A round trip to write home about, Part 2

This week, I thought I'd show you maps with a little more detail about our route as it gets more complicated in the Belgian section. If you read the first part of our trip through the Netherlands, you'll remember we spent our third night just over the border into Belgium at a place called Bocholt, which turned out to be my absolute favourite overnight stop of the whole trip.  The photo below was taken from the other side of the canal and gives a little more context to the surroundings. As you can see, it oozed tranquillity and I'd have happily spent several days there.

However, the next day, Thursday, brought a change in the weather. It dawned grey and gloomy and after doing a couple of necessary repairs (re-packing the cooling water pump with hemp string and grease, and tightening a slightly leaky stern gland), we set off along the Bocholt-Herentals canal with a chill, damp wind in our faces. From being bathed in glowing sunshine the previous day, the flat, colourless sky put a damper on both our spirits and the scenery.

Gloomy, grey skies overhead

And then the rain came

"I'm sure this canal is lovely when the weather's nice," I remarked to Koos, trying to give a positive spin on what appeared to be a singularly dull and featureless stretch of water.

"Yes, I don't remember it being so...erm...boring."

"I'm sure it isn't, not normally, anyway." By this time, it had started drizzling. "Nothing looks good on this kind of day."

Koos nodded. We donned our wet weather jackets and I even tried holding an umbrella over our heads, but the wind threatened to blow it inside out, so I had to abandon that attempt to keep us dry.

After about fifteen kilometres of squinting into the driving mizzle (the Dutch call it motregen, which I think is a very descriptive word), I'd had enough.

"Shall we stop for a break? You could have a kip while we dry out a bit," I suggested.

Koos tried to tell me it wasn't necessary, but he didn't argue too much, so when we spotted an empty quay with a number of big bollards, he manoeuvred Vereeniging into a quick about-turn and we tied up, grateful for an hour's respite.

The map below shows our faring for the day and the place we stopped was roughly in the middle of the red line.

Day 4 began at the bottom of the V-shape on the right and
ended at the end of the arrow on the left

We lit the heater, made some hot drinks and then I indulged in some reading while Koos had a snooze. When everything so dark outside, the Vereeniging was a little cave-like indoors, but it felt a lot cosier than standing out in the wind and rain. Nevertheless, we had to move on so after something over an hour, we bit a few bullets and set off again, having already decided we'd stop after the three downward locks at Lommel and Mol, the point at which we knew we couldn't go further due to the next lock being closed. Apparently, it was undergoing repair and wouldn't be open for another week. 

To backtrack a bit, the lock keeper on the border had told us about the closure and that we'd have to turn left and take the cutting to the Albert Canal, a disappointing diversion that would add another fifteen kms to our journey and force us to follow more of the 'highway' between Antwerp and Maastricht than we'd planned. At least we knew what to expect, though.

When we finally reached Lommel lock at around five o'clock, I was feeling pretty wretched about everything. Wet, cold and miserable, I stood on the foredeck as we approached the gates, thanking everything when the lights turned green and we could proceed into the basin.

I was standing at the bow ready to throw my rope over a bollard when the lock keeper came dashing out of his office. Being the type that always feels guilty in advance, I immediately wondered what we were doing wrong. So I switched my grimace to a smile, hoping it was my best soggy grin, and also hoping an expression of goodwill would diffuse this quite obviously serious situation. 

Well, contrary to my worst expectations, nothing was wrong at all!

“This boat,” the lock keeper said, almost hopping with excitement. “It has the same name and looks of a boat in a book I have. It was in Rotterdam.”

Realisation dawned.

“Yes, it’s the same boat!” I said, laughing.

“And the writer. Her name was...”

“Valerie. That’s me.” I grinned. He grinned even more. Despite the conditions, we were both instantly delighted with each other.

“Oh, that’s amazing," he said " But what are you doing here?”

So I told him the story of our decision to move, and then he made my day by saying he had Watery Ways and Harbour Ways at home and that he’d read them both. I was so thrilled. So was Koos who had now picked up on what was happening. Who would have imagined such serendipity? My books aren’t well known in the Netherlands or Belgium because they’re written in English, so it was a huge surprise to encounter a Belgian lockie who’d read and enjoyed them. When we pulled out of the lock after it had emptied, we waved enthusiastically to him as he wished us success on our journey and scurried back into the dry haven of his warm hut.

The pleasure of this experience kept me going right through the next two locks until the rain became still more persistent. I'd stayed up in the bow to avoid traipsing through the Vereeniging's interior in my dripping gear, but enough was enough. I made my way back to Koos.

"Can we please, please stop here?" I pleaded gesturing to a quay where other boats were moored. "This just isn't fun anymore."

"Well, not right here, Vally. There aren't enough bollards and the sides are sloping, but I think I can see a wall up ahead. We'll pull in over there."

Within a few minutes, we'd found the right wall with the right bollards on the right bank, thank heavens. It was just before the junction with the canal south and we could see the lights of a lock up ahead.

"That's the one that's closed for repairs," Koos said, pointing to it. "See all the machinery? It'll reopen on the 14th."

"Too late for us," I said, a bit sadly. I'd really wanted to do that last stretch of the Bocholt - Herentals canal as it was supposed to be the pretty part. Ah well.

For once, I didn't get off the Vereeniging to take a photo, but we had a good evening and a good night against the wall. I wasn't quite sure whether we were in Lommel, Mol or Dessel, but it didn't really matter as we didn't see anything other than the trees next to the canal disappearing into an early dusk.

The next morning, Friday, was still gloomy, but it was dry and promised to be so for the whole day. We left Lommel/Dessel/Mol at a bright and early 8:45, hoping to get some mileage under our hull and be on the Nete Canal by the end of the day: around 55kms further, which would be a lot for us. We'd only done around 30kms the day before, so we'd be making up for lost distance. The map below shows where we'd intended to go (the blue line) and where we had to go (the red line)

Day 5 should have followed the blue line to Herentals but
due to a lock closure, we had to follow the red route

From my perspective, there wasn't much to recommend either the canal south to Kwaadmechelen, or the Albert Canal. The first was wide, quiet and unrelieved by anything other than bridges, each of which had its distance from the beginning carved into the stonework. Checking these helped pass the time at least, and Koos found plenty of food for his hungry camera in the industrial buildings along its banks. Here's one of his photos that I like.

As for the Albert Canal, it was something of a rude awakening. Busy, choppy and huge, I got quite shock as we entered it. I was trying to make coffee, but a passing tug made the Vereeniging rock so much I had to turn everything off until things had settled, by which time we'd reached the first of the two huge double locks we'd be passing through on this stretch. With both locks in the complex being 136m long, 16m wide and 10m deep, these are serious operations and I was somewhat apprehensive as we approached. Would they, or wouldn't they, have floating bollards? To my huge relief they did, and so tying up and descending was an easy process. Even so, they can be quite intimidating.

The first of these locks over, we covered nearly nineteen straight fast kilometres (well, fast by Vereeniging's standards) until we arrived at the second almost identical set of double locks at Olen. I think I spent most of the time following our route on Google maps, which for some reason I found fascinating, probably because the bicycle path follows the canal and I could easily check where we were, where we'd come from and how far we had to go. Koos took some more photos, but I will confess I didn't find the Albert Canal terribly inspiring; not like our Gent-Terneuzen Canal, which I love. Here's one of Koos's photos showing a new bridge and the old one it has replaced, which rests on the bank as a monument to Vierendeel bridges. Here's a link to them if you're interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vierendeel_bridge

The Albert Canal highway to Antwerp with an old Vierendeel
bridge on the bank

What we didn't know, though, was that the biggest excitement of the day was to come. After the lock at Olen, we had another dozen or so uneventful kilometres to go before turning at last into the Nete Canal at Viersel (see map above). For poor Koos, this supposedly innocent lock proved to be his Nemesis. Having called ahead on the VHF and been given the green light, he turned in just as the wind caught the Vereeniging and pushed her into the wall, but rather than merely thumping the side, we almost seemed to climb the lock gates before sliding back into the water. I felt, rather than saw, the crunch, and the lock keeper left his office perch to come down and make sure we hadn't done his gates any damage. Fortunately all was well and we tied up, but Koos was mortified, feeling responsible for the error. With no bow thruster and such strong wind gusts, it was pretty much inevitable, but still embarrassing for him.

But then Nemesis struck again and when we started descending, Koos's rope got caught. For a moment it seemed he couldn't free it and we started to get hung up. I rarely see my skipper lose his cool but the urgency in his voice as he called the lock keeper to stop emptying had me thoroughly alarmed. Thankfully, the water gods were on his side in his fight with Nemesis, and the rope slid out and released itself. We dropped with a bit of a thump, but it could have been so much worse and it was with great relief that we exited the lock into the peaceful calm of the Nete Canal.

We'd thought of making our way to Lier or even further, but after five kilometres a blessedly perfect quay wall appeared close to where Google told me there was an open Spar grocery. A glass of wine was in order to celebrate our arrival and to soothe any frayed nerves. It was 5.30 p.m., the end of day five and we were still on schedule for completing the journey in eight days. The next three would bring their own excitements, but for now, we'd had ours; the last hours had been quite interesting enough and it was time to stop.

A blessedly perfect quay wall near a Spar

Well, I hope you've enjoyed these two days of our journey, allemaal. Next time, I'll complete the story, I promise, but for now, have a great week!