai where we spent three days waiting for the 'heating specialist'.

After many conversations with the team at Calcutt Boats (the distributor of the system) in the UK we were no more comfortable with what the problem might be .. so we ordered the two most important parts via urgent courier: a circuit board and a compressor. These were delivered to a boatyard at Douai who advertised they were specialists in ‘chauffage’ or in English ‘heating systems’. After lengthy discussion and one visit from them on our way to Arras we had agreed that on our return from Arras they would be available to work on our Hurricane.

On our return from Armistice Day in Arras, as arranged, the boatyard had both ‘pieces of kit’ and all we needed then was the ‘heating specialist’ to test them out. We had always emphasised how urgent this was.. we’d been without our radiators since Wambrechies, ten days before, and only had electric heating (not good when on generator power only). It took them three full days of our time sitting around waiting for someone to finally come to test these two simple parts to find out what the problem was. It turned out to be the compressor and quite a simple replacement.

Waiting for the lights inside the 4.5kms Canal du Nord Ruyaulcourt tunnel.

Farmers work away despite the fog.

Winter is here and we love it, on days like these!

No longer Autumn, but the soft colours of winter.

With our heating back up and running and in our nice warm boat we were still on schedule for our next major appointment with our friend Janie Lalor who was due to arrive from Australia on the 23^rd November.

We were relatively late in the year to be wandering around the waterways in our ‘pleasure boat’. In fact we were the only such boat we’d seen on the move since Gent: every other vessel out and about was a commercial barge of one size or another. Almost all of these commercial barges have radar, automatic identification systems (AIS) and other sophisticated equipment to help them plough on in the dark and in fog. Of course that’s what we were now experiencing: thick fog.

Endellion with crew waiting for the fog to lift along the Canal du Nord.

Sunrise at Noyon with the fog coming in.

The fog folds in around us on the Canal du Nord.

We do have a Simrad AIS which alerts us to other boats in our area (as long as they also have AIS) but it’s no help to us when we can’t see the banks on either side of the canal.. that’s when we must stop and wait for the fog to lift. So our journey began to slow .. and slow .. for several days we were only able to travel for a few hours.

After explaining to our dear friend Janie we would now not be in Rueil Malmaison after all, she took on the challenge of meeting us further up the river Oise at a town called Creil. To do this Janie took the train from Paris and found her way to this interesting town which had a reasonably good mooring on a concrete platform or jetty which was accessible – although it did have a sign stating ‘No Mooring’ (we just ignored it).

Stewart, Lesley and Janie at the restaurant in Creil.

It seemed an excellent start to Janie’s holiday .. she’d found her way from Paris via train to Creil, this rather obscure town, and we met an over-excited Janie at the station and set off together for lunch in the centre of town. This seemed a good idea as it was the old section of town and usually the area to find the best restaurants. There were in fact very few of them and none were accessible. Finally we found a charming-looking place but it had one step up and we hadn’t brought our little ramp .. so the welcoming young waitress, who spotted us standing outside discussing what to do, came out to suggest she sets up a table outside. “Why not”, we agreed .. it was mild and even sunny although a high-rise building cast it’s shadow across the restaurant.

It turned out to be a very entertaining lunch as we watched life around us from our table. We saw one potential criminal arrested: a police van arrived and parked across the pavement blocking a small car in which there was one person who was later bundled into the van and taken away. Then his car was driven  away by (perhaps) one of his friends who appeared from a shop on the opposite side of the road which was selling goodness knows what, nothing we were familiar with. Meanwhile a group of hooded youths huddled around the adjacent square and occasionally walked together to jeer at the police (with care, finger gesticulations were used when the police were looking the other way). With the police long gone this group met with a tall blond-haired man and exchanged what looked to be money for small, white packets of something! And we couldn’t miss the few men lined up outside a door beside us. They didn’t speak to one another but waited, and waited and the queue was joined by a few more people before at last someone came along and unlocked the door and they disappeared inside.. no-one exchanged a word or glance. Well .. Janie and I agreed that was a very interesting and entertaining lunch (Stewart unusually was sitting with his back to most of the goings-on). The food was unexpectedly good and excellent value so we left town with a feeling of positiveness about the trip ahead.. there’s always a lot to see and do on the waterways.

On our way along the Oise with Janie, Stewart said "Look, frozen fireworks". The light and colours were amazing.

Stewart's frozen fireworks up close.

Janie's fascinating photograph of the canal banks as we pass .. known as the Impressionists country for good reason.

In high spirits and with great optimism (as usual) we left Creil the following morning after a very quiet night (thankfully) although with a slight concern about fog (it still lurked about).  Visibility was fine and it was safe to potter on down the Oise arriving at l’Isle Adam (see our blog of 2010 for our previous visit) but with a new nagging potential mechanical problem. Stewart had noticed a small vibration at low revs and we had a problem with the grease gland burning hot.

One of our emergency moorings near Conflans, waiting for the mechanic but he would never come (here anyway).

Another emergency mooring this time at Ambience marina near Conflans.

After more thorough checks, a reassuring call to our mechanic and a few tweaks to the grease gland and with no vibration the following morning we left l’Isle Adam ambling on down the Oise and turning into the Seine. All seemed well on departure .. but once on the Seine we had to stop.

Looking back down the Seine from our 'mooring' at Conflans with Janie's peniche Ultimo behind us.

After a baffling few days stranded at one inaccessible emergency mooring or another, we finally discovered that all four engine mounts had snapped and therefore the prop was not able to turn freely (amongst other challenges). This discovery, after various mechanics had, over the past few years and days, discussed and looked at our engine and prop many times, came as a big shock to all of us. A long story but we will cut now to finally getting under way on the Seine for our journey into Paris, after our eight days at Conflans-St-Honorine.

Janie's photo from her visit to Auvers-sur-Oise, the graves of the Van Gogh brothers.

Lesley and Janie at le Train Bleu in the city by train for a day's break from Conflans.

View over Conflans-St-Honorine, the Seine downriver.

It’s hard to imagine Janie’s position, arriving for a holiday in Paris and most her time was spent in Conflans .. a great town we all agreed but not quite Paris!

Janie using the only way on and off the boat at Conflans, scrunched against the dirty wall of the quay.

Inside the commercial barge now converted to a church .. a highlight of our stay in Conflans.

Clive at work with Stewart and Lesley looking hopefully on (Janie's photo).

Our new engine mounts arrived (couriered from Weesp in the Netherlands) and our dear mechanic Clive came all the way from Paris (a two-hour drive) and had us up and running by nightfall. The following morning we were on our way to Chatou .. in the western suburbs of Paris around 15 kilometres (9 miles) away but much further by boat on the meandering Seine. We visited Chatou last year (our blog here) – it is part of the well-off suburbs of Paris, famous for featuring in many Impressionists paintings and where Renoir painted numerous works including the ‘Déjeuner des Canotiers’ (‘Luncheon of the Boating Party’)in 1881. We had a very restful afternoon at this historic town .. a delightful lunch and that was just about enough after our eight days exploring Conflans and region. We couldn’t wait to get to Paris.

Janie's photo of the Eiffel Tower as we pass by in the pouring rain.

Wet, windy and cold the following morning .. but it didn’t matter as we were on our final leg into Paris. Despite some minor concerns about the engine it was a very smooth journey up the Seine through the heart of this wonderful city, with only a few tourist boats to consider. Our entry into port via the lock was beautifully managed by Stewart helped along by being greeted by John waving us through (“yes it’s open”) and Lesley (our friends from ‘Emanual’ already in port for the winter)  both helping with mooring at our old spot.

Lesley1 took a series of photos of us crossing the Seine and entering port and before we’d finished plugging in our electricity and settling in for the evening she’d put them on the internet (click here) for us to view.

Lesley1, John, Janie and Stewart on our first night back in Paris on board Endellion.

Janie had enough remaining time in Paris to get totally excited again, but left with a little pang of desire to explore more as she headed off for London. We are now anything but alone in that we have our friends around us here at port (on their respective boats) and we have been warmly welcomed by our local butcher, baker and repair man whose job it is to put patches on the elbows of Stewart’s jumpers and skivvies (an Australian tradition) worn out by his ultra-active interest in all that we do (his elbows taking the brunt of it).

We feel we are back in our village .. and now is a time for a little bit of stay-at-home whilst we plan our journey for 2012. There are some refinements and potentially an engine upgrade to be made during this spell before we can journey further .. and in between we are planning our return to Australia.

Janie and her magical suitcase that held so much .. on her way to London.

We will be meeting Janie again for one night on her return from London and on her way back to Australia. Christmas is more than in the air .. it is visibly pulsing away the minute we step off the boat.. and perhaps some Christmas decoration has to come on board!

Meanwhile we wish all our friends and family a wonderful pre-Christmas prelude. We will be back in touch again soon .. one way or another.

Factories in ruin at the beginning of the Scarpe superior.

First stage of the Scarpe superior from Douai.

Endellion moored at Courcelles les Lens, definitely autumn, on our way to Arras.

We, like many, well knew of the World War I battles in Ypres and on the Somme, where Grandfather Austin Shepherd had served as a gunner and then in the vet corps, looking after the horses on the battlefields. 

We’d also visited and glimpsed the appalling human slaughter around Verdun and in Flanders. However we did not really understand what had gone on near the city of Arras in France.  So we decided to do a quick side-trip off the Deule to be there for Armistice Day; the 11^th of the 11^th, 2011. 

Endellion moored above the lock at Biache Saint Vaast on the Scarpe superior.

It’s only 20-odd kilometres from Douai up to Arras, but weed in the water and slow, slow automatic locks, which seemed to take forever to fill and empty, made for a long but enjoyable couple of days on the Scarpe Superior. 

Image from Base Nautique St Laurent Blangy: kayakers on the flume.

Endellion moored on the far bank opposite the St Laurent pontoons and flume.

Finger pontoons in the heart of Arras, closed at present.

Unfortunately it’s presently not possible to cruise right into Arras.  Work on refurbishing the final lock continues and proper moorings in the harbour will be needed.  So we moored up on the grassy bank at Saint Laurent-Blangy, a town with a passion and renown as canoeing and kayaking capital of France. 

The paddlers of tomorrow, small children of 6 or 7 were out on the canal as we approached and just across from us we discovered was a very modern Flume;  an artificial set of rapids used to train competitors for next year’s London Olympics.

Armistice Day Friday the 11^th of the 11^th, 2011 dawned cold and overcast; about 5 degrees centigrade overnight and a forecast maximum of 11.  It felt colder to us as our heating system is on the blink with new parts ordered from the UK set to arrive next week back in Douai. 

Stewart with the 'giants' waiting at the Town Hall, Arras.

Town Hall at the Petite Place in Arras.

We headed into Arras about two kilometres away on foot and power wheelchair. The streets were largely empty as it’s a holiday in France, arriving early as we so often seem to. 

Monument aux morts at Arras on Armistice Day.

Few were at the cenotaph save a platoon of young soldiers in flimsy uniforms standing guard while a couple of their senior officers, their medals jangling, fussed with the microphones.  It’s a statue by famous French sculptor Felix-Alexandre Desruelles.

 Soon a large crowd had gathered which included a group of Canadian school students which sang a song in French before they, local school children and the dignitaries and laid wreaths. 

Stewart entering the underground museum at Carriere Wellington, Arras.

All very poignant, but we felt it was very removed from the horrors of war we’d been learning about on our travels here over the last couple of years.  Where in Arras might we be able to learn in a more first-hand way of its WWI times? 

The Tourist Office (a very helpful one, once we had found the way in for wheelchairs), had suggested we visit la Carrière Wellington which they said was totally wheelchair accessible and open all day.

One of the multimedia images within the tunnels of the Carriere Wellington.

So we headed off and despite a general lack of signs eventually found it, went inside and were taken down 20 metres below Arras in a lift to learn it’s remarkable and still not well-known story.

Signs pointing to Exit 10, up the steps to natural daylight and battle.

Steps at Exit 10 leading to battle.

In medieval times as Arras became wealthy on its textile industries, vast caves were dug to mine the chalk building blocks to build the houses which surround its impressive squares. 

These great chambers under the city were left empty and forgotten until late in World War I, when a plan was devised to launch an attack on the German lines around Arras as a distraction for another attack further south near Reims.

Plaque thanking the New Zealand miners for the amazing work in 1917 at the chalk mines.

Catching the enemy unaware was to be a key in the attack, so 500 New Zealand tunnellers - mainly Maoris, together with many apparently short-statured Yorkshire coal miners – dug a vast network of 20 kilometres of tunnels to link these chambers.  Twenty-four thousand (yes 24,000) Allied soldiers spent nine days crowded together down there in the dark.  Then at 05:30 on April the 9^th, 1917, they burst up into the daylight, for the largest and most surprising battle of the of the war, the Battle of Arras.

Various parts of the whole network were named after different cities in New Zealand and the UK.  In the 1990s, the Wellington Quarry was opened up by archaeologists who discovered little had changed down there in nearly 90 years.  Signs painted on the walls looked as if they were only painted yesterday; kitchens, a hospital, showers, encryptions – some in Maori – little drawings, names, electric lighting fittings, bottles, food cans and the like.

The saddest and most memorable place we visited though was the steps carved into the chalk up  which the troops had surged, many to their deaths on that fateful, terrible day.

Photo from Blake Goodman's photostream: Germans fighting in the streets of St Laurent.

You can read more of The Battle of Arras here.

http://www.carriere-wellington.com/

Meanwhile .. after a heavy, but special Armistice Day in Arras .. we are presently moored on the banks of a small village (Vitry en Artois) on our return trip down the Scarpe Superior to have our heating repaired (we hope). Can’t wait .. we have several nights at freezing point coming up!

We hope our friends and family are staying warm/cool and comfortable whichever the hemisphere.

The journey was to end with a cruise through Roubaix on its newly reopened waterway. We knew we had to be there ready to begin by October 11^th as its season, the first for 26 years, finished on the 15^th.  So we said our goodbyes to Gent on October 4^th and headed off the long way out-of-town to top up our fuel tanks at a certain shipyard. 

Endellion in the foreground moored at the excellent Portus Ganda marina in Gent.

However we later discovered there seemed to be some kind of a “problem” with the calibration on their pump.  When we checked the paperwork after leaving, we saw somehow 23 litres of diesel had been “squeezed” into each of our two 20 litre jerry cans and our engine must have suddenly become even less economical despite all those kilometres with the tide behind us.  We won’t be going back there for more fuel if we can avoid it!

The beautiful upper Leie lined with grand houses and fabulous gardens.

We rank the upper part of the Leie as the cutest and curviest waterway we’ve travelled so far. Two years on from our first visit the turns seemed even tighter, the gardens even grander and the houses more splendid.  Sydney suburbs like St Ives and Double Bay are pale imitations! 

Hairpin bends along the Leie meant one minute we see these cows from their right side and within minutes we're on the other bank looking at their left side!

After hours of exclaiming “wow!” and “look at that!” we arrived at the narrow open lock and little lift bride to go on to Deinze.  Moored in the open lock, we phoned to ask for the bridge to be raised.. Our guide-book had indicated it would be open by arrangement including weekends. “Sorry, the season is over, you’ll have to wait until Monday,” we were told.  This was Saturday morning, so not at all what we had wanted to hear!  Finally, after a little pleading the story changed and the bridge-keeper who we well-remembered from two years ago arrived in his suit and tie to manually wind up his bridge.  With a “merci monsieur!” and a little pack of chocolates handed over, we waved goodbye. He beamed, waved back and we were off again and soon on the straight, busy and very commercial Leie and back in Kortrijk for our third visit. 

Kortrijk is a very smart city with lots of major water-works, mostly new and stylish bridges, continually underway and with a colourful history and despite being so ancient their streets are all very good for people driving wheelchairs and the like.  However after all these years of our pleading, still nothing had been done to make the two marinas wheelchair accessible.  We were again therefore forced to moor on commercial boat dolphins about a kilometre from town and use our ramps to get on and off. 

Looking through the wheelhouse window we see a tiny piece of the big commercial's bow wedging us to the bank.

One night a giant barge 10 times Endellion’s size nudged up and moored right against us, actually touching our port side and squeezing us against the bank. There was no boat movement at all that night as we were held between it and the concrete jetty below the bank. A very odd feeling but we survived, and by 6.00am he was on his way again but it certainly prompted us to send another letter off to the mayor urging him to fix his marinas.

From Kortrijk we crossed up and over to the Schelde/Escaut via the short and pleasant Bossuit canal to be ready to make the trip down Belgium’s  l’Espierres which becomes the Roubaix Canal in France.

Starting along the newly reopened canal, here we're in the Belgium section, the Espierres.

For well over a hundred years Roubaix was known as France’s Wool City with lots of massive spinning and weaving mills and the canal to carry the coal which powered them.  As in northern England, three decades ago all the Roubaix woollen mills closed.  Not long after, so too did the canal.

A few bridges high enough to pass without being lifted for us, the Espierres.

After years of lobbying and then another ten of dredging and building massive hydraulic bridges, the Roubaix was reopened amid great celebrations in 2008.  But it took Belgium a couple more years to complete work on its section; called  the Espierres. So, as we had found in August 2010, when we took the Metro from nearby Lille up to Roubaix to investigate, the France section had been officially opened  but could not be used until Belgium was ready.

As mentioned, the canal links the Deûle in France to the Escaut in Belgium and is made up of three distinct sections: the canalised river Marque from the Deûle down-stream of Lille to Wasquehal (7.6 km and 2 locks), the Roubaix Canal proper from the Marque to the Belgian border (12.4 km and 10 locks), and the Canal de l’Espierres between the border and the Escaut upstream of Tournai (8 km and 3 locks).Finally in June the French and Belgium sections were opened to welcome pleasure boaters. We, it turned out, were to be the last of nearly 50 boats to go through for 2011.  Though when told this we did not really know what it might entail.

Many lovely barns along the Espierres need a little love and repair!

We’d spent many hours organising our journey along this short stretch of canal. The Belgium and French sections don’t communicate with each other and it wasn’t easy to find who to contact to make sure all locks and bridges would be operated for us. We didn’t want to be left stranded with only a few days before the whole canal closed for the winter! Thanks to detailed and very helpful information from the DBA (Barge Association) members’ forum we had it all organised with the first lock/bridge operator in the Belgium section meeting us at his lock at 10.00am. At 9.30 we floated slowly down the beautiful canal from our overnight mooring just off the Escaut and happily the gates were open and ready with a friendly and helpful lock-keeper who guided us through his Belgium section.

Geese and ducks everywhere along the Espierres.

These locks and some of the bridges are just 5.1 metres wide, so it had to be steady and careful as you go from then on! We’d been used to much wider and longer locks lately so it was strange to be back in north of England-type canal territory again.

Coming into Lees Nord, below the lock. We moor above it by the Maison du Canal.

After only a few hours we tied up on a wooden jetty, with free electricity and water, at Lees Nord near the end of the Belgium section. Our excellent mooring was also free and we were right outside the charming Maison du Canal restaurant with excellent WiFi plus inexpensive drinks and food. Perfect! 

Endellion moored beside the excellent Maison du Canal in the Belgium section, the Espierres.

We were now in Wallonian Belgium, so all the customers were speaking French rather than Dutch. We were made very welcome by Madame who, with her two teenage children, ran the place and we felt part of the local community who poured in and out throughout the afternoon spending time chatting and joking with us in a mix of broken English and French.

The perfect and huge platters of cheese and cold meat at Maison du Canal.

Early the following morning, just before we were due to leave for the French section of the canal and a new team of lock-keepers, there was a knock on the wheelhouse window. It was the local bread delivery man who handed us a bag with fresh croissants indicating they were from the landlady at the Maison du Canal.  That was typical of Madame and her lovely teenage family who ran this delightful business.

Camille, Samuel and Toufek prepare the first lock at the French section, the Roubaix.

Soon we were in France and there at the first bridge waiting to meet us was Mademoiselle Camille Longueval  who is charged with attracting boaters to the canal. She was accompanied by a team of similarly friendly lock-keepers, Toufek and Samuel who spoke excellent English.

A moment after I snapped this everyone waved, even the man in the window above.

As we pottered along the canal people waved, cyclists tinged their bells and walkers took photos – even the fishermen, who normally just ignore us or shake their fists as we pass by, smiled and took a snap or two! When we finally, gently pulled into Roubaix we found journalists and a TV camera-person waiting to come on board to interview us. Nearly 50 boats for the short season was considered a great success and as we were the last one through we were news.  Even more so when they discovered we were Australians, I was a wheelchair skipper and a person with MS.

The beautiful iron bridge lifts for us as we enter Roubaix.

The next day, people who had read about us or seen us on TV did more waving and snapping.  All simply amazing! 

For that afternoon and evening the totally charming Camille had suggested we visit the excellent museum (La Piscine, the old swimming pool) and attend a concert and then helped us book our seats.

Chucho Valdes and his fabulous band at the concert in Roubaix.

La Piscine museum at Roubaix.

The concert was held at a huge nearby theatre and featured the brilliant Latin jazz of Cuban pianist Chucho Valdes and his band.  A fantastic museum and a great night out .. and exhausted we returned to Endellion to find it the quietest mooring we’d come across in many months. It turned out we were in fact right next to the very large cemetery – that explained it!

Sunrise at our mooring in Roubaix, dead silent and beautiful.

The following morning we were to be guided through the heart of the city under four or five lifting bridges, with two of them either side of a huge and very busy roundabout. These two huge bridges took us almost an hour to negotiate partly because of a technical problem with their boom gates but mostly because they had to coordinate the precise time to stop all traffic by agreement with the bus services. This was the final day of the canal’s operation before closing for the winter and as we waited for a change of lock-keepers at our lunch stop once again we were treated like celebrities.

Camille and Stewart as we wait at the two huge bridges at the roundabout in Roubaix.

The lovely gift from the President who knew every item in this basket, of local produce, where and how it was made.

The President of the national parks service for the Nord Department, the initiator and driving force behind the reopening of the canal, arrived and presented us with a gift basket of local produce. More photos were taken, speeches made and after signing their visitors’ book – the Livre d’Or, we finally moved on, both totally flabbergasted with what had happened!
We will certainly be going back one day and like everyone else who has made the trip can highly recommend it.

Here is a link to the story made for Grand Lille TV:

http://www.grandlille.tv/index.php/component/ytsearch/?searchword=canal+de+roubaix&yt_author=grandlilletv

And here is the link to one of the news reports:

http://www.lavoixdunord.fr/Locales/Roubaix/actualite/Secteur_Roubaix/2011/10/15/article_lesley-et-stewart-derniers-voyageurs-du.shtml

Nephew Ben and gorgeous Nic, standing outside the bell-ringer's tower at St Endellion church.

What a wonderful adventure the Roubaix canal was. We’re now in Cornwall in the final days of our stay for nephew Ben’s wedding to Nic. It was a fabulous event and made even more special having been held at ‘our’ church of St Endellion (where we were also married). We made the trip from Wambrechies (near Lille), where Endellion is now moored, via the super-fast Eurostar train to London and hiring a wheelchair accessible van for the drive west.

It won’t be long and we’ll be back in Paris for the winter and hopefully listening to many a story from our boating friends who mostly headed south for the summer.

 Meanwhile we have a bit more boating to do .. and a few more blogs to write.

We made it to Gent (now in Kortrijk) and the journey back to Paris so far has covered this route:

• Weesp to Utrecht – a beautiful run back down the Vecht to Maarssen where we hopped onto the Amsterdam Rijn canal to avoid the arched bridges of Utrecht, mooring on the south side of this gorgeous city.
• Utrecht to Heusden, down the Merwede canal, overnighting at the Heusden Bunkerbarge (fuel station).
• Heusden to Aarle Rixter and then to  our favourite place, the commercial harbour at Weert, along the Zuidwillemsvaart.
• Weert, leaving the Netherlands, onto the Bocholt/Herentals canal , down the Albert canal and into the Nete canal all the way to Duffel tidal lock.
• Duffel to Gent via the town of Baasrode using the fast-flowing tidal Beneden Nete into the equally fast-flowing, brown and furious tidal Boven-Zeeschelde.

This route was 363 kilometres with not many locks (except ten of them on a relatively short stretch along the Bocholt/Herentals) nor even lifting/swinging bridges. Almost 100 kilometres of this distance was on tidal waters: our maximum speed with the tide behind us was 12kms per hour (our normal top speed is 8kph) and the maximum speed we could muster under the Temse bridge with the tide against us was 3 kph! Some useful maps are found here:

This section of our journey was planned and reworked several times as the ‘boating season’ was over and closures for repairs at various locks and sections of waterways were under way. We would have taken the route through Brussels but for a closure, and we considered the Westerschelde into Antwerp but didn’t like the sound of the tidal sea. We finally agreed on using the tidal rivers instead (Beneden Nete and Boven-Zeeschelde) thinking this would be relatively straight forward .. we’d experienced such waters before on the Trent and Thames for example in the UK. However, tidal rivers in Belgium are totally different… and here we explain.

The beautiful 17th century windmills at the town of Weesp, Netherlands.

Despite almost two weeks in the shed at the lovely town of Weesp we still love it but we had to agree it was a relief to be leaving and heading south. We now had a freshly painted boat, flags flying on the new mast, fuel system with double filters for safety and a new automatic ramp in the wheelhouse. Ready to tackle anything .. as usual.

The totally charming 'Water Melody' and Gerda waving goodbye as we leave Weesp, for now.

As we left town we passed the unusual, for Dutch waters, British built wide narrowboat ‘Water Melody’who had been moored alongside us at the boatyard. This beautiful barge has been pottering around the Vecht carrying small groups of tourists and this year made more than 90 trips, Gerda (her owner) told us. This barge is wheelchair accessible and full of charming narrowboat features, eg, inside the toilet bowl are painted blue flowers, matching the wash basin! There’s a bar with beer on tap, a professional kitchen range and a wonderfully comfortable saloon for guests. Lucky people!

A charming lift bridge on the Vecht, out of season means no clog tolls are taken.

Travelling along the now familiar Vecht river, was a delight: We had it almost to ourselves, the bridge keepers didn’t take their clog toll but still happily operated the bridges for us and we arrived in Utrecht at the best mooring possible, on the south side of the city.

Endellion with new canvas cover for stern deck, moored at Utrecht.

Here we had the final element of our ‘new look’ added, ie, the canvas cover for our stern deck – the original lovely green one being at the bottom of the Herengracht in Amsterdam. Herman had rushed this job through for us in only one week and it is brilliantly designed with nothing but quality workmanship throughout. He spent perhaps two hours fitting it in brilliant sunshine and with a wave was away leaving us on our own in the almost deserted haven (dead-end section of a canal).

'Harrie's Harbour' as we call it, near Lock 16 at Weert in the Netherlands.

Then on we pressed for a rendezvous with Marian and Gareet, at the same place as before, ie, Weert (see our blog) in what we now call ‘Harrie’s Harbour’ (due to Harrie originally recommending it), a commercial harbour just before Lock 16 on the Zuidwillemsvaart. It was a little unreal as we were repeating the meeting at the same location, same people .. although this time we had a BBQ on board in glorious sunshine.

This stop-over turned out to be one of our more sociable times as we also met Ben who is a fellow DBA member moored on the opposite side of the harbour. He explained that this mostly deserted harbour is a bit of a misfit, the local authorities don’t know how to commercialise it (or make it an income earner).  It is mostly used by big commercial barges as a turning place and by massive semi-trailers (or lorries) who use the large land space to drop off and collect their trailers. It’s a slightly strange place but has lots going for it in our opinion: plenty of mooring space and a nearby low-cost restaurant with free WiFi!

Beautiful countryside along the Bocholt Herentals canal.

Up until the border with Belgium (just after Weesp) we had been in familiar waters, largely retracing our route when heading north.  Now we veered off into new waters by turning to starboard (pointing west) as we entered Belgium again. This was where our planning became very complicated, a) because we couldn’t find space at the moorings we had in mind, and b) we had to use tidal rivers running in both directions, ie, one section having to go ‘down’ river and then turn to go ‘up’ river.

Endellion moored at the safe solid pontoon near Lommel lock.

A foggy early morning start from Aarle Rixtel in the Netherlands, beautiful sunny days at this time.

We found our first overnight mooring, near Lommel, on the quiet and gorgeous Bocholt/Herentals canal. It was solid, accessible in a beautiful setting and with a nearby ribs restaurant (thanks to DBA Guide).

Yum, ribs at the nearby restaurant found via the DBA guide, near Lommel.

One of the beautiful historic locks on the Bocholt naar Herentals canal.

The first three locks of the ten on this waterway (all within only twenty kilometres) are heritage listed.. classic, relatively small (55 meters long by 7 meters wide) although each had a drop (in our case) of more than 4 meters. These three special locks each had their own lock-keeper who seemed to be committed to keeping the whole lock area in pristine condition. The locks were described as ‘manually’ operated in one guide but in fact the manual part seemed to be opening and closing the ‘gates’ but the sluices then operated automatically.

Leaving Duffel lock just after hight tide along with all the debris.

We didn’t know at the time but this would be the best mooring we’d find for a long time. Although we had called the marinas of several places ahead we had no reply or there was a message system .. and we didn’t receive a return call. There was no choice but to proceed, optimistically, hoping that as we were ‘out of season’ we’d find a reasonably safe mooring at the beautiful towns along this section. In particular we noted Herentals and Lier.

Glassy water on the outflowing Nete tidal river.

But .. at Herentals the lady harbourmaster insisted we could get into her tiny narrow  channel of a marina where the, perhaps 10 meter, finger wharves jutted out horizontally (we are 17 meters long). In her mind we could moor on one of these, which would have meant reversing in to her harbour through the narrow entrance and then our 7 plus meters beyond the finger wharf would have been jutting out into the boat passage. To us it was perfectly obvious we would have blocked access to her marina. We decided to push on, to the great relief of the fishermen still frowning at us as they waited for us to clear the entrance where it was obviously the only place to fish around here.

Pushing on meant entering the busy Albert Canal but only for ten kilometres or so and then onto the pleasant Nete canal (upper), now with Lier in mind. We’d read Lier was a beautiful town sometimes called a mini-Bruges, and famous for its tapestries.  We arrived after a long and windy way, now after 5.00pm and several days ahead of our schedule (because we’de found it hard to get safe moorings). Again we saw a very purposeful-looking woman striding down the jetty as we tried to moor up. You can’t stop here, she cheerfully told us, it’s all booked. There was so much space on the 400m floating pontoon it was hard to believe her but we couldn’t argue with the Harbourmaster (which she confirmed she was after we asked!). You will have to moor at the lock she told us when we asked where she thought we could moor for the night.

The falling tide as we glide along the river Rupel.

The Duffel (in theory this is the where the name Duffel coat came from) tidal lock was only 15 minutes or so away but not what we had in mind. Yet another town had to be forgotten. The lock-keeper kindly gave permission to moor overnight and we tied off on the inaccessible, high stone jetty and at least had a restful night after a long day.

Dirty brown, furious water running under the bridges.. makes our speed so slow we wonder if we are moving.

Stewart radioed to ask the lock-keeper what was the best time to leave his lock the following day. His recommendation was between 10.00 to 10.30am, after we advised him from our tide table what time high tide was (8.30am). “We don’t open the lock at high tide”, he said. Seemed odd to us .. given we would then be running out on the strong tide rather than using some of the ebb. Sure enough at 8.00am a cruiser went past us and into the empty lock and away! That was the time we would have thought best. So we asked the morning lock-keeper his view, no problem leaving now, he said, so not long after the cruiser we shot out of the lock into the fast out-flowing river heading for Boom.

Endellion on the end of the floating pontoon at Rupelmonde.

Our hearts were somewhat in our mouths as we’d read from the DBA guide and the Belgium Waterways book that this fast-flowing tidal river (the Beneden Nete) had some tricky blind bends and in particular to watch out for the strong currents under the E19 bridge which was on one of those bends. As they said it was “an extremely long, wide bridge and built on a nasty bend .. concrete pillars are lined with wooden planks in an obvious attempt to create protection for boats”. They say the best time to pass this section is near high water .. well too late for us, we went through at full flow! It was extremely difficult and very frightening for me watching the huge swirls of brown water going this way and that if not in circles. Skipper just ploughed on, for a change I said nothing, and he did a perfect job!

The brown, furious water of the Boven Zeeschelde - running out while we're fighting to go upriver.

Got safely through that one .. and soon afterwards we turned onto the River Rupel and were roaring towards the floating pontoon at Boom. We had to turn 180 degrees into the current so that we could moor just ahead of a cruiser and behind the cross-river Ferry which just happened to pull in as we did (could have had one less distraction!). There was a lovely lady with hands full of bags trying to help me with ropes .. kind of her juggling them and me! And then another lady, older than me, offering assistance, and a man telling me something about 3.00pm there was a happening (our Dutch language skills are still zero) and more or less saying “you’ll have to leave”. Once safely tied off we could see the blackboard stating a passenger boat would arrive at 3.00pm .. so unfortunately there was no space for us and so we had lunch and kept going, now heading for the Boven Zeeschelde, also a tidal river. The problem was  we were currently running with the tide behind us but as soon as we turned onto the Zeeschelde it would be against us. What to do?

The interesting sculpture at Rupelmonde above our pontoon mooring.

No choice but to proceed hoping we’d find a mooring before too long. However, out onto the Zeeschelde and turning into the current our speed dropped from around 12 kms to 4 and max 5 kms. Fuel was low (approaching the red) and we were worried. We could see a pontoon space not marked in our guides in Rupelmonde and gingerly approached it.

The family group working hard to put air into their inflatable dinghy. Standing by is the lady in army dress.

There were several people on the pontoon, one woman dressed in army fatigues and on the mobile phone, a family trying to inflate a RIB with a foot pump, a woman sitting on an old cruiser beside them.. no-one waved us away and as we approached I said we needed to moor if possible because of the strong current and wait hopefully for the turn. OK, said the lady in army dress, but there may be a boat coming in and then you will have to move.

This was a bizarre place.. a bit like a set and scene from a Mad Max movie.

The interesting fleet of three camouflaged cruisers at Rupelmonde.

The floating pontoon had a sign referring to ‘Out of Order’ (Dutch) or under repair. Yet these people were all moored here. The young middle-aged, petite woman in army fatigues, with cigarette in her mouth, on the mobile phone, and sporting tattoos on her arms was the owner of several (three that I could see rafted to each other) small cruisers all in army camouflage paintwork and one with a machine gun on the bow (not real I think)!

The 'gun' on the army camouflaged cruiser.

The tiny rubber dinghy now inflated roars with family of four, up the tidal Zeeschelde.

Later she went and sat in the firing seat of this gun for what I don’t know. The family had finally inflated their dinghy, attached the engine and roared off into the furious current, all four of them in the tiny thing. We had a visit from a striking-looking person in a dark pinstriped suit and with a long white pointed beard who inspected Endellion closely saying “nice ship”. Stewart said he looked like Santa Clause in a suit and decided he must be the Lord Mayor .. all very interesting whatever the story. He then climbed back up the long steep ramp to the town’s very striking, river-side sculpture of a larger than life-sized nude woman standing brazenly sunning herself.  

Much as it was interesting, it was an essential stop to allow our engine to rest after the frantic drive against the current, but  just after 2.00pm the expected ‘booked’ boat was seen cruising up against the tide and we were asked to move on. So, once again pushing nose into the outflowing tide, away we went now heading for a mooring, possibly, at Baasrode.

Shallow banks are revealed as the tide drops - along the Zeeschelde.

Temse was another place we had marked as a possible mooring. First we had to pass under the Temse bridge which is the longest bridge in Belgium.

A very unsafe floating pontoon, no piers, on the tidal Zeeschelde near Temse.

This was done with great difficulty as the massive swirling current was worse here than just about anywhere, bringing our lack of speed right down to a maximum of 3 kms (we feared we could have been going backwards). We emerged finally from under its arch and would have loved to pull into the Temse pontoon moorings but they looked very flimsy. As the tide was going to be in our favour very soon, best to keep going we decided.

With great relief we're moored on the solid commercial pontoon on the Zeeschelde at Baasrode.

Finally we arrived at Baasrode, having called the Harbourmaster beforehand, but found a boat in the place he’d told us to moor at. In our place was a smart cruiser with man on board who told us there was no problem mooring on the outside at the commercial section. So at last we could tie off safely, on a totally solid floating pontoon of commercial barge standard.

This turned out to be the last stop for us before Gent (on the Boven Zeeschelde) as again there were no safe moorings to be found. We read for our next potential stop, Dendermonde,  it was safe only for boats less than five tonnes.. we are 37! Sure enough, as we passed the floating pontoon we could see a flimsy affair with tiny bollards and no piers. On this stretch of tidal river it is not only the surging water or the changing tide but more importantly (almost) the massive commercial barges that roar past.

A convoy of seven commercial barges pass us on the Zeeschelde going down river.

On this final stretch of the river we passed a convoy of seven of these beasts, some overtaking others. It was ferocious. Later one barge coming up behind us was travelling at 19.8kms .. our speed with the tide slackening off behind us was around 10 kms per hour.. this whole river and its inhabitants would make great material for a future Mad Max movie!

We left Baasrode as soon as there was enough daylight (7.30am) and kept powering along with the tide behind us all the way to the Merelbeke tidal lock, around 15 kms south of Gent.

Quietly entering Gent through the Bovenschelde canal.

It was with huge relief we made it before the tide turned where again we would have been pushing against it with a lowering fuel level. Even then, as we merrily glided the last few meters towards the vast lock into which a tug boat had just entered ahead of us , we were rejected. The green light turned to a red one, the guillotine gate came down and we definitely weren’t going to get off this tidal section for the minute. Stewart radioed the lock-keeper who just hadn’t seen us .. we then had to exit the current lock entrance and go out into the river and back in through the second massive lock .. and wait before two beasts came out and we could enter.

Endellion moored at the lovely Portus Ganda marina in the heart of Gent.

And truly finally this time we could feel safe off the tidal water with only a short distance to travel, on quiet waters, through one lock and into the gorgeous Portus Ganda marina in the heart of Gent. Here we were welcomed warmly (we were here two years ago) and we felt great relief to be back in a safe and loved port, and on familiar calm waters.

What a journey .. we know next time, to get from France to the wonderful Netherlands we will not be using this route, probably we’d stay with our outgoing journey via the Ardennes on the river Meuse/Maas.

We’ve just left Gent behind us .. travelling down the stunning Leie River – non tidal we can assure you – no more tidal waters for the time being – now in Kortrijk (Belgium) close to the French border. No WiFi and not a good mooring but a lovely city.

And Lesley wags her finger, no photos ..

A moment of great relief .. chocolate .. mm .. doesn't he love it!

Victor and Joop with Aart driving the fork lift.. Stewart's method of exit and entry to Endellion during our stay in the big shed.

Victor (with cigar) making sure Stewart stays safe on the fork lift going down.

For reasons we don’t fully understand it seems our boat builders whose names we no longer mention, took a shortcut with painting the roof and the bottom of our dear ship Endellion.

What a terrible sight .. for Stewart to look onto and for me to work from!

Over the three years since we first came on board in August 2008 we had been seeing rusty stains on the roof. “Oh it must be filaments from work on the other boat we were building at the time yours was being painted” we were told before we’d left the building yard. This turned out to be (more) Mirfield codswallop.

Time and again as the rust spread and the remaining paint lifted off in pieces bigger than dinner plates we were advised we had only one coat on the top and no primer, not the three or more coats we should have had.

So, what to do?

As we headed off from Paris in March we optimistically thought we could put off the inevitable re-paint til 2012. However as the roof got worse and worse we realised it was essential to find someone this year to quickly do the job. We started inquiring at shipyards we passed as we went along. But time after time we got nowhere. Even when they said they would come and see us “tomorrow”, no one turned up. Finally, on the Vecht canal, through chance we happened to meet Joop; a Tjalk owner and professional house painter who offered to tackle the job.

Chinks of light come in through the cracks on those fine days when we were in the big shed. No neighbours except the very silent yacht beside us.

This is the space we filled for almost two weeks, inside the big shed.

So in early September we found ourselves back in lovely Weesp, but in a huge dark shed two metres above ground on blocks with Joop and his friend Victor frantically scraping off the remaining paint on the roof until it was shiny new steel.

Joop tackling the big white space of our roof.

As well as tackling our roof we discovered when lifted out of the water that the blacking on the bottom hadn’t been adequately applied. So Joop and Victor donned space suits and thoroughly painted the flat bottom (which was never painted as in the UK this is not standard practice) and applied five coats of blacking to the sides. And in their very thorough approach they replaced the only three years old anodes with eight new ones, plus a new one in the bow thruster.

Lars works on cutting the floor and reshaping it to become an automatically lifting ramp.

We took the opportunity while high and dry to have some other jobs done as we found ourselves right next door to the very capable De Bruyn Water Sport Services.

The most important task for them was replacing our single fuel separator with a double one to ensure the engine is not going to stall if a bunker station empties the dregs of a tank into ours again!

However, the biggest job was having a section of the wheelhouse floor made into an automatic lifting ramp. We gave Marco De Bruyn and his team a rough plan of what we had in mind. Basically slice out a section of the floor, put a steel frame under it with a ram or two and hey presto by remote control wheelchairs could go up to the stern deck without having to put down a portable ramp. True independence. Over the following 10 days Tyse and Marco refined the concept. You never know, this automatic ramp may feature one day on ABC’s New Inventors TV program!

Look at that shiny white roof and our new mast with flags flying. No rust - what joy!

The De Bruyn team also fitted a handsome flag mast and we had the name Endellion painted on the bow to make it easier for the excellent lock keepers to spot us as we approach. The sign writer for this task, recommended by Joop had spent 30 years in the Netherlands, speaks excellent Dutch  (we think) yet retains a true Brit accent.

Endellion being lined up for the slings to go back into the water, at last.

Five coats of blacking and the name 'Endellion' now added to the bow.

As we mentioned in our earlier blog .. the original canvas cover for our stern deck was destroyed by a low bridge going into Amsterdam. Nothing to do with our judgement of course! A new canvas cover was made by Herman, expert sail maker, who at first said it would take six weeks (a normal turnaround) as he also had other projects on the go. However when we said we couldn’t wait that long as we needed to start back for France he said he would try to have it done in a week.

Endellion's new canvas cover is brilliant, even better than the one now in the Herengracht canal, Amsterdam.

What a professional .. sure enough he just met with us in Utrecht and fitted the new ‘room’ (which is how it feels having the cover back) and he’s done a brilliant job: bigger windows than the originals and it folds down more quickly and easily. It’s of the highest standard from design to material and fitting.

We’re now heading south feeling proud and excited about our new look Endellion and it’s improved functionality.

See more about those who helped here:

Stewart at the excellent Town Hall Italian Bistro in Leiden.

before leaving Stewart met with Jacqueline Sollevelv from MS Netherland to talk about how the two countries could benefit from sharing ideas for fund-raising and communications. They also discussed the powerful fund-raising commercial from MS Netherland using the Eric Clapton song ‘You look wonderful tonight’… well worth viewing at http://www.sofii.org/node/207. The text at the end, translated from Dutch, simply says ‘Multiple Sclerosis: it destroys the nerves’.

Then, on our way again:

• Leiden to Amsterdam via Kagerplassen (lake), along the Ringvaart van de Haarlemmer-meerpolder , across the Westeinderplassen to Aalsmeer, along the Schinkel of Kostverlorenvaart into Amsterdam’s outer harbour around the point and into Westerdock (our Amsterdam home).

A beautiful tjalk under sail, what breed of sheep we can't recall but they are lovely.

The weather was wet and windy as we left Leiden but we had only 10 kilometres to travel to our planned mooring at Kaag, an island on the northern edge of the Kagerplassen. This lake is extremely popular particularly in the summer but we are now getting to the end of school holidays and the wet and windy day seemed to put most people off travelling, it was quite. We moored on the island just ahead of the car ferry which scuttled forward and back from the mainland – so some people were definitely out and about. We couldn’t work out where they went once on the island as there wasn’t much to it except a small hotel (with WiFi), an art gallery which seemed to be closed, and some boating businesses. We also found an excellent restaurant ‘Tante Kee’, recommended by the Harbourmaster, only a few hundred meters from our mooring, but it too was quiet. They’ve had a bad season we’re sorry to say.

Returning from our morning on the internet we found Endellion half-way across this canal by Kaag Island.

We used the hotel the next morning for heaps of internet activity, taking up most of our morning, but returned to a bit of a scare. Another windy and wet day with very rough water .. and as we approached the boat we could see her stern end halfway across the canal. There must have been a crazy fast boat creating huge wash to have caused the mooring ring to snap. One rope previously attached was dangling under water but thankfully part of it was still connected to a post. Relief .. we could haul her back in and thank goodness that all 37 tonnes didn’t take off down the canal without us.

Another short journey took us to Aalsmeer, only 10 kilometres away, with three lift bridges.

Westeinderplassen, the glassy lake as we left Aalsmeer heading for Amsterdam.

We crossed the big lake which we found very exhilarating – we could only see sails and everything looked so far away, again like being at sea. We found our mooring (organised by the very helpful Harbourmaster at Kaag) at Nieuwe Meer marina with a welcoming Harbourmaster (Remco).

Endellion moored beside the manually operated ferry to the island behind us.

It was slightly tucked away but on the mainland so we didn’t have to use the delightful, self-operated ferry, which was very unstable – we used it once just for the fun to it and that was enough.  It turned out to be one of our favourite moorings and with WiFi to the boat .. brilliant!

This diagram shows how the clocks work.

The bidders (or buyers) at the flower market - there are four more rooms like this here.

Just a small section of trolleys with flowers now sold and waiting for distribution.

Aalsmeer claims to have the world’s biggest trade centre.. in this case trading flowers. They have a number of amazing statistics: the building itself is the fourth largest in the world based on floor-space (990,000 square meters, almost a square kilometre, or 10.6 million square feet); around 20 million flowers are sold every day, they turn over (within the six locations in Holland) €4 billion per annum, of mostly flowers. It’s all conducted, as we saw with our own eyes, by Dutch auction (as you’d expect). The auctioneer nominates a price which reduces by split seconds and the first bidder to hit the button at the price they are prepared to pay is the successful bidder. It all happens so fast .. the electronic boards show the name of flower, producer, quality reference, country of origin, minimum size of the lot, currency and final bidders number and more.

The huge screens, or clocks, at the Aalsmeer flower market, they run simultaneously.

What an experience .. it was so vast with the buzz of hundreds of people and engines towing and pushing the flower trolleys around – fascinating. The bidding rooms, by contrast completely silent, were five vast spaces each with two ‘clocks’ (ie, auctions,) were mesmerizing with their rows of bidders in amphitheatre seating separated from the distribution floor by big glass panels .. it is one massively efficient centre from the trading floor to distribution. Within 24 hours of being picked flowers have been taken from the greenhouse (sometimes from overseas) to the auction rooms in Aalsmeer, auctioned and flown to another part of the world.

We must also mention the Japanese restaurant in town, recommended by Remco. It looked empty as we walked past the windows and could see a dark open space of tables and not one customer – but when we pushed the door open and entered we could hear a buzz and around the corner was a huge room full of happy customers. No wonder .. they offer a choice of five excellent Japanese dishes per person from a huge menu including Sashimi, Sushi and Tempura, AND you can have this five times (rounds). That means you can have 25 dishes per person for €23 .. we were full after the first two rounds!

The next day we were heading to the end of our ‘circuit’, due to arrive in Amsterdam soon after lunch as it was yet another short trip of about 13 kilometres with one lock and just a few mobile bridges. This included, going back through the beautiful open waters of the lake heading away from Amsterdam, going south, before we could turn into the canal – we were in a ‘cul de sac’, so to speak,  at our mooring. It was odd gliding along through the glassy lake, to be adjacent to where we had been an hour ago.

Charming houses and gardens.

Very smart houses line the canal near Aalsmeer.

Market gardens of moderate size around Aalsmeer.

There were many nurseries with green houses along this section.. we passed the Amsterdam airport on one side (Schiphol) and a huge horse centre on the other.

Rescue boat .. who would be captain or crew in that?

We saw a particularly unusual sight: a rescue boat up in a winch stored almost vertical to the water.. and of course many extremely swish houses and waterfront gardens.. not far from Amsterdam. We passed through another beautiful lake, the Nieuwe Meer (like the name of the marina back at the last lake) just before the lock for our final stretch into the heart of Amsterdam. Lunch time .. and we’d been told by the fuel pump operator at the other end of the lake there was a good mooring and place to eat right by the lock.

As we approached the lock we could see a small restaurant with a man lounging in a big soft chair placed on the jetty. I called to ask if he knew where we could have lunch. “Not here” he said, “sorry we have a big party booked.. but you could go to the big black building over there”.  

Stewart squeezing past the huge comfy sofas on the jetty .. "breath in" is usually what he says.

So we moored up and took on the challenge of getting the wheelchair past all the paraphernalia of outdoor furniture, including his big soft chair, not at all easy,  to get to the ‘black building’. Doable with some help, but we arrived at the building to see it was not accessible. We were sure they’d work something out like putting a table down on the lower deck. First I asked if we could have a table for two.. “Sorry, we are fully booked”. Can you believe it! So, on this occasion, we had to retrace our steps carefully squeezing between furniture and the water along the jetty to have lunch back on board, lovely fruit was all I had and very good for us too.

With relief, not long after our meagre lunch, we entered Westerdok from the frantically busy Amsterdam outer harbour to find Walter (our Harbourmaster) waiting to take the ropes and help us with the tricky task of positioning Endellion on the inside of a big cruiser so that we were parallel with the jetty and had wheelchair access. Home again .. that’s how it felt.

Typical Amsterdam buildings, the two outside seem to be holding up the one in the middle.

We had another superb three days in this great city .. Amsterdam, referring to our various guides, has more than one hundred kilometres of canals, about 90 islands and 1,500 bridges. The three main canals, Herengracht, Prinsengracht, and Keizersgrach are all in walking distance from our mooring in the Jordaan. Much of this region is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Note the comfy sofa on the stern of the boat.. as if space wasn't an issue.

The classic crowded boat trawling the canals of Amsterdam.

This visit we spent time ambling around the city streets absorbing the atmosphere. We discovered the amazing calm and quiet of the inner courtyard of the Beguine convent, founded in the 4^thcentury. It has belonged to the English Presbyterian community since 1607. This is right in the heart of the frantically busy city. Later we were amazed to find ourselves swept along by the crowds heading for the ferries at the outer harbour .. they were all in bizarre fancy dress and we found out later taking the ferries to a Big Day Out type of event not far away.

A great day out for many Amsterdamers.. such fun to see so many going a bit crazy!

The city is more like one big marina with so many people enjoying the water everywhere and seemingly enjoying being in such large crowds.

 We left Amsterdam the same way as we arrived, ie, with Walter taking the ropes of the cruiser so we could slip out from its side and head out into the harbour for the final time for 2011. It’s our plan to return here for the winter of 2012, we know the exact mooring place and we will have WiFi with Walter’s help. Walter by the way owns this marina along with many others in these parts. This is a marina at the top of our recommended list.

We're on board Endellion in the crane looking down on the shed where they are going to drop us down (gently).

With our farewell to Amsterdam .. it felt a bit like ‘the party is over’. We’ve had an amazing time since leaving our winter mooring of Paris, almost every day we’ve been out and about and loving it.

Endellion in the shed .. an essential place to be to paint our roof.

Now .. we are in a shed with no daylight, only fluorescent lights. We’ve rigged up a network connection, thankfully, so we have WiFi .. but certainly we have no satellite or TV! We have some very good DVDs, mostly cheap oldies like The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981), The Graduate (1967) .. and some newer ones like Amy Winehouse Live in London (2007). Stewart has downloaded the latest Podcast of Salty Dog(amazing Australian online Blues and Roots radio-like program) and we have each other!

Through the window we see Joop and Victor very hard at work scraping and sanding the roof clean, Stewart below trying to ignore the sounds.

All around us we have builders and painters (again) but they are great fun too .. we’re hoping Stewart will be off the boat in a day or so via a forklift truck – he’s done this before so ‘no worries’!

We’ll let you know how it goes…

The boat builders had neglected to put any primer or undercoat on the entire roof, they just slapped one coat of paint on and then fitted all the handrails, ventilation units, etc and sent us on our way. The roof is now nothing but rust and we have to remove all of the fittings and start again. It needs a professional .. and finally, by happenstance, we found the man for the job!

So our plan from Amsterdam pivoted around repainting our roof – work will start on the 5^thSeptember (at least one week’s worth) and will be done at Weesp .. a delightful place to spend more time.

Map from PC Navigo showing our Amsterdam circuit.

Meanwhile we are making a round trip as follows:

• Amsterdam back to Weesp (for painting and repair meetings) this time back out across the Amsterdam harbour through the Oranjesluizen (lock), along the Buiten IJ into the IJmeer (inland sea) and across to the Vecht at Muiden, a few kilometres from Weesp.
• Weesp to Nieuwegein the ultra-quick way, up the Amsterdam-Rijn Canal and into the Merwede – a rough ride but faster than the Vecht.
• Nieuwegein to Gouda – along the fantastic Hollandse Ijssel.
• Gouda to Rotterdam – using the ever-widening Hollandse Ijssel until it flows into the faster-flowing Nieuwe Maas and turning up the Delftshavense Schie canal near the city centre.
• Rotterdam to Leiden via Delft using the Reijn-Schiekanaal.

Still to come

• Leiden to Amsterdam via Kagerplassen (lake), along the Ringvaart van de Haarlemmer-meerpolder (we won’t make it to Haarlem this time), across the Westeinderplassen to Aalsmeer, along the Schinkel of Kostverlorenvaart into Amsterdam’s outer harbour around the point and into Westerdock (our Amsterdam home).

Amsterdam to Rotterdam

We love Amsterdam – as you will know from our last blog.

Walking past the 'Coffee Shop' is best done on the other side of the road!

The museums, our ‘village’ of Jordaan, the endless beautiful canals lined with ancient buildings tilting this way and that, the classic churches .. the overall atmosphere – even though we have to tolerate the relatively frequent whiff of something smoky and sickly as we pass the ‘Coffee Shops’ (yes, marijuana or stronger is available it seems but confined to specific ‘shops’ who may also happen to serve coffee).

Amsterdam for us is very accessible .. the one slight challenge is using the buses.

Stewart finally heading up the steep ramp into the bus, from the narrow waiting platform.

Most of them have a steel ramp which is manually dropped by the ‘conductor’ .. the challenge is where they drop it. The bus stops often share space with the tram stops and these are on a small island in the middle of the road. The space for Stewart to turn onto the dropped ramp on the island is usually so narrow he has to approach the ramp from the side which is very difficult. When disembarking it’s the same in reverse, ie, he often has to go down the too steep ramp, drop down the pavement step and into the road as the island is too narrow to contain the ramp and the wheelchair. Needless to say .. the ‘can do’ attitude of Stewart and his hero TDX meant he always made do.

Before Mary left us for the south of France we had a busy time, one day joining a guided tour on the subject of World War II and the Holocaust, starting at the Anne Frank house. This was where Anne’s father (Jewish) hid seven members of his family and friends but they were betrayed after two years and sent to Auschwitz in August 1944. Amsterdam was occupied by the Germans during the war and as we toured the streets we were reminded of the horrors of war once again .. as Stewart said in his ‘Radio Endellion Gay Parade’ video, it wasn’t only Jews (10% of Amsterdam’s population at that time were Jewish) who were sent to the death camps, also homosexuals, the disabled and of course political protestors.

Thankfully our spirits were greatly lifted immediately after the tour when we met up with Paul and Kien Honen who live in Amsterdam. Paul was an old schoolmate of Stewart’s from Canberra Grammar – the last time Stewart actually saw Paul was 43 years ago, the last year of school.

On our own again we headed back to Weesp to meet with Joop (our painter) and Marco (for general boat repairs and maintenance while the painting is being done).

The IJsselmeer - more suited to sails.

This time we used a different route to the low bridges one on our way into Amsterdam and it couldn’t have been more of a contrast: going out through the harbour again but then crossing towards the IJmeer (big open inland sea) and into the massive locks at the Oranjesluizen, one of them dedicated to pleasure boats but still huge and a challenge. We are a big boat
compared with most of our fellow pleasure boaters so for us to ‘raft’ off on the side of another, small, boat is difficult for all concerned. We are 37 tonnes and they are usually less than 5! We are 17 meters long and they are usually less than 12. In these big locks we are expected to moor to the side of the nearest boat once the side walls are all occupied .. and this time we tied off to one of the bigger cruisers (around 12 meters). The skipper was fine but the yacht (mast and sail down for the minute) behind us was shaking his fist at
us because he wanted us to give him more room. The only way to do that would have been to tie off on the side of the tiny dinghy ahead of us .. not possible! We all made it in one piece despite this .. and thankfully we pottered on through the open gates and soon were left behind as we headed out onto the lake .. everyone in such a hurry in these parts.

The Ijsselmeer (or IJmeer) is vast and enjoyed mostly by sailing yachts with a significant keel beneath them, it’s not really for flat-bottomed barges like ours. The weather was good, not much wind, the water therefore relatively flat so we had a great crossing back into the Vecht canal at Muiden.

Coming in off the IJsselmeer into the Vecht, couldn't miss the castle.

Once into the calmer, narrower waters of the Vecht we were reminded that we were still in the school holiday period .. everywhere was frantically busy, boats jostling for moorings and positioning for first place in the locks and at lift/swing bridges – very entertaining. We wondered if these skippers think if they hurry more and are first everywhere they will have more holiday time!

Endellion moored on the Small Weesp canal with Hank's speedy cruiser behind us.

At the now very familiar town of Weesp we met up with our painter and repairer – and one very important immediate job was to change our fuel filter (again) as we could see more black muck in the bowl – bacteria.

That done we headed south again into ‘new territory’.

The beast overtakes us leaving water splashing into the engine hold.

We were familiar with the Amsterdam-Rijn canal having crossed it on our way into Amsterdam .. but now we had decided to use it to make a quick run south to get to the Hollandse Ijssel (recommended to us by skipper Hank, who moored next to us at Weesp after an amazing performance of extremely fast manoeuvring in his big cruiser).

Choppy water along the Amsterdam-Rijn canal.

Well .. the major Amsterdam-Rijn we knew was a bit choppy but going the 20 odd kilometres up it with massive commercial barges all around us was discovering what rough water meant. By the end of it we had taken on quite a lot of water in the engine hold, which came in through the air vents as these  mighty commercial beasts passed us close by, at twice our speed, spraying water everywhere, and to our horror we found the entire fuel filter (a new element fitted  that morning) was now completely black with muck.

We were moored at Nieuwegein and had to find a mechanic to sort this out .. and perhaps empty our fuel tank and refill it with clean diesel. Next morning, we headed off having found the place we needed just back the canal a few kilometres (at JH Hatenboer Yachting hireboat and fuel station). Jan, our man, took one look at the fuel filter and said “My God” .. or words to that effect in Dutch. He was brilliant.. completely evacuated all the dirt
(obviously sucked up on our very rough ride down the Amsterdam-Rijn) and insisted we wouldn’t have any more problems so no need to empty our fuel tank and start again.

The first time we had this filthy fuel problem, back in October last year entering Paris on the River Seine, our engine stopped and wouldn’t restart (later we found a blocked fuel pump).. we had to be towed. We traced the ‘bad’ fuel to Nieuwpoort in Belgium where we had emptied the tank at the self-serve depot (it ran out of fuel whilst we were filling up). Since Paris, we added the fuel filter and have been diligent about using additive (to kill
any bugs), which Jan now told us was a total waste, “throw it in the bin”, he said. This time, we realised (with hindsight) the dirt must have been from the Heusden bunker-barge where the pump operator had to change bowsers as we had emptied the first one. We now get the idea: If it’s the bottom of a fuel bowser (what luck to have this twice) we will get the dreaded muck. So we are planning on installing double filters when back in Weesp .. another thing to add to our long list of things to do.

Lovely green stretches of the Hollandse IJssel canal.

Quiet and beautiful stretches of the upper Hollandse IJssel.

With a relatively healthy boat again we headed along the same few kilometres to be back on track for Oudewater, a gorgeous town crisscrossed by small canals quite like Utrecht, and then into one of the loveliest towns in a while, Gouda.

Coming into the harbour at Gouda we pass the Maritime Museum, open air.

The town hall at Gouda.

Famous for its cheese of course but in fact it has so much more to offer .. in particular we loved St John’s church with  its famous stained glass windows, 60% of all of those in the Netherlands. Many from the mid-1500s .. wow, what stories they tell. Touring town we could hardly believe our eyes when we came across the most striking and stylish Town Hall, 16^th century .. weddings taking place regularly as we noted. And the Waag (weighing house) for the famous Gouda cheese – a classic building although not accessible which is inexcusable as it would have been easy to put in a ramp.

The excellent 'Cow and Cheese' restaurant in Gouda, note the image above the door.

And a special treat .. we came across a really interesting restaurant, the ‘Cow and Cheese’ (when translated) and here they served the perfect steak, as you’d imagine, so good we didn’t even have any cheese to follow!

Many modern apartment buildings stretch along the canal coming into Rotterdam.

The next day (we should have planned a longer stay at Gouda) we went back into the Hollandse Ijssel canal (there’s one lock and lift bridge in and out of Gouda) to continue on a long stretch of wide and relatively calm water which finally took us into the Nieuwe Maas for Rotterdam – the second biggest port in the world apparently, the biggest in Europe anyway.

The Algerabrug - part of the Hollandse IJssel storm system coming into Rotterdam.

On the Maas we again experienced a very rough ride, a bit like the Amsterdam-Rijn, and worried about any remaining dirt in the fuel being sloshed through the filter.

Erasmus bridge, a classic structure, Rotterdam.

It’s so wide there seemed no danger of being in any commercial ship’s way. Our plan, having previously telephoned the very busy harbour master, was to moor at Veerhaven, close to the city centre, and this is where we headed.

Rotterdam skyline.

We were on an out-flowing river running at least a strong three kilometres per hour which made it doubly difficult for Stewart to bring Endellion in to the relatively narrow  Veerhaven entrance where it was also very choppy. He had to put on big revs to stop going down river and then we faced a sailing yacht coming out who kindly beckoned us in as he waited. Phew, we could enter the relatively calm marina and the yacht motored out past us. We could then see the harbour master calling to moor to the side of the big barge we were approaching. “But  my husband can’t get off there” .. do as you’re told was the instruction, so we had to obey. He came over to the side of the barge and we could explain the wheelchair – his first response was that it was easy to get off over the top of the barge. Well no.. considering we were about six feet below its deck and there was only a narrow walkway from there to shore!

Endellion moored at Cool Haven in Rotterdam, John's old converted commercial behind us.

So out onto the frantic Maas again but not far and in through the Parksluizen lock and to our great relief the huge Cool Haven offering heaps of mooring space although with no electricity or water. And here is where we met John, living on an ancient converted commercial barge moored ahead of us.  John was extremely helpful giving us  all sorts of advice about getting into the town centre, where to eat and what to see and do in Rotterdam. He has done all sorts in his life but his main passion when he can get it is working as a Roadie. He has hundreds of t-shirts from the various tours he has worked on which he frequently changed into during the two days we saw him; for example, Peche de Mode, the more recent Kylie Minogue show in Amsterdam, Eric Clapton, Whitney Houston and countless Rolling Stones concerts. He said he was Keith Richard’s gofer for nine months .. we believed him, especially when he showed us the red Mick Jagger lips tattoo on his upper arm. John was also a Paint Standards Inspector .. truly. He  volunteered this information before he saw our roof.. and when we said, well take a look at this.. he was furious. If only the builders were accessible to him he would have made it very clear to them what he thought!  He couldn’t believe that any builder would be so dishonest as to put one coat of paint on a new boat and pretend all would be well. He had many an interesting tale to tell .. we hope to see John again one day.

1930s Boijmans Museum building.

We loved the Boijmans van Beuningen art museum, a lovely 1930s building with a wonderful collection of works especially Old Masters.

Stewart studying the real Bosch painting at the Boijmans museum.

We saw the originals of the Hieronymus Bosch we’d seen replicas of in our favourite town of Den Bosch, his birthplace. We saw Van Eycks, The Tower of Babel by Bruegel the Elder, and Rubens.

Who else but Dali could have created this?

Bruegel's Tower of Babel

Stanley Spencer, self-portrait, at the Boijmans museum.

They also had an excellent Modern and Contemporary section with works from Van Gogh (some of his early works), Degas and Surrealists like Salvador Dali and Magritte .. and Stanley Spencer (who we discovered at Cookham back in our River Thames days) was on display .. we were exhausted before we’d seen it all.

Other than the excellent Boijmans museum and meeting John, Rotterdam is one of the few places we have found in the Netherlands where we were disappointed. There are so many multi-national brands of fast-food, coffee and clothes outlets we could have been in any country (think Los Angeles, sadly we could say even parts of Sydney).

Copy of a photo showing the total destruction of Rotterdam by the Germans in WWII.

Stewart heading back to Endellion after our night out in Rotterdam.

We saw block after block of massive, bland housing and office developments .. almost no interesting contemporary architecture (which we love when it’s good) and very few, if any (we couldn’t
find them), good restaurants. Needless to say we moved on quickly heading for Delft – only about 12 kilometres along the quiet Reijn-Schiekanaal canal.

Rotterdam to Leiden

Unfortunately Delft was also disappointing.. a beautiful town but the moorings and the experience we had with the harbour master were not good….

The pleasure boat moorings were new but with steps up, ie, inaccessible to us and the commercial boat mooring adjacent was accessible but despite being told by the bridge keeper we could moor there the ‘harbourmaster’ went blue in the face and jumped up and down shouting at us as we attempted to move into the empty and accessible mooring. Never mind.. we have found so many wonderful towns in this country, we had one night there at a free mooring out-of-town and were happy to move on.

Plaque remembering John Robinson of the Pilgrim Fathers.

We headed on to Leiden, 26 kilometres away, although it took us most of the day as we also had 14 lift or swing bridges to ‘negotiate’. We are a little more cautious with these sometimes optically challenging infrastructures since we took our bimini off with one of them coming into Amsterdam! We have found we can’t trust our eyes, computer software (PC Navigo), or the printed maps (ANWB) or even the sign they place on the bridge – and we can’t trust our ‘official’ air draft we were told  by the builders. All of these sources usually have a different height measurement, and the official builder’s measurement of  2.36 meters is definitely not correct.

Naturally we approached each bridge carefully trying to visualise whether we’d fit underneath or not.. whose measurement could we believe? We have now agreed we will take a 2.7 meter bridge height (as noted on the bridge not our guides) but nothing less, without the bimini. We know this by going gingerly into them, attempting a lower and lower height, with me standing on the stern to watch how much clearance we had .. only a few inches at 2.7 meters, enough to mean if there was a surge of water (eg, a big
commercial barge somewhere) we still have some space to move. This 2.7m limit we have set is easily assessed by watching the aerial with St Piran flag (Cornish), way down on the bow, bend as far as half-way down the flag.. that’s the limit.

Another "will we" or "won't we" fit under without lifting it?

So with agreement on what height we were.. we had to wait for several bridges to open for us .. one taking almost an hour before we could get a response from our radio call to the bridge keepers located somewhere looking (or not looking) at their CCTV screens. Finally we arrived at Leiden .. and as expected, we loved it! We had telephoned ahead and the bridge keeper’s office said, “Yes.. no problem with wheelchair access”. When we entered the town through the final lift bridge we were directed to  one of the best moorings possible – in the commercial boat section – with perfect access straight from our boat, and electricity and water right beside us. Plus ..we were on our own, we didn’t have to sit in the pleasure boat section which was chocker block with cruisers all stacked so tightly it’s similar to being in a Sydney city traffic queue at peak hour. The town was gorgeous .. like Delft ..  but Leiden can boast it has the ‘oldest’ university in the Netherlands, and is the birthplace of Rembrandt. It was in this town in 1609 that almost one hundred English Puritans settled, led by John Robinson. This group, the Pilgrim Fathers, eventually sailed to America on the Mayflower  via Plymouth. A bit of a west country connection.

Endellion at the commercial section of Leiden harbour - perfect.

In fact we decided to take a break in this town. The weather had been wet so it was a good excuse to stay on board for one whole day …. and we simply enjoyed walking around admiring the architecture of 15^th and 16^th century buildings and once again, the network of canals throughout. We found a few prime places for internet connection: the Town Hall
where there was an excellent Italian restaurant with Wi-Fi and the delightful central public library. Four days in this lovely town and we hope to return one day.

On the move again .. only a few more stops and we’ll be back in Amsterdam.

• Small Weesp canal, across the Amsterdam-Rijn canal and along the Weesper Trekvaart, into the Amstel turning starboard down the Nwe Herengracht, right in the heart of Amsterdam, through Oosterdok, briefly out onto the Afgesloten IJ (the main harbour) crossing to starboard and back again with great relief into Westerdock mooring at Aquadam Marina.

Most days we are relaxed and confident about our travels .. but going into Amsterdam was a slightly different story, not helped by various people (fellow-boaters mostly) saying “you’re what”? .. when we told them of our travel plans.

Stewart and Mary - great company.

They seemed to think it was a bit silly given how busy it can be especially at the height of summer holidays. But .. we wanted to see the city, we have spent lots of time in London and Paris, busy waterways too, so
why not?

Leaving Weesp through the lift bridge into the heart of town.

Off we set, the three of us (now with Mary for company and encouragement!) through the heart of Weesp and the three lift bridges (paying our €3 into to the flying clog) and the first challenge was to cross the extremely busy Amsterdam-Rijn canal. Stewart wisely installed a Simrad AIS (automatic identification system) which in theory will beep and show any big commercial boats in our radius .. a huge help. But, if the commercial doesn’t have AIS we won’t see it .. so eyes are still an essential part of our ‘kit’ and that means I stand on the bow (walking the 17 meters down the length of the boat is a strange feeling) to see what I can see. In this case it was major commercial barges coming up and down the turbulent waterway, most of which Stewart could see on his screen. It was a challenge for him to edge out and make the dive between massive vessels to the lift bridge waiting open for us on the other side. Unfortunately we weren’t quick enough and when we could finally get in between two of the beasts and into the entrance to the Weespertrekvaart canal, the red light flashed and the bridge came down in front of us so we had to wallow around at the entrance and wait for it to open again. Not easy .. but thankfully it wasn’t long and the bridge opened again and we could dash under it into the relative safety of the canal.

High rise buildings on the Amstel, leaving the WeespTrekvaart behind us.

From there it was a fabulous journey .. the waterway mostly lined by house boats and in some places very narrow but certainly interesting.

Converted commercial barges line the banks of the Amstel and throughout the Amsterdam canals.

As we reached the heart of Amsterdam we had to negotiate many bridges using the Amstel canal and then the Herongracht into Oosterdok .. however, one of the bridges looked deceptively low, it should have given us clearance according to our computer software, printed map and the sign but just as we were committed, we heard an almighty crunching. I ducked onto the stern deck to see our smart green bimini fly over my head and into the canal taking most of it under and lost forever (unless some unsuspecting fisherman get his lines caught in it). Well.. that was a bit of a shock for all three of us. Mary and I had folded the canvas cover down but had not completely dismantled it – a mistake!

The Renzo Piano designed Nemo at Oosterdock.

After a rest for recovery .. we waited for another boat to come along to prompt the bridge system to open for us .. and then before we knew it we were passing the amazing Renzo Piano (and colleagues) designed Nemo building and out onto the main Amsterdam harbour mixing it with what they call “Fast Flying Ferries” doing exactly that around and in front of us, ie, appearing to fly but they were definitely on the water.

The "Fast Flying Ferries" in Amsterdam harbour.

With great relief we found the Aquadam marina at Westerdock and finally (after only three hours but it felt like a day or two) we moored safely and soundly! This we found was the best area of Amsterdam, the Jordaan.

Endellion is somewhere in there, but not in the Parade!

What we didn’t realise was that the annual Gay Parade was going to pass right
beside our boat (we’re on the outside pontoon) at the weekend.

I am Amsterdam, the Gay Parade.

(See Stewart’s video here).

Gay Parade film crew.

Meanwhile we had a great time with Mary, meeting our Harbourmaster, Walter, and having his advice and assistance, visiting the Palace, walking around Jordaan (our village) and discovering Mary’s namesake cafe and restaurant, ‘Smalle’ (after her maiden name), good food and delightful atmosphere.

Mary on our stern deck, NOTE: no more bimini (our big green canvas cover).

We’re back on our own again .. Mary headed off to the south of France and we stayed another whole week in wonderful Amsterdam .. here we go, falling in love with another city!

More to come on Amsterdam ..