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| 68 km, 2 locks, 1 lift bridge |
It poured
with rain the whole night long. We had set the alarm for 7.00 intending to
leave at 8.00 but it was so miserable that we delayed our departure until
9.15. The rain had stopped but it was
still heavily overcast and very dark.
We had a long day ahead, 68 km of big waterways which would take about 8
hours so we had to get moving. We had
one lift bridge to go through at Moerbrugge, just before Bruges, which stops
operating at 18.00. While checking up on
that I discovered that after the 1st October the bridges around Bruges do not
open on Sundays. So we will have to
spend 2 nights at Moerbrugge – oh well, we get a chance to do some exploring by
bike tomorrow.
Our route
today was not the most picturesque. The
wide River Schelde is pretty enough,
and 10 km or so of the Gent-Oostende Canal
before Bruges is interesting, but the rest is nothing to rave about - apart
from the fact that we like seeing the big commercial barges.
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| Rather artistic graffiti under a bridge |
We were
going downstream with the current and had the wind behind us for a lot of the
day so we were managing 10km/hour at times.
The sun came out by midday and temperature climbed up to 18C. We arrived at Moerbruggebrug just before
17.00 so got through with plenty of time to spare. We were disappointed to see
the whole quay taken up by huge commercial barges, even the section reserved
for pleasure craft. Well, we just had to
tie up alongside one of them. As we
approached a barge called Rubis two guys (captain and crew I presume) came out
to take our lines. I started speaking to
them in Flaams (Nederlands) and they answered in French, so I switched to
French. They seemed to be delighted and
were very “sympathique”. As we tied up
they asked how long our boat is and said the space between them and the next
barge is 10m and they would help us slot in there, which they did, taking our
lines to the shore and pulling us in. You
see, the French are really nice.
There is a
tiny village here with a church, a frituur (chip shop), butchery and
delicatessen. And a fair in the little village square!
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| The fun of the fair |
According to our navigation chart book there
is a huge nature reserve with lots of castles dotted around it, seems like good
bike riding territory.
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