August 2026 – part 1 (1st to 15th)
After a restful night, we decided to spend a second night in Hattem jachthaven. Nicki and I (plus Casper and Pip, of course) took a walk into the pretty little town, taking a coffee break and picking up some shopping on the way back, and I then took the opportunity to give the boat a power wash (although the machine gave up partway through the job, and I had to continue by hand), and generally tidy up. All in all a fairly productive day.
Now on 4th August, we prepared ourselves to head off to Zwolle where Amy and Tom were to arrive later that evening … only to find that the computer wasn’t working, which meant that we had no navigation software available to us for the next leg of the journey! Despite copious amounts of time and effort trying to discover the problem (with no joy) we had to move on in order to arrive at Zwolle in time, which I was confident we could manage as we’d traveled the route a few times over the years.
The journey was relatively short, just a couple of hours, and as we approached the town there was a lot of activity on the water, wth small boats zipping around, and on passing through the final bridge, for the first time so far this year, we were faced with a busy marina with just one spot large enough to accommodate us. We quickly moored up to claim it, despite for some reason, the annoyed gesturing from a cruiser in front of us. As the afternoon wore on some boaters began to depart, so we were able to relocate further along the quay to await our guests’ arrival.
Amy and Tom made good time with their journey, and arrived at the local train station almost an hour earlier than expected at 10.15pm. Pip and I walked up to meet them, and a short while later we all arrived back on Shensi. After a little bit of chatter, we were all ready for a good night’s sleep, and settled in for the night.
In the morning we walked into Zwolle to wander round, making a very short stop in the town’s famous bookstore, the Van der Velde in de Broeren (sited in the Broerenkerk, formerly a Protestant church that was ‘withdrawn from worship’ in 1982/83 and transformed to it’s current use in 2013) with several floors of book collections and a pleasant cafe in the choir, which is overlooked by a large, colourful stained glass appliqué.
On the opposite end of the building is a Scheuer Organ, built in 1824, and embedded in the crypt are bones of a resident of Zwolle from the 15th century, known as ‘Hermen’. On the third floor, is a lifelike reconstruction of him.
From here we walked around the town for a little longer before stopping for lunch, and then returned to Shensi for the rest of the day. Amy and Tom decided to go for a ride in the inflatable and rowed around the canals (courtesy of Tom) for a while before dinner, after which we walked over to a nearby bar for a pre-bedtime drink.
Waking to another hot day, Amy and Tom set off on an early-ish morning run – Tom arrived back slightly ahead of Amy, so wasn’t around to rescue her as she returned, missed her stepping across the 12″ gap and promptly fell down between the wall and the barge!
Fortunately I was in the wheelhouse to hear her cries for help and literally give her a hand!!! She was fortunate to come out of the water with just some scrapes and bruises, but her main cause of concern seemed to be that her hair had got wet!
The plan for their second full day was to push on to the old Hanseatic town of Elburg, and despite still having no navigation aids up and running, we reached the entrance to the 450m stretch of mooring heading up to the town centre. However, as we made the turn into the waterway we could easily see that it was incredibly busy along it’s full length with no spaces in sight, and we had to give up and retrace our route out onto the Veluwemeer, a narrow stretch of lake on the way to Harderwijk.
As we motored along, Amy decided to show us (and other boaters) a few of her yoga/pole moves ….
Eventually we pulled in at an island mooring in the lake – De Raal Eiland – to spend the night, just as the weather became much cooler and a little windy.
In the morning we moved a little further along the waterway to another island – Eiland Pierland – which was larger and less occupied on arrival, although that changed rapidly as the day passed.
After setting ourselves up in a nice position, it was time to put out the paddleboard and the inflatable, and have some fun in the water. This time round we got Casper into the inflatable as well, with Pip alternating between that and the paddleboard. There was just no stopping her, she was having so much fun. Nicki tried her hand at rowing – poor Tom felt the full force of her lack of control when she literally rowed across him whilst he was swimming! Fortunately he was unhurt and saw the funny side of it.
We ended up spending two nights on the island before continuing on to Harderwijk, the final destination for Amy and Tom, and a mere two hours journey and 99% captained by Tom. We had called ahead to make sure there was a space available for us, which they confirmed, and I only had to take the helm to pass through the last bridge and to moor. Before relaxing too much, we all walked into town, and made a visit to the Van Dokkum Museum at it’s heart, where we took a very entertaining tour of some of the many paintings on show by a local artist.
Back on board and once again the dinghy and the paddleboard were deployed for our guests, and they enjoyed a little more time in the sunshine. After our dinner we all wandered into the town centre for a couple of drinks before the day ended. The next morning was Amy and Tom’s last one with us, and they started with an early morning run down to the Strand beach and a swim, followed by a walk around the centre and then just passing time until they departed.
Once they’d left us, we topped up with water and then headed back to Pierland Eiland for another night, and to then continue on our way towards Veendam over the next few weeks.
As it turned out, our very first day of travel turned into a marathon session – what we’d anticipated would be three to four hours of travelling turned into almost eight hours! We were held up at one lock in particular for an hour and a half, plus all the mooring we passed were full. Eventually we managed to stop for the night along the Ganzdiepkanaal but only by asking two sets of boaters to move around a little so that we could fit in the end of the quay (one of whom was not willing to do so, but gave in when the other one happily agreed to move her boat.)
A couple of nights at this location and we were off to Zwartsluis where I had arranged for (1) a marina mooring for the night, and (2) a visit from a local engineer to take a look at our generator which seemed to have an ongoing issue. We arrived late morning to await his arrival, but he didn’t turn up till around 6.30pm … but he did turn up, so that was good.
The engineer needed to make a return visit in the morning, so we were up and ready for him by 7.30pm, after which we stopped for a pump out and were ready to go.
Continuing on, we headed along the Meppelerdiep waterway on anither extent got, sunny day, reaching our intended destination of Rogat, just beyond the Rogatsluis. A small harbour with private houses lining one side, this was a pleasant, quiet stop, where we had stayed in 2025.
Not too long after arriving we were approached by a local lady (Anna) who remembered not only our previous visit, but was extremely excited to share a very short news clip of a moment during that time when an old tjalk-like ship carrying bundles of wheat (to showcase the traditional mode of transporting such good) had passed along the canal … with Anna and Nicki and the dogs in the far background! She invited us into her home to sit and watch it (just a few seconds of filming), after which we spent at least another 45 minutes chatting away with her, and joined at some point by her husband. That was quite a special little moment.
We decided to stay a second night in Rogat, where, joy of joys, it rained a little overnight and there was light rain on and off during the second day, all of which helped to bring down the temperature quite a bit.