It was
almost midday before we finally got away from Maastricht: despite our best
intentions, much of the morning was spent trying once more to resolve our
connection problems. It turned out that the Mobile Internet dongle we bought
yesterday from Vodafone was defective: It had been the last one in stock so
they could not exchange it and instead they refunded the full price. We wandered
around searching for a replacement, until a nice man in a phone repair shop
said why did we want a dongle? Why not just get a data SIM card and put it in
the mobile phone and set the phone up as a WiFi hotspot? It sounded too good to
be true, but it seems to be working. So far, so good.
Once out of
the basin we set off along the Julian canal, almost dead straight for 35
kilometres, with much barge traffic and plenty of industrial sites. Not the
most interesting of voyages. The sky was good, though. Reminded me of a
Vlaeminck painting:
On the
painterly theme, are these trees Van Gogh-ish?
And here’s
a bridge across the canal – who painted bridges?
We finally
reached Maasbracht, which is one of the largest inland ports in Holland. It
also has the deepest locks – more than 11 metres. There are three chambers and
we were in the smallest, with this barge and a couple of other cruisers:
At the top
And at the
bottom – Hunze leaves in a hurry.
Apparently
the weather forecast for tomorrow is better. We will be back on the river,
cruising around Roermond, which has lots of lakes etc. Not sure if it will be
swimming weather, as hoped, but we’ll see.
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