May 2025 – Part 2 (16th to 31st)
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Once in Breukelen (interesting fact – New York’s ‘Brooklyn’ area was named by Dutch settlers who arrived from Breukelen) we took a little time out to spruce things up on the boat in preparation for visitors at the end of the week – with two smelly dogs living on board, vacuuming and washing carpets took top priority! The Breukelen mooring fees included electricity, so we took full advantage and managed several washing loads, plus the dishwasher came into its own once again. Whilst there, we made the acquaintance of an American couple (Anders and Marylyn from Montana) who were on their cruiser a little further along, and enjoyed drinks and some interesting chats together.
The following day on a short foray into the town, we came across the weekly market in full swing so there was lots of hustle and bustle, sights, sounds and smells going on.
This was followed by a walk into a little park surrounding the Gemeente offices, housed in a fine looking old property.
Later on we took a walk across the river to look around the perimeter of a local privately owned chateau, and we noticed directions to a nearby forest where we were able to wander for some time in the grounds (some distance from the actual chateau). Great for the dogs, and a nice respite from the heat for us.
We spent just two nights in Breukelen before continuing along the Vecht to Maarssen, with its long stretch of busy moorings. We hadn’t expected it to be so full and there wasn’t that much free space left. However, we managed to slip in close to the entrance to Doornburgh park, which boasts a priory at it’s centre and some nice walks around the wooded areas .
After Maarssen, on 20th May we moved on to Utrecht making our way along the Vecht and through the Weerdsluis – where just to merely pass through that lock cost us €9 (€6.50 for emission free boats)!
As an aside, every spring thousands of fish swim through Utrecht’s canals and waterways searching for a place to spawn and reproduce. Weerdsluis is a manually operated lock and when the lock gates are closed, fish are forced to wait to continue their journies, wasting valuable time and energy, as well as making them easy prey for birds and predatory fish. With this in mind, to assist the fish an underwater livestream camera had been installed at the lock and can be viewed on an interactive ‘Fish Doorbell’ (Visdeurbel’) – if fish appear onscreen, you press a virtual doorbell to alert the lock keeper, who will open the lock once many fish are waiting and allow them through. The Fish Doorbell can be ‘rung’ from early March to late May – in 2024 alone the Fish Doorbell attracted worldwide viewings from around 2.7 million people. The project has gained global recognition, helping people worldwide learn about fish migration and Utrecht’s underwater world. Lucy had already mentioned this to us, so it was exciting when we realised that we were actually passing through.
Back to the blog … once out the other side of the sluis, we immediately found a mooring on a corner just in front of a working boat and under cool leafy trees, perfect on such a hot day. Disappointingly we woke the next morning only to be reminded that mooring under a lovely, leafy tree had it’s downsides, namely birdshit and tree sap all over the boat! (We later found out that this particular tree was favoured by local parakeets, whose output is apparently much higher than the usual birds – something which we can now vouch for). Despite this, we felt very lucky to pick up this space so quickly and so close to the centre. However, such convenience came at a literal cost – for a boat of our length (19 metres), one night was theoretically over €70! It appeared that Utrecht charges a premium fee just to even be in the town. Luckily though, payment had to be made at a ticket machine into which we input our own details, and it then tells you how much to pay …. that night we miraculously shrank to 10 metres, which kept the cost down to €35.88. Phew!
Utrecht proved to be a lovely, bustling city, less crowded and less bike-filled than Groningen or Amsterdam, and with lots of interesting and pretty buildings all around. Flowing through it’s centre is the Oudegracht (‘old canal’), built in the 10th century it is the oldest canalized waterway in Utrecht. Unfortunately risks of flooding meant that the street levels had to be raised, giving way to the city’s split level design – the more central riverside levels are mostly given over to cafes, bars and restaurants, but on the outer edges it all became more residential with lots of flower displays setting off the picturesque homes.
After an afternoon spent wandering along the many streets, canals and bridges, fatigue eventually overtook us and we returned to Shensi for the evening, when Nicki and I agreed that it would be a great experience to attempt taking our home through the narrow and multi-bridged river system the following day. With all the canal bridges being fixed and low and having restricted clearance, we needed to take down the wheelhouse and stern rails, and also to set off fairly early in the morning to hopefully avoid any awkward encounters with the many trip boats that stalked the waterways. This entailed an evening of dismantling, moving and/or storing as much paraphernalia as possible from the stern before we could properly settle down for the evening. The next morning we would dismantle the wheelhouse.
A decent night’s sleep meant that we rose reasonably early (for us) and set to work bringing down the wheelhouse, and were ready to set off just before 9am. The journey began with a 180′ turn to face the first of the sixteen bridges along the Oudegracht – Zandbrug , Jacobsbrug, Viebrug , Jansbrug , Bakkerbrug , Bezembrug , Stadhuisbrug , Kalisbrug , Maartensbrug , Gaardbrug , Hamburgerbrug , Weesbrug , Smeebrug , Geertebrug , Vollersbrug and Bijlhouwersbrug. It was definitely an exhilarating hour, and leaving early worked out well, the only other boats out and about being two work boats heading towards us, and a cruiser that followed us for a while until it was able to pass. All-in-all we were really pleased with ourselves, and came out the other end unscathed, having thoroughly enjoyed the trip.
Exiting the Oudegracht, we carried on twards out next mooring, making what was to be a brief wee-stop for Casper, who was getting pretty antsy by then. We pulled up at a grassy stretch next to an animal park and a social centre, and some guys sitting on a bench came over to speak with us, inviting us into the centre where we were offered free cake and coffee, and lots of interesting conversations about the centre which had opened ten years ago to that very day, aiming to provide support to vulnerable people with mental health/addiction issues, and to provide a safe space to share their experiences. The centre had been such a success for them that other similar ventures had subsequently been set up throughout the Netherlands.
Despite Pip letting us down when she leapt off the boat and immediately began barking at a few goats in the enclosure next to the centre, once her ball appeared the goats were quickly forgotten.
After a nice break there, we carried on a little further until we reached a long stretch of fairly new-looking quayside moorings – despite no indication as to whether we could stop there or how long we could stay if it was ok to do so, we moored up for the night. And then, with no outside interest at all in our presence, we decided to stay for the next few days to await Tim and Glynis’ arrival.
These moorings were outside of a fairly recently built prefabricated residential building, on the site of the former Betonmortel Fabriek Utrecht (BEFU) in the Hoograven district of Utrecht. We learned that the building was constructed within six months and residents began living inside within the year! Parts of the original industrial buildings, some dating from the 18th century, had been left standing as a reminder of the area’s history.
Whilst there, we had an opportunity to do some serious external cleaning and get everything shipshape and ready for our guests, which we achieved after a full day of hard work. However, we hadn’t banked on being joined by a family of geese – a mum, dad and their seven cute babies.
They kept their distance for a day or so, but soon we were excited to see them right next to our boat, nibbling away at the seeded soil a lot of the time, with daddy goose keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings. Our excitement notched up even further on the second evening when we realised that one of the parents had decided to take a brief stroll around the gunnels, stopping for quite some time to attack itself in our mirrored windows! It was amusing to start with, but quite sad once we realise it was getting itself fairly stressed out, plucking at it’s chest feathers and nipping at the glass.
But for us, that paled into insignificance the next morning when, after all our efforts spent washing and cleaning everywhere, we awoke to a vision of birdshit all across the salon and wheelhouse roof and along most of the gunnels! Anyway, four days after our arrival, our friends drove into the nearby parking area and joined us for the next few days, bringing with them new batteries, tins of paint and cheddar cheese. The following morning (25th) after a slow start we set off in poor weather, with a lot of rain joining us for most of the journey, cruising briefly along the Vecht, before turning into the Marwedekanaal, the Doorslag and then the canalized Hollandsche Ijssel, completing our day in sunnier weather at the small town of Montfoort.
Moving on again on their second full day with us, we had an interesting journey to Oudewater, which had works going on in various sections of the canal making passing by awkward at the best of times, downright difficult at others!
Add in a couple of boats following behind us and the odd boat heading towards us at the more challenging points, and the two hour trip seemed much longer than it was! Still, we made it in one piece and soon picked up a good mooring by an outdoor skating track, with a nice walk along the opposite bank.
After a brief lunch break, we caught a bus into nearby Gouda where we strolled through the town, looked at some historic ships moored in the main harbour and scoped out pleasure boat moorings for our next day’s stop. Once back on board, Tim and I took another couple of bus rides back to the BEFU building to collect their car so that they could be ready to leave in the morning.
After a lovely few days with Glynis and Tim, they headed off to catch up with Debs and Howard on Moondance (waiting in Reims, France), and we stayed on in Oudewater for another night. In the afternoon Nicki and I walked into the town to visit a Witches’ Museum – it was pretty interesting to watch a few films on the history of witches and see some of the documentation, plus we got to check out the scales (used as far back as the 11th century) to determine whether or not someone was in fact a witch. Nicki and I were duly weighed and happily now have a certificate to confirm that neither of us is a witch.
The town also housed a Rope Museum, but we decided to give that one a miss and settled for a coffee in the Grand Cafe instead.
Now nearing the end of May, we moved on again on 28th and joined the Turfsingelgracht which took us along to the flood gate/sluis entry into Gouda itself, where we moored inside of the town centre at the Guldenbrug for two nights.
We were lucky to find that there was a big Ascension Day market through the main square so popped out to take part and look around the stalls. It all looked very different from our visit the previous day, filled with hundreds of people enjoying the festivities.
On leaving the town we stopped to fill up the water tanks again and to make use of the pumpout station and then headed off to our final destination for May at Alphen aan den Rijn. The weather had started to warm up again so here we did some diy preparation on the dogbox ready to revarnish the woodwork.
