Brugge to Oudenburg (Plassendale Canal)

21kms, 1 lock, 10 mobile bridges

At 9.00 this morning the “rolly” bridge at the entrance to the Coupure opened and we left to join the convoy on its journey through the city, with its 7 mobile bridges and 1 lock.  It was raining again.

At the first bridge (for us, 3^rd for the convoy that had started at Katelijnepoort) we had to wait for a big commercial coming in the opposite direction.

There were 7 boats in our convoy, including a beautiful tjalk.

I love this cruise around Bruges.  There is a park alongside the canal with some lovely scenery.

The little British boat ahead of us in the convoy was a bit clueless about travelliing in a convoy: hanging back too far from the boat ahead when waiting for the bridges, and in the lock they sat in isolated splendour in the middle of a wall so there was no room for another boat ahead of or behind them

And other boats had to raft up!

Nearly 2 hours later we cleared the final bridge (the Scheepsdalebrug) and tied up at a dock so we could do some shopping.  Main priority was a pair of shoes for me – I have had to throw away a pair of shoes a few days ago whose soles were completey worn through.  There is a huge discount shoe shop there, thousands of shoes, but not what I was looking for.  They also had t-shirts so I bought 2 for Ian and 2 for me - lightweight summer t-shirts – for €5 each.

The weather was still awful and we strongly considered staying there overnight and doing a longer trip tomorrow, but by 14.00 the drizzle had stopped and the sun was even threatening to appear, so we continued another 16 km

A rowing team with trainer riding alongside on a bike shouting at them

Wild flowers - Flander's poppies

A pretty canal, and very little commercial traffic

with 2 mobile bridges

Stalhille bridge - closed to marine traffic....

....and opening for us to pass underneath

to the Plassendale Lock at the entrance to the Plassendale-Nieuwpoort Canal.  This canal is also traversed in convoy and only opens at specific times.  We arrived half an hour after a convoy had left but were allowed to enter the lock to wait for the next opening time at 18.00 (an hour and a half later). But after 45 minutes a commercial barge entered  

and 10 minutes later we were under way again.   We stopped just 2 kms further along at a free pontoon at Oudenburg.