August 2025 – Part 2 (16th to 31st)
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Our first night’s stay on this island was peaceful despite a fair amount of movement on the water, and we woke to a cooler day which was spent ‘housekeeping’ (ie tidying, putting paperwork in order, etc) so a slow, lazy day for us.
We stayed on this island for three nights in the end, which was a pleasant stop for both us and the dogs, with a 30 minute stroll taking in the whole perimeter and a shallow beach area along the way (Pip loved this bit of the walk).
On18th August we set off toward Woudsend/Lemmer (to be decided), on another hot, still day. The journey was very, very nice with some pretty scenery, and after an hour or so we arrived at De Rekken, a large marina/camping site in Woudsend, where we thought we’d briefly stop for a pump-out and water fill. Whilst there however, we enquired with the marina office about overnight space, and (although they didn’t ‘normally’ take in boats of our size) they booked us in for a two night stay along the riverside. This was a very pleasant albeit extremely busy part of the river, but it provided free electricity that we took great advantage of, using the washing machine, the dishwasher, electric kettle … if it was electric powered, it got plugged in!
Woudsend was a small town, seemingly mostly comprising a large marina, a vast campervan, caravan and tenting area, and holiday lodges, so not much to see or do, but that was fine with us.
Moving on on 20th, we cruised along the Sleathemer Gat river until we reached Sloten, where we had last visited in 2021. We slid into a nice spot alongside a large grassy stretch of moorings run by a recreational park.
From here we walked into the pretty little town centre, a walled miniature city which apparently has an ‘onion shape’ and spent a short while walking around the canals before returning home. Sloten has retained the appearance of a traditional village, surrounded by what was the original defence dyke and with one small central dyke. The moorings location was very pleasant, and although virtually full of other boaters when we arrived, the site was almost empty by the end of our second day there – it seemed that school holidays were just about over and everyone was heading home to prepare for the start of term again.
From Sloten we made our way to Lemmer, just an hour and a half away, having to pay a €3 bridge charge as we passed.
Arriving at Lemmer we took some time to decide on our night’s mooring, setting up nicely on the outskirts of the main town before changing our minds and pushing on a (very) short way, through another bridge (with another €3 passage charge) and out the other side to seek and find a brief stopping point for us to quickly access shops for supplies, and continue on again. The town of Lemmer was geared up for boating and it’s many crews, and the main street was effectively the canal route through the centre.
However this mooring turned out to be pretty good for us, so in the end we decided to stay the night. With time to spare Nicki found there was a Wash.me public laundry machine nearby, and we grabbed one of our super sized blankets to get it clean (for Bob and Jane’s imminent arrival), and whilst waiting for the wash cycle to complete we strolled along an historic ships dock to admire it’s lovely boats. Returning to Shensi later, we noticed that there was a music festival happening on the town’s beach for two nights … we didn’t actually need to be at the venue to be able to listen to some of the music and concert goers, which went on till 1am!
Pushing on towards Zwolle where we were due to meet up with Bob and Jane in a week’s time, we left Lemmer (yet another bridge charge, this time €7) in the morning, passed out of the town through the Lemstersluis, and soon arrived at the Friesesluis, the lock that connected us with the Lemstervaart canal in Flevoland.
The weather had clouded over a little by then, but it was dry so that was fine, and we made that day’s journey in an hour and twenty minutes before finding a mooring for the night at a quayside in Bant.
This was definitely not the most charming location – we appeared to be next to a storage facility for old holiday chalets, within an industrial area – but it was quiet and unpopulated with space for the dogs to mooch around unhindered.
Heading out for a walk later in the day we came across a nice open space (possibly designated for a building site, so the sandy ground was mostly cleared with some surveying posts dotted around) that led onto a woodland walk. After a peaceful night we decided to stay another day and night there, and spent our time clearing up, storing away the inflatable and the paddleboard and generally tidying up in readiness for our next visitors.
Our next stop was Emmeloord which is located in a polder (land reclaimed from the IJsselmeer) at the intersection of the drainage canals of Lemstervaart, Urkervaart and Zwolsevaart. It’s a relatively modern town with a water tower at it’s centre that contains a 48 bell carillon.
From there after two nights, we continued to Marknesse, coming across a mooring just in front of the Marknessesluis, and settled in for a night or two behind a small cruiser. Just behind us the staging was in dire need of repair with a warning sign in place, but that didn’t stop an elderly couple mooring behind us in that area! Unfortunately the gentleman needed a walker to get off, and to exit his boat onto safe boards he needed to be as close to us as possible (his bow was touching us and almost in our stern window!), despite us squeezing Shensi as close to the cruiser in front – and then, wouldn’t you know it, the cruiser crew returned and headed off. So after all the angst of the previous 40 minutes, we moved Shensi forward into the vacated slot which left plenty of room for our elderly neighbour to position his boat just as he liked it.
Despite all the changes, the mooring proved to be an ideal location for us (albeit a section of the staging was falling apart!) – it was close to the sluis, right next to some great walks for the dogs and with the town centre a mere 10 minute walk away.
Having enjoyed our two day stay in Marknesse we moved off on a nice sunny morning and headed towards out next destination of Hasselt. The journey was somewhat longer than recent trips – around four hours – and as we arrived at Hasselt we were lucky enough to moor alongside an empty stretch of quay at the heart of the busy dock. We soon found out that this day was the final day of a week’s celebration for the town, known as the Euifeest, so it seemed as though this might be an interesting stop and we set off into the centre. As we left the boat though, the heavens opened so we made a dash to a nearby bar to sit it out with a coffee, along with many other like-minded others! Once the rain died away though, we headed back out and wandered the streets, enjoying all the sights and sounds of the town – decorations in trees and hung along the streets, musicians, dj stands, ‘space hopper’ jousting across the canals, a market, artisan stalls, and a few kiddies’ carboot sales, to mention just some of what was going on.
Arriving back at Shensi we were surprised to see a lovely, big old ship moored directly in front of and pretty close to us.
Now wondering if we were on a quay for historic ships, we noticed a vacated space a little further behind us and decided to relocate there, which as it turned out luckily took us marginally further away from all the action. This turned out to be a good move – as the evening wore on, a big funfair (less than 100 metres away) ramped up in activity and noise, fireworks and a laser light show began, not to mention the family groups and children collecting on the quay side and the late night revellers. Oh yes, it was all going on, and despite Nicki’s optimism that it would stop at around 11pm, in fact it was closer to 2am before things quietened down. Ah well, we could sleep the next night!
So, wth a rather tired start to the last day of August, we set off for Zwolle, making good time on a pleasant, warm morning, and easily finding our planned mooring spot in the town centre. After some final prep and a quick shop, we later walked over to the train station to await the arrival of Bob and Jane. They were two of the last to exit the platform, looking tired after an extremely early start to their day but glad (I hope) to have finally arrived.
A half hours walk later we were all ensconced on Shensi, and Bob and Jane were able to settle on board and rest up for the remainder of the day. Lots of chatter, food and drinks was then followed by a quieter evening and an early night, this time much more peaceful and comfortable than the preceding one.
