Dendermonde to Gent (or Ghent): The almost end of the journey

The feeling of being close to the end of our journey was quite a powerful emotion when we got up on Saturday. It was August the 18th and I'd committed to being back on home turf by the 20th. I don't think either of us wanted to go home; we'd have liked to sneakily by-pass Gent and creep off up the canalised Schelde and into France again by the back door. But it wasn't to be and we had to return. We'd planned on leaving around 9:00 so as to run with the tide all the way and be there before it turned, but once we were up and outside, we saw other boats and barges steaming past us, so we thought maybe we should get a move on.

Letting a barge go past

Once we'd checked all moving and leaking parts and added to their life support systems, we untied and got underway. We turned round without even trying (the current did that for us) and off we went, thinking we were the last in the queue. How wrong we were. As we fared quietly along, not one, but two barges appeared behind us. They were also taking advantage of the current, but weren't going as fast as the barge that had snuck on us the evening before and given us quite a shock. We hadn't seen it coming at all and Koos had to dive out of the way to let it pass. We let these two pass as well, but in a calm and orderly fashion.

A ferry point I'd not noticed before

The incoming tide was slowing down the further upstream we went, so our advantage was not as much as it was when we went down to Dendermonde at the beginning of our trip. The river was more intimate and less wild too, but there were still mudbanks to be aware of and Koos hugged the outer bends out of caution. Being grounded on this tidal stretch wasn't something we wanted to even think of. The scenery looked different too, which is odd as we'd passed all these places before. I saw buildings and sights I'd never noticed on the way down. It just proves that the opposite direction is a new journey, and another point of view is a different perspective. It didn't matter anyway. I was already smitten by the Schelde.

Wetteren church from the water, another sight I missed first time round

I definitely didn't see this when we were going downstream!

Eventually, though, it had to end, and once we'd seen the split where the old, now no longer navigable, course of the river leads into Gent, we knew it was over. Within a kilometre, we saw the great Merelbeke lock. The trip from our overnight spot at Dendermonde had taken us three hours, so we were still well within the tidal window and to our amusement, we'd caught up with all the barges that had passed us at the mooring and those that had overtaken us. They were all waiting for the lock, which just happened to be opening as we arrived. As luck would have it.

This time there was no waiting and no damaged impeller to hold us up. Throughout our travels, we'd been pouring litres of water into the cooling system, but that was still our leaky oil cooler and we were used to it (we have a new one now...woohoo!); at least it was no longer overheating and throwing up black gunk (a good sign your impeller is bust, by the way). The upside of having Koos's amazing man-made (DIY in other parlance) expansion vessel on deck was that we were intimately acquainted with the cooling system's behaviour. I watched it like a worried nurse, taking its temperature, topping up its reservoir, you know...generally being paranoid. I'm good at that.

Anyway, back to the lock, we were out of it in double quick time. Shortly afterwards, we were on the canalised section of the Schelde that winds through the city from the forever closed Gentbrugge lock where the old tidal reach meets its end. Not far into this stretch, we had to stop and wait while the fire brigade chopped up and removed a tree that had fallen in the water – a fun five minutes of viewing while they conducted the surgery from an inflatable boat with a swimmer guiding the process. Once they'd got suitable ropes in place around the fallen bole of the tree, a crane on land lifted it out and we were able to continue. Thumbs up for the Gent fire services; they are men of many parts, it seems.

By this time we were being followed by the cruiser that left Dendermonde before us, and two other small craft, so we shared the Brusselsepoort lock with them. We've never had it so cosy there before, but luckily we all managed to squeeze in. A few minutes later, we were back at the pontoon mooring where we'd spent the very first night of our travels. We'd arrived and it was good to be there. The following day would be our last, so we planned to spend it exploring the area, but that's for one more blog post. For now, this, like Gent, feels like a good place to stop.

Have a great week, allemaal!