Cruising the Meuse – Waulsort to Dinant and back again
Wednesday, 2nd July 2018 and after a quick vet visit to get the dogs checked and their passports certified for the return home in a few days time, we left Namur and made our way towards Waulsort (via Profondeville), cruising along the Meuse River, which we had been told many times is supposed to be quite scenic – it was certainly starting to live up to that reputation, so peaceful and pretty.
The first stop we aimed for today was in Profondville which we were told is another lovely quiet location – we quickly found the perfect mooring and sure enough it really did seem idyllic. It was the sort of sleepy location with terrific views that you thought you could live in …. that was until the mooring turned out to be in a designated speedboat and water-ski area.
! And boy, did the boat rock when those bu**ers raced along, and not in a nice way. (The smaller boats generally throw out more wash than the commercial ones.) Still it was tolerable and we were well secured and the boats were only allowed to zip along between 10am and 9:30pm, yuk.
Still a nice quiet location away from the road (and no frogs, yay). Unfortunately, we were woken up early by loads of power garden tools at work – it seemed that today (and it turned out, the next day too) was the day the nearby locals chose to do their gardening. Oh, yes, and someone down the road was having their property sand-blasted, also noisy and also dusty. You would have thought they could sort all that stuff out when we were not around. This was not what I signed up for! Otherwise, Profondville turned out to be a nice town with some good scenic walks in the hills which the dogs loved, and so we stayed for three nights.
Off early the final morning, and continuing along the river Meuse and heading upstream to Dinant – a lovely, relaxing, wide river which made encounters with commercial vessels quite easy. At one lock a commercial literally squeeeezed in behind us (diagonally in order to fit!) so on exiting we let them pass as we were in no great hurry. That did mean having to wait at the next lock, not a problem timewise but it did go spectacularly wrong when the lock opened up for us. I cast off a bit too early and the bow got caught in the flow still coming out of the lock. Try as I might I was being swept round, first broadside to the entrance then heading the wrong way. I decided to just go with it and kept the turn going. The net result was a 360 degree pirouette before turning into the lock. Fortunately no other boats or spectators, so would it have looked like I was just showing off or I had just got it spectacularly wrong? I think the latter. (Nicki did suggest making this our signature move on arrival at locks in future, but I think probably not.)
All that day, it was getting hotter and HOTTER, so when we arrived at Dinant we just secured a mooring and fired up the A/C; it was much too hot even to wander around. As we passed the town centre, we could see the stunning citadel perched on the rocks above, which would probably be well worth a visit (especially when we realised you didn’t have to climb the steps to the top, as there was a cable car to take the effort out of the climb) …. but we really weren’t up to it this time.
We ended staying for four nights, although were mostly out and about first thing in the morning or later in the evening to minimise the effects of the heat for the dogs, but also because neither of us were up to it.
Apparently, Dinant is where the saxophone was invented so there are monuments all over the place as you can see in the photos.
The
bridge certainly looks spectacular adorned with colourful representations of this instrument. I can’t say that I ever though of an instrument being “invented” before, but there you go, good old Adolphe Sax did it.
Our last activity in Dinant was to take the dogs to the vet to get their checks done and passports certified before returning to the UK, after which we headed off to Waulsort (where Tim and Jo had been moored up for sometime).
Waulsort is fantastic with plenty of moorings on the bank opposite the town, and whilst there appear to be no attractions of any sort, eg shops etc. it is well worth a visit. We are planning to leave Shensi here whilst going back to the UK for a few days, and with no road access to the moorings it seems to be very secure, plus Tim and Jo will be there whilst we are away and have kindly offered to keep an eye on things.
Access to the town is via a ferry, well an open boat with a cable that the ferryman uses to haul the boat across. Strong arms indeed!
An early start with the dogs meant I came back to this beautiful view along the river. Magical.
When in Namur several days ago, I recovered the car from its parking area near Brussels, and took it on down to Waulsort ready for our exit to the UK. Unfortunately, in the interim, it has developed an annoying fault and will not start when hot. So everything is crossed that it is co-operative tomorrow morning when we leave, at least until we are on the ferry at Dunquerke – I’m not looking forward to getting it off the ferry when we arrive on the other side of the channel in case it happens again, but at least we’ll be able to converse with people to get it sorted out ….. the embarrassment factor is going to be high high high if that does happen though.