Merelbeke to Ghent

Total 8 km, except we didn't quite get there - keep reading.

A leisurely start today, we didn't pull up our stakes till a good bit after 10.30.  It was fractionally warmer than yesterday, but really not by much, and seeing we had only a one hour trip ahead of us there was no need to rush.

As we eased along the canal we saw more and more boats just tied up to the bank like we were last night.  And some people have even smaller boats than we do - there were 3 people inside this little boat!

 It didn't take us long to get to the outskirts of Ghent.

Ian rode here last night on the bicycle, he went only about 3km from the boat and was in total city territory.

 A fork in the canal.  Which way to go -the Opperschelde to the left or the Visserijvaart to the right?  We chose the Opperschelde because it looked more interesting.

It 's getting prettier

 St Paul's Abbey, which we got well acquainted with later.

Oh dear, canal works ahead!

Elle could not get through 

So we turned around under the bridge.  Having a small boat is usefull, Elle had to reverse out to find a wide enough turning space.   We hammered stakes into the ground in the shadow of Sint Paul's. 

We took a walk to see if there is any chance we could pass the canal works after they stop for the evening, but no, none whatsoever.  Not 50m from the canal works there is a bend in the canal and this is the Ghent we came to see.

Tomorrow we will have to go all the way round the Ringvaart and enter Ghent from the West via the Leie River.  

Meanwhile Ian got back to work attacking various rust spots, but he doesn't work all the time.

I went in search of a supermarket because we needed bread and potatoes.  Off I trotted, thinking there was one just 250m or so from the boat.  After way more than that I asked for directions - which lead me all the way back to even less than 250m from the boat in the other direction!