Meandering along the Moervaart

Yesterday was a day for dreaming of faring to come. It was beautiful; the first really lovely weather of this year in my inexpert opinion. Not only was the temperature balmy and mild but the sun even had some warmth to it as it touched our faces.

"Let's go for a walk?" I suggested to Koos. "In fact let's go somewhere for a walk."
He agreed, always keen to go somewhere other, so we decided on a ramble along one of our favourite waterways, the Moervaart. It's not too far from the crumbly cottage and is a navigable route we love to take at the end of our summer trips these days; in other words, ideal for boosting our anticipation of faring away in the holidays.

So we hopped in the car and off we went...and went...and went.
"When are we going to get there?" I asked,
"Soon, I have a special spot in mind." said Koos
Twenty minutes later we were still driving.
"We must be nearly there," I complained. "We've been driving for ages!"
"Not far now," soothed Koos.
"Yes, but I'm hungry now. And I need the loo"
"Stop complaining. It'll be worth it."
 "But it's never taken us this long. I'm feeling queasy with all these bends. We'll be in Lokeren before you know it!" I was whining now, but it made me laugh too, reminding me of a funny cartoon I saw on the internet recently:

Well, the next signpost we saw was indeed heading to Lokeren, but back the way we'd come. We'd done some kind of circuitous route and overshot it by several kilometres. Maybe this is the right place to mention Lokeren is at the far end of the Moervaart. It doesn't go any further. Right.

So, after going back past the town and heading again towards home, Koos took yet another turning (nooooo!!! I squealed) and finally brought us to the bridge at Sinaai on the Moervaart he'd had in mind.

And it was good (it really was. And a relief too). We climbed out of the car, inspected the bridge, one of several lifting bridges on this waterway, and set off along the towpath in the direction of Lokeren. I have to say the walk was definitely worth the wait as I hope these photos will demonstrate. Within minutes, we were conjuring up images of pottering along the Moervaart in the Hennie Ha. And it resulted in our planning a long weekend of cruising from Sas van Gent to Lokeren, a distance of around 38 kilometres. I'm sure you'll agree this is going to be a trip worth taking and a wonderful start to our faring year.

That was yesterday, then. Today, it hasn't been half as nice, but with the fire of faring in our blood, we started cleaning the Hennie Ha in anticipation of our travels to come. Neither of us can wait for the day we 'maak lossen' the ropes and pull away out of our berth. And that was the great thing about this one day of sunshine we've had. It's set our wanderlust loose and got us going again. Roll on spring and more boating adventures.

Have a great week, allemaal!