July 2026 – part 1 (1st to 15th)
We began July still in Meppen, with another two nights to go at our current location at the Ems-Brucke, followed by another move on 3rd July back to the jetty outside of the Via Plaza hotel. Finally however on 6th July we departed the town to continue along the Dortmund-Ems Kanal, with our first anticipated stop at Lingen.
By now, after our extended time in Meppen with no available services, we were extremely low on water so we hoped to fill up at one of the two locks along our route – unfortunately that proved (almost) fruitless as the first lock seemed to no longer have any refilling facilities, and the second lock had a tap which although we could use it, we had to hurry as the lock needed to be prepared for a following commercial! In the end we topped up with a meagre few days worth of water .. by then that was absolutely better than nothing!
Anyhow, some four hours after our departure we arrived at our expected mooring, just ahead of the Altenlingerbrücke outside of Gasthaus Altenlingen, and settled in for the duration.
The following day I walked into Lingen with Pip, and noticed a WSV yard with a water tap, and decided it was worth a trip to attempt a tank-fill, plus there was a nearby supermarket along the way to top up supplies. Now two days into our much depleted water supply, we set off the next day to the boatyard, and – joy of joys – the supervisor was happy for us to fill up. The relief was palpable! From there it was a quick move across the canal to an ‘unauthotised’ mooring where we stopped to get out shopping at a relatively close store, before returning to our mooring at Altenlingerbrücke.
For the rest of our extended stay here we had a lovely peaceful time, interrupted only by a canal workboat advising that this mooring was for the days only!! However, after I had explained our predicament he contacted his supervisor and we were fully given permission to stay until the 18th. Phew! That could have been problematic otherwise.
A small cruiser came along a little later and moored literally behind us, almost touching our stern for some reason (the quay was around 80 metres long, and there was no-one else here). He too had to stop because of the lock closures further on. Anyway, we all settled in for the duration. Whilst I had the spare time, I carried on with boat maintenance, sanding, painting etc, so was pretty much occupied for most of the time.
So life continues until the last day of this part 1 in July, when it was Nicki’s birthday. For a change we took a bus ride into the nearby town of Lingen to visit it’s market day. It turned out to be quite a pretty area, bigger than we had expected too.
After a stroll around the market stalls and a few shops, we found a popular-seeming bakery/cafe and settled in for a birthday treat of coffee and delicious cakes.
Over the past few weeks, due to our own issues with walking and also Casper’s health issues, not too mention the intense heat, Nicki and I had settled into a daily routine whereby I took both dogs out for a brief pre-breakfast walk, and then a little later I took just Pip out for a much longer morning walk whilst Nicki took Casper for a couple of very short, very slow bursts along the cycle path. In the afternoon we repeated the process with them, and finally Nicki took them out together for a walk before we all settled down for the night. We had found some vast forested areas not too far away, which was great for Pip, and she usually ended her walk with a swim just before getting back in board, which she needed by then after all her running around. We were still keeping Casper’s exercise as low key as possible, because of the increasing lack of mobility in his hind quarters, his age and the heat, he was really struggling to walk any distance. Plus his stomach issues meant we didn’t let him into the canal/river water these days so that he didn’t pick up any bugs that could make him worse.