The Storm.

On the night of 27th June, following a record breaking week long heat wave, a wind storm swept across Northern France. 

A mighty bankside willow is shattered by the storm

As I write, we are waiting at Le Gard having reached the summit level of the Sambre a l'Oise canal. The VNF, 'Voies Navigables de France' have halted our onward navigation, while they try and clear swathes of trees that have fallen across the waterway. This we are told may take another week. 

At Berlaimont we wait for a passage to be cleared ahead. 

Having been given clearance by the VNF to move on from Berlaimont to climb the final 6 locks to the summit, we soon come to another complete blockage forcing us to back track and wait again.

No way past this one

Once cleared by the VNF,

we slowly pass the same tree a few days later.

Even getting this far has been a challenge. For the past week, passages that should have taken only a couple of hours have taken all day. We have seen very few fellow cruisers on the move.

Cutting our way through branches tangled in the rudders

Not often I get to play in the dinghy

 There is no longer any commercial traffic on this part of the Sambre and maintenance has become a low priority. At tick over we have been wriggling around fallen trees. At one point a sapling tree right across the canal managed to tangle between our props and rudders. My own efforts to cut it clear was helped by a VNF crew who came to our aid, and on a Sunday! 

Two VNF crew turned out on a Sunday.

This stubborn liittle tree had lodged itself 

between our props and the rudders.

Lack of traffic has also allowed weed to take hold

We manage to brush past most of these fallen trees

Ecluse no 1 Top lock

On the summit level at last.

At Ecluse No 1 we reach the summit level. It will be downhill from here to Paris. That is, once they let us move again !!

I take the bike to check out the canal ahead.

I even spot this weed-eater, 

 working on the lower reaches 

At Le Gard, we wait with other craft.

 Under clear blue skies and another spell of 30+ temps.

A voice in my ear suggests that we could have taken an easier route.

Of Turtles and Trams

 June has been a month of contrasts, Belgium recorded their coldest and hottest ever days within the same month.  As I write we are moored in Hautmont, melting in a Europe wide heat wave.

A very welcome shady bankside mooring in Jeumont  

Having reluctantly turned back from our planned route South via the Dender and Blaton- Ath canals, we revisited Tounai, Peruwelz and Thieu, making our way to the Sambre route into France cruising through Wallonia, the French speaking region of Belgium.

Approaching the Streppy-Thieu lift 

Moored up inside the chamber, and

 about to be lifted 75m less than 15 mins

  The Streppy-Thieu lifts us to the summit level and the coal fields of La Louviere. This waterway has in the past been an essential conduit to carry this fuel North to Brussels and South to heavy industry in Charleroi. Now the mining spoil hills beside the waterway are green and tree covered.

Industry shows its face as we cruise smartly through Charleroi

Abbaye d'Aulne, a church was founded on this site in 657 

Not far up river from industrial Charleroi are the ruins of the Abbaye d'Aulne marking a change to a forested and rural lanscape. The abbey built in 1250 as part of a Cistercian monastry was largely destroyed in 1794 during the French revolution. A brewery now occupies part of the grounds.

We welcome the sight of the smaller locks

The Walloons have a pride in their region of Belgium 

We even spot a turtle by the riverbank

The lush green lanscape of the Sambre river.

   I confess to being a railway nut, so an extra day was called for in the riverside town of Thuin, in Wallonia but close to where the Sambre crosses the border into France. Here a private museum houses trams and they play trains every Sunday through the Summer. We ride several noisy kms into the countryside aboard a diesel powered Tram, one of many built post war powered by re-purposed Sherman tank engines. 

At Thuin, they bring the trams out on Sundays 

This electric tram once graced the streets of Brussels.

This diesel powered tram uses a salvaged Sherman tank engine.

On special occasions they fire up a steam tram. 

Beautifully restored wagons inside the tram museum  

 At Jeumont we cruise across an unmarked border into France, leaving the manned locks of Belgium behind and taking on a remote controller at the first French lock. 

The 'Telecomander' enables us

 to remotely control each lock opperation

While at Hautmont I take the proper train two stops up the line to Le Quesnoy, This town holds a strong affiliation with New Zealand, having been liberated by a New Zealand brigade in Novenber 1918, in a remarkable manner. The 2000 Germans garrisoned there were taken by surprise by just a few Kiwis who had scaled a long ladder around the back of town, and convinced the defenders that they were surrounded. not a single civilian in the town lost their lives. 

These massive high walls and a wide moat 

enclose the town of Le Quesnoy

Vauban fortified this strategic town back in 1668   

Inside this Kiwi museum, is the story of the town

 and its liberation after four years of sometimes brutal occupation. 

Weta workshop (in NZ) created this 4 times lifesize 

replica of a Kiwi rifleman.  

A symbolic ladder reaches up through the museum

The town, twinned with Cambridge (NZ) 

shows respect to their Kiwi liberators 

It was at this point that the Kiwis scaled the wall.

Evening light at Soire sur Sambre, it is 11pm mid summer.

 Once this heat wave passes, we will climb to the Sambre summit level, before heading downhill to Paris.

Flanders

It is May and wild poppies are blooming everywhere in Flanders, poignant reminders of the human carnage that took place on this same soil, in the 'War to end all wars'.  What have we learned?

Waterside and among the thistles are banks of scarlet blooms.

For our shakedown cruise we made our way up the less travelled waterway to Ypres. It is 14 years since we last moored up in the town basin.  Walking the cobbled streets, the dramatic history of the town becomes very real. The town centre has been rebuilt exactly as it had been before 'The Great War'. The fleeing city fathers took the original plans with them. 

Ypres, Menin Gate, and one of the pair of replicated lions. 

Thousands of Anzac and commonwealth troops marched past this lion to the front line and never returned. The original Lions were gifted to Australia.  

Every evening at 8pm, hundreds gather at the gate.

The town falls silent as buglers sound the 'Last Post'

Inscribed on the walls of this gateway are the names of each of the close to 500,000 commonwealth servicemen who never returned  

Evening light behind Ypres old cloth hall.

From Ypres we retraced our route through Diksmuide to Nieupoort and through Passendale, a springtime of green fields, where mud and trenches had once filled the landscape 

The sea 'Sluis' at Nieuwpoort became strategic defense weapons. 

As the German army advanced eastwards along the coast, the Belgian afterguard opened three massive floodgates and turned the lowland of Passendale into swampland and literally bogged down any further advance, defining the front line for 3 years. 

Brugge city quay and customs houses.

 The city's wealth was derived from the cloth trade

The picture book city of Brugge was mostly spared the devastation suffered by the front-line towns just a few miles to the west. Tourism is now their primary industry.  A friendly lock keeper tipped us off to visit the 'Vlissinghe', the 'Oldest pub in Belgium' dating back to 1515 and off the tourist radar. 

Well-worn steps lead to a back yard 

The Vlissinghe is well hidden down a back street

I get to sample a Brugge beer

 beneath a portrait, reputedly of the original owners.

After a few heatwave days in Brugge, we cruised to Ghent where, on a stormy day dawn, we lock out onto the tidal Scheldt at high water to ride the strong flowing ebb tide for three hours and lock into the Dender river. This will take us South and into Wallonia, where we take a right turn onto the Canal du Centra, Thieu, Saneffe, and the Sambre into France later in June. Our cruising plan for the season is taking shape. 

An early start to catch the tide, Merelbeke Sluis.

For three hours we see no other boats, 

Where is everyone?

The Stadhuis Dendermonde, they do love their flags.

 

After the stress of the tidal Scheldt, we took time to explore Dendermonde, a hidden gem. A strategic riverside town settled in the Bronze age, fortified by the Romans, sacked by the Vikings, re-fortified by Napoleon. Garrisoned by Wellington, flattened in WW1, authentically rebuilt in medieval style and within commuting distance to Brussels.    

Minstrels with a story

A hand crafted 'Hurdy Gurdy' 

a very different string instrument

We happened on a medieval gathering in the square including this minstrel couple.

Both of these medieval instruments were hand made by the husband, both the 'mid-European' pipes and an authentic replica 'Hurdy-Gurdy'     

As I close off this post, we are in Aalst on the river Dender held up by lock repairs just a few kms ahead of us. We are informed that this may take two more weeks to fix. We are faced with a change of plan, retracing our route through Ghent and Southwards via Tournai.