No culture or sightseeing today, you may be relieved to hear. In fact, it was a day for making a passage, rather than mooching about town: 56 kilometres from Meppel to Assen according to the computer navigation programme, and mostly the canal was dead straight. And it rained, almost incessantly. The Dutch are, however, not put off by a little rain: rather like the Scots in that respect. Here are a couple of intrepid towpath cyclists:
The canal was pleasantly bucolic – the occasional scent of cow, and plenty of horses, which are obviously very popular here.
There were six locks to negotiate during the day, each lifting us about two metres. Inevitably the rain came on hardest as we were passing through and needing to be out on deck. But we have the appropriate clothes. The three locks in the morning were negotiated in company, and since they are quite small on this canal, it was quite interesting fitting three boats in. But all went well.
The Dutch, on the canals at least, are quite like the French in their attitude to lunch. They are in favour of it, and everything stops at noon for an hour. No problem there. We stopped too, of course, and the break was welcome.
As well as the locks, there were plenty of lifting bridges on the canal, but they are all manned, and the operators were alert to our approach – perhaps warning each other by phone. So there were no delays.
Here we are about to set off after lunch on our fourth lock of the day, once the people coming down have emerged:
Did I mention that it was raining quite a lot?
We made it to Assen just as the navigating day was coming to an end at 5 p.m., and found a comfortable berth in the harbour in the town centre:
Tomorrow we will press on to Groningen, where a certain amount of shopping will be required. Provisions are running a little low. We also need a new gas cylinder, which may be a problem. Ours are all French, and unfortunately the EU Single Market has failed, so far, to standardize the fittings on gas bottles – so we will see.
No comments:
Post a Comment