Ladeuze, Ath, Pont Tenre, Lessines and Geraardsbergen (25/06 to 17/07)
25th June – We ended up staying at the lovely Ladeuze on the Blaton-Ath canal for almost two weeks. As we had remembered, it was a very quiet location, with water and electricity available along the mooring – normally there would be a charge for this mooring but due to the Covid19 lockdown, so far this season no-one had been visiting to collect the charges. However, on our last night someone turned up to resume collections! The charge was a whopping 10 Euros a night including services, but because of the situation they were only charging from that night on …. so despite being honest and telling them that we had been there for some while, 10 Euros was all we had to pay for the whole two weeks, which we were quite happy with, especially as we hadn’t had to pay fees anywhere for the past six weeks until that point.
The location was great, very peaceful and calm, with just the odd cruiser occasionally pulling in behind us for a night or two.
At the far end of the moorings was an old style barge that turned out to be an Air B&B run by some locals, which seemed to be very popular, and nearby was a bar, a restaurant and a small supermarket, plus some fabulous walks along the canal in and around the villages – Nicki’s particular attraction though was a home nearby with an incredibly friendly dog that was so excited whenever it heard or saw her. I think she would have happily stayed even longer just to continue to see him everyday!
7th July – Eventually though, it was time to move on and so we arranged with the lock-keepers, Phillipe and Oliviere, that we would leave the following day and continue onto Ath, passing through the remaining six locks (ecluses 16-21).
Of course I had to show myself up almost immediately by getting a rope locked whilst tying up in a lock – as the water level dropped and Shensi surged backwards, the rope became trapped and she quickly ended up partially suspended by just one breast line between a bollard and a cleat. (With hindsight it was probably not my best idea to use a cleat to secure a line to the quayside bollard, but everything is a learning curve isn’t it?) Anyway, that was an incredible heartstopping moment for all of us, but thankfully the rope snapped (before the cleat was ripped off the boat or we tipped over completely), followed by an enormous splash as Shensi dropped back into the water, rocking quite viciously from side to side until she eventually settled down – surprisingly though, only one thing was dislodged inside the boat. Nicki and I were expecting complete devastation when we eventually did check out the interior, but we were happy to find that was not the case.
After that ‘minor’ incident we reached Ath with no other issues, finishing our travels for the day by mooring up just after the last lock of the canal, very close to the centre of town. Phillipe had been a very friendly companion on the trip, and invited Nicki and I along to a local bar run by one of his daughters, so once we were all secured he collected us in his van and drove us over (maybe he thought I needed a strong drink after my less-than-perfect start to the day) for an hour or so. On leaving he invited us back again in the evening to meet his wife and both daughters, so (although due to Covid19 we were a little hesitant about mixing with others) we wandered over later and had a very enjoyable evening meeting up with Phillipe, his family and his friends, until tiredness (and perhaps a beer too many) got the better of us and we wandered back to the boat and bed.
The next day a cruiser pulled in ahead of us, and a lovely couple (Jill and Roger, who we had met previously in Bruges) popped by to say hello, returning later for a few drinks before dinner. Obviously we discussed locations and they pointed us in the direction of Pont Tenre, not too far away, as a good stopover, so with no fixed plan Nicki and I decided to head over there the following day.
9th July – An hour’s cruising saw us tying up at Pont Tenre at a lovely reasonably sized grassy bank, backing onto a restaurant garden and with free range for Casper. This was a very pleasant mooring, quiet and some nice walking along the cycle track on the other side of the river. Nicki got chatting to a guy from a house by the lifting bridge who turned out to be a chef at the restaurant, and he kindly offered to take us out in his car if we needed any food shopping or help of any sort. And later that evening he came over with a box of eggs laid by his chickens – how nice was that.
Anyway, we stayed there for two nights, just enjoying the scenery and the peace and quiet, before moving on again.
11th July – From Pont Tenre we made our way on to Lessines, where we stayed for just the one night, just long enough to re-stock our cupboards and sit in the cafĂ© gardens of Hospital Notre Dame a la Rose (where historically flowers and plants were grown and used for medication).
12th July – We had arranged with the Locking Team to be ready to depart at 10 today, and they stayed with us most of the way to Geraardsbergen. Once at this town we found that we could go now further for the next five days due to works taking place on a bridge in the town, but that was fine – we rocked up at a mooring almost as far from the lock gates as possible, with just one other barge behind us, which turned out to belong to another Brit, Andrew, along with his little Westie.
Geraardsbergen was built on both sides of the river Dender, and on one side is a very steep climb up narrow horizontally-cobbled streets to the top of a hill where you can look over the town from The Wall of Geraardsbergen – apparently this was part of the cycle route of the Tour of Flanders, and very fit cyclists still push themselves to get to the top. We walked, and that was bad enough!
17th July – Today is the day the lifting bridge in the town re-opened, and we were able to set off again, passing through Geraardsbergen lock – possibly the most badly maintained lock we had come across in Belgium, or indeed anywhere – and head off along the Dender towards Ninove.