Ardennes, Meuse

Week 40 — May 24th - June 6th (Tony).

For the entire month of May we meandered along some of the waterways of Belgium. And what a delightful country it is. On the one hand the countryside is predominantly flat with verdant pastures and picturesque villages; and on the other hand, especially along the big rivers and commercial canals, it displays enormous industrial plants and massive factories producing everything one could think of, from raw steel to concrete products and pharmaceuticals. Such was the Meuse downstream from Namur for two days — to Maastricht in Holland. The valley is attractive with deeply forested slopes and rocky outcrops but every available piece of flat land adjoining the river is a site of frenzied extractive industry with huge barges being loaded or unloaded. Sometimes the volume of commercial traffic caused delays of up to two hours to get through the locks — not that we minded, there's always a lunch to be eaten at leisure, or another meal to prepare. We were told the visit to Maastricht is worth the journey; and it was. A small city but lively and full of character and charm. We sojourned there for two days and enjoyed a couple of very memorable meals as well as indulging in a few beers and a bit of shopping. The rest of Holland will have to wait for another year...

After fuelling up we turned Sable around and returned upstream, back to Namur. After a good shower of rain I was mystified by an orange sediment all over the boat. Apparently it was dust from the Sarah Desert whipped up into the atmosphere by a huge wind storm and caught in the precipitation of the clouds over Europe. At Namur we picked up our friends, Tony and Nancy Stenton, who joined us for a week as we headed further up the Meuse, back into France through some of the prettiest scenery we have encountered. No industry here, just glorious forest and attractive towns, small locks and clean water. Most of the time we spent doing what we always do when we're together — eating fine food and drinking copious amounts of wine, along with many big brown Belgium beers. Boy, do the Belgians make great beer! No beer is less than 5% alcohol and many top 9%. And except for a couple of brews, they've all tasted fantastic. Everyone in Belgium appears to drink litres of beer, and who would blame them? But it may account for their growing obesity problem — something that hasn't been obvious at all elswhere in Europe.

At Dinant, a beautiful town nestled beside the river under an overeaching rocky outcrop that occasionally breaks off and destroys the cathedral beneath it, we moored up alongside a restaurant and as we supped champagne we were tempted to ask the waiter to serve us Belgium's famous specialty on Sable's top deck, such was the ambience of the evening. However, after contemplating the likelihood of him being run over crossing the road and the repast being spoiled, we took ourselves across to his establishment and gluttonously consumed a kilogram of moules (mussels) and frites each. Served individually in a family-size Crueset casserole dish, we all agreed that it was the finest feed of mussels ever! None of us managed to finish the delicious creamy soup/sauce at the bottom. An hour later, and forsaking dessert, (imagine!), we teetered back across the road for a game of 500. Tony S's attempt to go misere resulted as it usually does, in failure. How wonderful it is to share our life afloat with good friends!

Next day, after riding a cable-car to the citadel above Dinant to take in the panorama, we crossed the border back into France and arrived at the town of Givet where we made the unfortunate error of mooring at the only available spot, under a bridge. It took more than an hour the following morning to scrub the pidgeon shit from the decks, and if that wasn't enough, in the early hours some brats had pelted our roof with half a dozen eggs! We were disappointed that there was nowhere to moor a boat at Monthermé, an intriguing looking town that spans the river at a big bend and is close to where some fierce fighting occurred in both world wars. It is not far from where the historic WW2 Battle of the Bulge took place. Lots of old gun emplacements and bunkers remain visible along the banks and in the hills above the Meuse which is still a mighty river here and extends a long way farther up, almost to Toul, close to the start of the Moselle which flows into the Rhine.

The city of Charleville Mezieres with its magnificent central square appealed to all of us and we visited the centre several times for a beer or three and a window shopping stroll through the pedestrian ways. After an overnight stop there we continued on, past the start of the Canal des Ardennes at Pont à Bac, to Sedan which is overlooked by one of the biggest mediaeval forts in Europe. Whilst making a u-turn to face the current prior to mooring, I managed to terrify the passengers and crew when Sable was caught broadside-on to the fast flowing current and swept rapidly towards the bridge pilings. I earned more than a beer rescuing that situation and after a change of pants we all raced into town for a pacifying drink.

We all returned to Charleville next day by train to further explore the city, and for Tony and Nancy to pick up a hire car for the next stage of their trip — a week in the Loire Valley. This morning they left us to drive to Tours while we wait in pouring rain (the first real rain we've had in more than a month) for Sally's sister Fran and Lester, from NZ, to arrive. A more thorough reconnoitre of Sedan has revealed a rather pleasant town with lots of interesting places, including the impressive fort, that were missed on our first, cursory stroll into town. If the weather improves tomorrow we will turn around and head down to the Canal des Ardennes to make for Reims and the Champagne region. I am looking forward to sampling lots of their local produce.

Belgium - Ardennes, Meuse

Week 38 — May 10th - 23rd (Sally).

Belgium has been a great experience for us except for the lack of internet access so apologies to all who have written and not yet received a reply. We can send through the website and receive when we get to a connection but cannot send individual emails. Strange and frustrating and has made us feel quite out of touch. Amazing how quickly one comes to depend on a service that only a few years ago was unheard of. Internet cafés are virtually impossible to find in Belgium — everyone seems to be connected so there's no need.

We continued our leisurely pace along the Dender, which Tony felt should be rechristined the Bender as it twists and turns with very little space to negotiate or even pass another boat. Thankfully, in spite of the beautiful weather the traffic was virtually non existent and we had the whole river to ourselves. That is except for numbers of ducks with ducklings in tow, geese,grebe and moorhens to name the few we recognized. The bird life was prolific and as all the banks were overgrown they offered ample protection to raise their young. This was the first time we have not had a timetable to meet so we took a very lazy 6 days to do the 68kms with frequent stops at the little towns along the way. Every village in Belgium has a town square, or Grot Markt, and every square has cafes that serve copious amounts of Belgium beer. We are told that Belgium produces 350 different brands of beer with various alcohol contents, the highest is 12%!!!

Our biggest adventure (indignity rather) on the Dender was becoming well and truly aground in the middle of the river. The river is a lot lower than normal and we proved that by coming to rest on a mudbank just before the last lock going up. With the help of the ever friendly lock keepers and a very big tractor we were towed off and into the lock, where we continued on our way. The authorities need to do some serious maintenance work on this section. It was a relief to reach the end and turn onto the Canal du Centre which took us to Mons.

We had arrived in time for "The Doudou", the biggest event in the calendar. It is a celebration that dates back to the 14th century, and involves 1500 of the townspeople all dressed in mediaeval attire. On Saturday after a church ceremony the relics of Saint Waudru are entrusted to the Mayor so that on Sunday they can be carried on a procession through the streets followed by 60 groups of religious orders and Guild Corporations. After the procession reaches the church and the casket is safely back in its usual place the Dragon appears in the Grot Markt and is confronted by St George and a host of other participants. Of course St George always wins and the people of Mons are safe for another year, which they promptly celebrate by drinking another few big brown Belgium beers. Our part in the celebrations involved a lot of people watching from a ring side seat in the square on Friday and Saturday night where we saw the start of the procession to collect the relics but my highlight was just by chance finding my way into the church on Friday for the start of the dress rehearsal for the Saturday ceremony. The organ music along with a keyboard and Drums was wonderful. I always think an organ fills a church but put a set of drums with it and you have really got a BIG sound.

From Mons we continued on to the Strepy-Thieu Boat lift. A new engineering marvel that has only been open a few years. One sails into an enourmous bath tub and the whole thing is lifted 73metres vertically and one then sails out the other end. Very ingenious and has made the Canal du Centre much more commercially viable. Barges' size has increased from 350 tons to 1350 tons which is equivalent to 60 trucks or 40 railway wagons. It meant of course that we met more than a few of them and have become very adept at keeping out of their way. Yesterday we followed two of them into a lock that measured 200m by 25m. We took up our fraction of space then were followed by a hotel barge and then another huge barge inched up beside us. It was 100m long and displaced over 2000 tonnes. The one in front of it had to sqeeze forwarded to get them all in with barely a metre between them all. Interesting but will be nice to be back to scenic cruising next week.

We are now on the Meuse where the highlight for Tony was sailing through a huge steel mill at Charleroi. We had the foundry on both sides of the canal with conveyors and walkways over. Only a man would find that fascinating. Our other stop of interest was Namur, on the confluence of the Sambre and the Meuse. We intend to be back there next Monday to collect our next guests, Nancy and Tony Stenton and then continue down the Meuse to France.Looking forward to sharing a very pretty part of both countries with them.