On our own again

Our final mooring place proved even better than expected, and we had a long leisurely dinner on the bank. This morning we were away punctually to return the hire boat, and then we headed off down river towards Breukelen for Leslie and Ethan to catch their train. Here’s Leslie enjoying the taxi ride:

However, Breukelen proved a problem. The canal shown on the map would have taken us down to the major Rhine-Amsterdam canal, which we needed to cross to get to the station, but turned out to be tiny and quite impossible for Saskia. So after inquiries, it seemed best for Leslie and Ethan to take the bus to Utrecht, and pick up their train there. Here we are heading for the bus stop:

And a fond farewell:

After that we decided to head further back towards Utrecht to a place where we could indeed get onto the big canal, which we then sailed up for a while - not too much commercial traffic at the weekend - before turning off towards another big plassen, this time Vinkeveen.

We passed a windmill turning vigorously in the breeze, though of course it doesn’t really show:

We had to cross the lake, and there were lots of people out sailing and generally enjoying the summer weather.

Then it was up the little, narrow, shallow and winding Winkel river for a bit ...

... before eventually finding a mooring on the outskirts of Oudekerk. We have decided not to do Amsterdam immediately, and we are heading generally west towards Haarlem, and then north, before circling round for Amsterdam in a week or so.