Planes, trains, boats and things: a trip through northern Poland – part 1

I'm later than ever this week, but that's because we've been away and travelling light, so I only had my tablet with me.

I don't know about you, but I am incapable of typing anything more than a few comments on a touch screen keyboard. Even then I make so many mistakes I spend more time correcting what I've written than writing it. But I digress as usual. What it's meant is that I haven't managed to write my usual blog (a.k.a waffle).

Still, I hope it's worth waiting for because we've had the most wonderful time. I wouldn't really call it a relaxing week. When you're tramping from train to bus to tram, and much of that time with a rucksack that seems to start out light but gets heavier with every step, the whole exercise can be quite tiring. But it's been oh so worth it in the richness of the experience. I'll divide the trip into three posts (or maybe four) as there's so much to tell and show, I couldn't possibly fit it into one. As it is, this will probably be too long (as usual, I hear you think).

Anyway, I've long wanted to go to the Elblag Canal. I saw a video of it a few years ago and decided that one day I would have to get there. The canal's five inclined planes are almost unique navigational devices and they are a monument to 19th century engineering. It was definitely at the top of my bucket list. Koos beat me to it earlier this year, but since he said he didn't mind doing it again, we made it our first stop on this trip.

After flying to Gdansk courtesy of Wizzair, we took the train to Elblag, a surprisingly long journey of around two hours from the airport (taking transfers and waiting times into account). I tend to forget Poland is such a large country and distances that look just a hop and a skip on the map can be much further in reality. Add to it that the train doesn't take a direct route, it seems even further. We arrived to what appeared to be the beginnings of a celebration and watched with interest as market stalls of the arts and crafts type were being set up in the attractive main streets. Elblag was severely damaged during the war and aftermath, but its old town has been beautifully recreated in the traditional style. We were lucky to be staying right in its centre.

It transpired we had arrived at the beginning of the Breads Festival, an event held to mark the end of the summer holidays. It was certainly a feast for the eyes with the locally produced honeys, cheeses and (of course) breads on display. Here are a few photos of the street market.

Most of those beautiful town houses are new, but here are a couple that are genuinely old: the original market place clock tower and the church, which is undergoing restoration.

The following day, Friday, dawned clear, sunny and hot. We'd booked a trip on the canal and were up early to walk the few hundred metres to the quay where the boats awaited us. It seems there are always two boats moored in Elblag and another two at the end of the stretch of canal with the five inclined planes we were due to ascend. It takes the whole morning to do the thirty-six odd kilometres, so as two boats leave Elblag, the other two do the return journey ready to turn round and do the reverse run in the afternoon. The video shows what it's like to descend one of the inclined planes; we would be ascending and I couldn't wait.

I was so excited I pestered Koos to make sure we were there early. In fact the two boats were scheduled to leave at 09:15 and 09:35. We were booked on the second one, so we watched as others boarded the first and took their leave. They wouldn't let us on the earlier boat even though I asked. "No," the skipper said firmly. "We have full." I smiled. It was nice of him to try and speak English. I couldn't have said that in Polish for sure.

Our boat was Marabut (like the video)

Passengers boarding

A prospective passenger checks the details

Maybe next time? Dogs aren't allowed, sadly

The trip itself was just magical. We wound our way along the very pretty canal until we reached lake Druzno. This is a magnificent nature reserve dedicated to the conservation of bird life and nature. The channel through the lake is carefully marked, a necessary guide as I'm sure it's too shallow in many places.

As we crossed it, there were carpets of lilies, walls of reeds and a profusion of bird life. With the sunlight sparkling on the water, it was a haven of peace and tranquillity. Once we were off the lake, though, the excitement began. We still had to follow a few kilometres of canal before we reached the first of the inclined planes, so the waiting added to the thrill when we saw the first one up ahead.

I've been down the huge 1700m slope of Ronquières in Belgium, but that is designed for commercial use and you trundle down (or up) hill in a huge bath on wheels, so you stay in the water. Here in Elblag, the boat manoeuvres into a cradle that sits under water. This is then pulled out and up onto the rails, so it's like travelling up hill above the ground. A huge slipway, in fact. Amazing. The size is quite restrictive (a maximum of 2m 80cm at the boat's base) and sadly neither of our barges would fit in the cradle, so joining a passenger boat is the only way for us to experience them.

I must say the first of the slopes on our trip was definitely the most nerve wracking as it felt quite unsteady, but it wasn't the steepest. Luckily by the time we reached that one (number 4), I was convinced it was all quite safe.

The scenery was gorgeous and we were so lucky with the weather, which was wall to wall sunshine the whole day. We watched out for the buildings housing the big water wheels that drove the pulleys by means of cables. Then the water used for the pulley mechanism flowed into ducts. It then flowed down hill to be fed into the level below, thereby conserving the canal depths. It was fascinating to see how it all worked.

I love mechanical constructions and this one really appealed to me. At first sight, it looked really simple, but it must have taken a great engineering mind to conceive of it in the first place (said to be Georg Steenke, apparently of Dutch extraction).

The whole trip from beginning to end took just under four and a half hours. We were then taken in buses back to Elblag, a ride of less than half an hour, which just tells you something about the pace of boat travel.

Apologies for those who have seen these on Facebook, but here are some of the photos I took:

View leaving Elblag

 

Entering lake Druzno

A wildlife paradise in Lake Druzno

One of the other trip boats on the return journey
coming down the plane

And on it goes

Pulley at the lower level

Quite a view from the top of the slope

Pulleys and cables driven by the water wheel (housing just visible on the left

At the end of the journey, our boat returning with a new load of passengers

The obelisk memorial to Georg Steenke
Apparently buried during the war, but resurrected and placed here in his honour

On arrival back in Elblag, it felt as if we'd been in a different world, and so we had. Being on the canals again was like being in a kind of parallel universe.

Elblag was in the throes of its festival and the focus was on food and sampling the different goodies on offer. We were surprised how late into the evening it continued and then how difficult it was to find somewhere to eat. The evening before, we'd eaten at the hotel, a luxury we couldn't really afford to repeat. On Friday evening, we battled to find even a snack, but we managed it eventually, in a side street café that was also very busy. Unlike our hotel meal, which was delicious, this wasn't anything to write home about, but we counted ourselves lucky under the circumstances.

We went to sleep that night with the sounds of the market packing up below us, but content in the knowledge we'd had a wonderful day and experienced something that was more than special in our boaty lives. The Elblag Canal isn't widely known outside Poland (unless you're into boats, that is), but it should be. It's a marvellous day out for everyone and the Poles take full advantage of it.

The next morning, we packed our bags and headed for the station. We were on our way again, this time to Torun, which I'll post about next time.

Have a great weekend allemaal!

The great engine exchange day

Thursday was the big engine exchange day for our Hennie H. I can honestly say it all went well, until the tow boat crew, whose crane we were using, lifted our old (and, to our horror, much heavier than we thought) engine off their deck at a steep angle and oil started pouring out of the head....
Well, after leaving a nice pool of it on the loading quay where we were doing the transfer, we got it on the trailer where it was also at an angle. Although slightly anxious, I was comforted to know we had several layers of tarpaulin beneath it, so I didn't worry unduly as we didn't have far to take it. Anyway, we believed there wasn't much oil left in it given the reason it had conked out in the first place was because all the oil (we presumed) had run out of the oil cooler. We should have known better...much better.
To cut a long story short, when we lifted the engine off the trailer to store it, the trailer tipped and the oil that had been steadily leaking during our short drive poured onto the road...yes...heart failure time...and there was a lot of it, so a quick brush over with cat litter and sand wasn't going to hack it.
Not only that, we discovered the engine (being so much heavier than we'd thought) had damaged the floor of the trailer too. Since it was being lent to us as a favour, the whole situation was assuming nightmare proportions.

Anyway, we spent hours on Thursday afternoon and evening cleaning up oil (cat litter, sand, detergent, the whole lot) and the whole day again on Friday (with a high pressure cleaner), all the time praying that no one from the council would come and catch us at it (think massive fine). The upside is that the pavement and road have never been so clean (thank you, high pressure cleaner) but we were both exhausted from all the anxiety and extra work.

Koos went to eat humble pie with the trailer owner who fortunately acknowledged its floor was already rotten, so they came to a mutually acceptable financial agreement. Koos is very good at charm offensives. I think I would have been so overcome with remorse I'd have ended up paying double.
I also think I'm getting too old for all this excitement.
Here are a few pics of the exchange process.

Tugboat with hefty crane arrives to help us

Crane in position

Out comes the old engine (we had to cut open the deck)

old engine landed

Then to the loading quay nearby where we had the new engine
on a trailer

new engine hoisted

And lifted onto the tugboat

Which then went back to the HH

Old engine on trailer (note the angle)

New engine on back deck. Lots of preparation and cleaning
to do first.

Between the showers

Well it seems summer is taking a break after quite a long period of hot dry weather. August has brought the rain, which is pretty inconvenient as this is the time we are trying to do some much needed boat maintenance.

Gluttons for punishment we are, I know, but we're trying to keep the Hennie H in good order while making arrangements to replace the engine. At the same time, I'm doing my best to smarten up the Vereeniging while Koos instals an alternator to make sure that when we do eventually go faring, we can charge our batteries without using the generator or shore power. Complicated? Yes, it is rather.

You may remember that back at the end of May we bought a second hand replacement engine for the Hennie H. I wrote about the crane we also bought for hoisting it here. I have to say we are more than pleased with this incredible piece of equipment. Considering what it means to us, it was cheap at €150. It has enabled us to lift and turn the engine round in our passage and also to shift it for removing parts. There is no way on earth we could move this beast of a block without it.

The might crane and the new heart

Unfortunately, we won't be able to use it for lifting the motor onto and into the engine compartment as there's no room for it on the back deck. So, that's the next hurdle. Meanwhile, Koos has disconnected everything from the old Hanomag, and that's now ready to haul out. I've been the one fetching scalpels spanners, forceps pliers and other necessary surgical instruments with which to prepare it for the transplant. I've also been scraping, sanding and painting those parts of the boat I've been able to attack between the showers.

Then there've been the mad dashes back to the Vereeniging to work on the paintwork there. The weekend before last, I managed to scrape and paint half the foredeck before it rained.

The halfway situation

Then during the week, I kept my beady eye on the weather forecast and saw that on Thursday, it would be dry all day, so I booked a leave of absence from the Hennie H and hightailed it up to Rotterdam. After three hours of chipping old tar of the edges (a horrible job that always makes my face burn), and then a couple of hours sanding, I was ready to paint some more. I still haven't finished it, but this is what it looks like so far. The red blotches are where I've applied anti-rust treatment, which I couldn't paint over.

A bit like my skin: shiny with red blotches

Now it looks set to rain for several days, but I'm hoping I can still get a bit more paint on...it's ironic that water is a boat's greatest enemy, isn't it?

One big bright spot in the last week's activities was a trip to Gent that we made last Tuesday to see boating friends we met in France in 2017. Jude and Roger have a cruiser with the brilliant name of 'Beats Working' and they're currently pottering around Belgium at a suitably leisurely pace. We met up with them at their mooring in the centre of my favourite city and shared lots of laughter and fun as well as my first baking attempt in months, a plum and apple tart. It all went down very well (the fun and the fruit).

I said to Koos 'pick your nose or something,' so he did...clot :)

So that's the state of play this week allemaal.
Wishing you all a good week wherever you happen to be and I'll fill you in with our news and views again next week.

Great encounters of the friendship kind

One of the best things about this internet world in which we live is when we get to meet people we've been communicating with online for real. The last weeks of July gave Koos and me the chance to meet some very special people that we've 'known' for ages, but only via internet connections.

The first were Jill and Gary, fellow boaters that we know from various online barging groups. We've exchanged knowledge, jokes, comments and experiences in these groups for several years and almost met once when visiting other friends, Ann and Olly up in Groningen...well, we passed their barge on a spuddle in Wandering Snail, Ann and Olly's narrowboat. See here.

We kept missing each other while they were on their way across country (they were in Rotterdam when we weren't and vice versa). So, when Gary and Jill arrived in Sas van Gent about three weeks ago, we spent three lovely days meeting them, imbibing large quantities of coffee, walking their gorgeous dogs and generally catching up with our real lives rather than just what we'd shared online. They even took us for a trip up the canal on the Noorderzon, which was absolutely magic! Koos got to steer and Jill and I sat on the foredeck chatting. They are wonderful, inspiring people and nothing seems to daunt them.

Their barge is a beautiful craft that was formerly used to deliver to and refill the gas in the big shipping buoys, so it was built with breadth and volume and seems positively palatial in terms of space compared to the Hennie H. It was a very special  meeting and we enjoyed it tremendously. As they're on their way back to the UK (and yes, crossing the channel), we don't know if or when we will meet again, so I'm so glad we could do this. Thank you both, Jill and Gary!

The other meeting followed shortly after when I met fellow writer, Stephanie, a former author with Sunpenny Publishing, the company that produced our earlier books. Again, I've missed previous opportunities to meet Steph so knowing she and her husband were coming to Amsterdam was a chance I couldn't let go. Sadly, Koos couldn't come too as it was when he was having his dizziness problems, so I took the train to Amsterdam and sought Steph and Alan out in their hotel.

They are truly delightful people and I had a really special time with them. It was only a few hours, but enough to confirm that Steph is exactly like her internet personality and we got on like a house on fire. She's a hugely talented and prolific writer stemming from Bandera in Texas. She now lives in Scotland, so her books are very international in background and have a great sense of place as well. I can recommend checking out her colourful and lively murder mysteries here.

Alan too is an author of some rollicking good time travel adventures and I've enjoyed those I've read very much. He particularly likes the historical research that he puts into his books so you know when you read them that he's really done his homework. His books are here

Of course we had to take the usual 'author meet-up pics', especially as we don't know if we'll ever have the opportunity to meet again. These are moments we'll all remember, so forgive the happy mugshots.

Next time, I'll be writing about the latest works on both the Vereeniging and the Hennie H, which are making slow progress towards being 'vaarklaar' or 'fareworthy' again. It's all hard work, but then at least it's the summer and while we might be slow, we are getting there!

Have a good week allemaal!

Perfect peace in Picardy

I don't know if I can really express how much I love the north eastern parts of France where we've just spent a few days, especially Picardy, which speaks to me in so many ways. 

Koos and I last went on a car trip to the area in 2011 and I wrote about it here. For this mini-break, we decided on two nights at a Chambre d'Hôtes so as to spend some time revisiting places we remembered. We also wanted to do some investigating on our beloved Canal de la Sambre where we went by boat last year as far as Landrecies (which I wrote about here). Our hope is to travel its length on the Hennie Ha when a) the collapsed aqueduct at Vadencourt has been repaired and b) the Hennie Ha's engine is replaced.

Picardy is an incredibly rich agricultural bread basket. It has sweeping hills swathed in wheat and grass, contrasted with broad acres of green green kale. There are wooded copses on the crests of the rises, and valleys where lazy cattle feed on the left over hay after the harvesters have done their work. There are gorgeous villages, fortified churches, magnificent farm yards and above all, that meandering canal that itself is criss-crossed by an even more meandering river Oise. For me, it has everything I love, and love it I do.

The photos below are of the places we visited on the way down on Tuesday.

That meandering Canal de la Sambre et Oise at Oisy

A lock keeper's house at Oisy 

Etreux on the Canal de la Sambre et Oise

The canal at Etreux

Etreux

Sweeping grain fields

A water tower with a nod to art: Mathisse remembered

The Oise and a water mill outside Guise

Farm buildings in Flavigny 

A bridge over the canal de la Sambre at Longchamps, where
we ate a picnic supper

The village where we stayed was called Proisy about 10kms from Guise,  a town steeped in history, which is connected to British history too as Mary of Guise was the mother of Mary Queen of Scots. However, Proisy is about as rural as it gets and our hosts, Sylvie and Bruno, were so relaxed and unfazed about security they were quite happy to leave the doors unlocked all night. Formerly a village with a factory at its heart, Proisy is now a sleepy one street hamlet with a church, and a traditional lavoir (natural spring where the locals did their washing) but with no shops at all, not even a bakery. The house we stayed in used to be a local hostelry (an estaminet) and there was once both a bakery and a small grocer’s too. However, as with so many French villages, these have closed and the locals have to travel to Guise to do their shopping. It made me wonder how the old folk manage as there didn't appear to be much in the way of public transport either.

The villagers were very friendly and approachable and on our walk one evening, we chatted to a man who has bought a row of old cottages and is converting them to apartments. We also met the 'lady of the manor' from the chateau, a neat elderly madame who was out walking a small, but active bulldog. Apparently, she walks dogs for others in the community and we later saw her with a Labrador.

She wasn't at all grande for a grande dame and was very willing to stop and chat. I wasn't all too sure about what she was chatting as her charge for the evening was very noisy and busy.  It took her quite some effort to keep him under control, so her speech was frequently punctuated with 'viens’ and 'tiens’ and 'non', and it was hard to follow the thread. It didn't seem to matter, though. When she had finished explaining whatever it was she was telling us, she wished us a good evening and dragged her busy bossy bulldog away. A nod and a smile work in every language.

There are several houses for sale in the village, which of course got our dreaming juices going. Realistically, though, we'd be better off staying with Bruno and Sylvie or hiring the gite (holiday cottage) they are busy renovating than contemplating a purchase or long term rental in such a distant place – quite apart from the fact we’d have to sell the crumbly cottage to do so.

Guise, where we too had to go for food and shopping, is quite a complicated town to navigate. We got lost several times, which meant we saw a lot of it unintentionally – but fortuitously. It's well worth a visit. There are the remains of the old castle at the top of the hill, which we saw several times – inadvertently. Then there is a charming old centre complete with cobbled streets and winding alleys that all seem to be dead ends when you're trying to get through them. The river Oise runs around the town and there are a couple of other tributaries that tunnel their way through to meet it, so we kept coming across bridges over these streams – always a welcome surprise.

Other places we visited were Tupigny, Vadencourt and Macquigny, all situated on the Canal de la Sambre et Oise (it is also called the Canal de la Sambre à l’Oise). Sadly, we found the repairs to the aqueduct have made little progress, so even if the Hennie Ha is ready to roll next year, I doubt if we'll get further than Tupigny, which is the last village and lock  before the collapsed structure. The French waterways authorities will need to get very busy if they're to keep their promise of having it open in 2020.

Apart from that, we just revelled in the glorious scenery and the beauty of the rural villages where there were no tourists and the silence of the hot afternoon sang in the air. It had an almost surreal emptiness broken only by the occasional car roaring past. The heat was intense, in the upper thirties centigrade; on Thursday, it reached 40C. But by then we were heading home – where it was also 40C but with the added joy (not) of high humidity. 

Here are a few more photos I took during the three days we were there:

Fortified church in Monceau sur Oise

Golden straw medals in the fields. We watched the famers harvesting the wheat
and then baling the straw to make these beautiful bales

The lock at Tupigny 

Swallows on the telephone lines. It was a joy to watch them swooping
and soaring over the farm yards

Cows left to graze the remaining hay.

A WWI war memorial with fortified church in the background

The only lived in lockhouse we saw, and boy wasn't it pretty?

Zoomed in photo of this wonderful fortified church

There's so much more I could write about, but I don't want to overdo it this time. Perhaps I'll focus on some individual aspects next time. I'll see.

For now, have a good weekend allemaal and keep cool if you are in the north, or warm for those in the south.