Dender and Blaton-Ath canals
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Sunday evening we readied the boat to set off, filled up with water and we were off again Monday morning but not before having managed to catch Eddy and say goodbye first.
Most of Monday was spent travelling from Bruges to a nice little yacht haven at Merebeke where we stayed for the night (E20/night inc. water) – dog walking still not that special but a pretty little wooded area was nearby. That said, we did have a disturbed night – a couple of mosquitoes managed to get into the bedroom, so we were up trying to get rid of them at various points ….. and we thought we’d left the mosquito season behind! Anyway, we had aimed to get away on Tuesday by 10am in order to get through the tidal lock and onto the Scheldt heading toward Dender for the night, and despite our lack of sleep we easily managed that target.
The current and outgoing tide swept us down the Scheldt (obviously well planned on my part) and we arrived at the sea lock for the Dender canal in good time. Once again, we stopped near Dendermonde, a nice little location that we’d stopped at with Lucy previously. During the early part of the evening a fisherman called to ask if we were stopping long (our understanding of what he said was that there might be some sort of fishing competition going on the next day), leaving fairly happily when we told him we’d be gone at 9am the next day, which we did – there was only one actual fisherman at that point, with another arriving just as we cast off, so I think we managed to avoid upsetting anyone.
The locks along the canal are all 5.2M wide. Whilst we are only 4.2M, it really feels very tight getting into the locks and some of them are in a rather poor state of repair.
Wednesday, 12th September we had an extremely quiet day – just us and one commercial that passed us right at the start of the day! We had a brief stop in a town called Aalst, just to give the dogs a break and have a quick look round. Found another ‘Eco Market’ – basically a second hand supermarket – so HAD to have a look round there, but this time there wasn’t anything of real interest for us other than a new dog bowl. On then to Ninove where, although we hadn’t exactly planned it, we ended up stopping for the night – largely because there was a problem with a bridge which was going to delay us anyway – so we decided to call it a day here. Luckily the delay wasn’t too long, just long enough to get a cuppa, and then we managed to pass on through to our layover.
Bit of excitement for us – we have acquired a stalker !!! We noticed him taking photos of the boat at Sluis Denderleeuw, and from there he seemed to follow us along the canal, stopping to take more pics at various points, until we arrived in Lessine and he then disappeared. We had visions of him staying with us after that, but luckily we woke to no stalker in the vicinity. Until …. an hour or so later, there he was again, following us along the canal to various bridges and locks, taking photos. How odd!
Eventually however, we suddenly realised he wasn’t around – perhaps he got bored or was too far from home, but I bet he’s got some great photos of Shensi!
Arriving in Lessine, the lock-keeper pointed us at a lovely mooring a little way along, so we tucked ourselves in there for the night. Just round the corner from our mooring was the old Hospital of Notre-Dame a la Rose which is apparently the main attraction of the town, and whilst it is very interesting and pre-dates the one at Beaune, it is not nearly as interesting as Beaune, mostly I think due to the way the history is presented.
During our stay, the lady owner of the house next to our mooring (seen on the corner here) came out and chatted for a while, and said that the house used to house the workhorses that pulled the canal barges – an interesting fact!
Also in front of us (photo below) were the remains of the old brewery which burnt down, and further along from the mooring was the old set up for loading stone from the local quarry onto the barges.
Moving on the next day to Ath, yet again we did not encounter any other traffic, and after a peaceful day we stopped short of lock 21 in Ath as that seemed to 
be the best mooring. Although, with roads either side and a bridge behind us, and troops of school children on ‘cross country’ runs passing on the tow path throughout the afternoon, it seemed like it would be quite noisy but that was not the case – it actually proved to be very peaceful and as a bonus there was the ability to let the dogs off the boat easily. The only downside was the shelter from the trees, as they prevented satellite reception and stopped the sun getting to the solar panels for most of the day. With a couple of nights stay planned, we decided to run the generator for a bit to top up the batteries, not something we have really had to do much before.
Our plan at this point was to stay just two nights but on the Saturday morning I spoke briefly with the lock keeper, and he said they only had quite a small team operating on Sundays and that Monday would be a better day to depart, so we told him that we would stay a third night – no skin off our noses after all. What a surprise to see the lock-keeper and his mate walking down to the boat a little later that morning with bottles of beer for us, which we think was maybe a thank-you for our change in plans – perhaps it meant that they might not need to work on Sunday, but who knows as we can’t hold a proper conversation with them. Whatever, it was a lovely gesture.
As an aside, it still feels really odd having a lock keeper follow us in his van to open bridges and locks, sometimes even two teams. They will ask us what time we want to leave and that is when they will be at the first lock or bridge. It’s like having your own support team all the way!!!
Whilst Ath boasts a number of museums, we only visited the Giants museum, dedicated to the storage and promotion of giant festival effigies, which was quite fun. Otherwsise we felt that Ath itself was quite bland, so we did not really bother with anything else there.
With our extra down time though we were able to take the opportunity to dismantle the bimini, clean it off and stow it away, along with some of the deck furniture. So, a useful time spent doing some housekeeping.
Up until this point all the locks had all had names but then we joined the Blaton-Ath Canal with its TWENTY ONE locks to get through. So, lock 21 in Ath itself was our entry point, counting down to lock 1. The lock keeper arrived on time for our requested 9am start – I had estimated that it would take us quite a while to get to the half way point and on to the end of the canal, but he suggested that we stop just after lock 15 as there was a lovely mooring there, so we settled on that.
Through lock 21, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15 and three hours later we were at the mooring – a gorgeous spot, peaceful and isolated from the road – just a couple of fishermen for company, but they left at 5, electric and water included for the vast sum for 10 euros/night, and a picnic area right outside our door. So, dinner al fresco tonight – tablecloth on the picnic table, lovely meal, glasses of wine, just missing the candelabra and the four piece quartet.
Although water was available, it proved to be a bit of a problem as the hose fitting was not one I recognised, and for a short while we thought we might not be able to take advantage of this ‘free’ facility. However, after some tinkering, I managed to get it flowing only to find that it would not stop flowing, plus I was unable to attach a hose to it. Still, having irrigated the surrounding fields, luckily I figured out how to stop it but I did have to hold the hose in place for the duration of the fill. But the point is, we d
id it!!!
Next day was more of the same, with each lock lifting us by two meters, so after about 10 locks we were some twenty meters higher. We noticed that on the ascent each lock also had a pump to return the water to the upper level so that the canal levels were maintained. At times the sections were very weedy and I could feel the intakes for the thrusters getting clogged up but everything still kept going.
There were no other good moorings along the remainder of this canal so we pressed on to the end. Lock 14, lock 13, lock 12, lock 11, lock 10, lock 9, lock 8, then lock 7 and the lock keepers went home for lunch. Again, very typical in Belgium, but to be fair I needed a bit of a rest too by then.
Without wanting to sound like a bit of an anorak, lock 8 was quite interesting as the water in the lock was higher than the quay side and the bollards were just above the water. What that meant was, that until the water level dropped, Shensi would float and rub against the wall with no fender protection. So we just kept the engine going and tried to stop the bottom scraping on the concrete.
Passing through the last lock – lock 1 – we came out onto the canal Nimy, and made our way across the canal to a quiet mooring just in front of an old disused lock, that we had used before. Just offset enough from the commercial traffic on this section to be comfortable, and, always a bonus, next to some good dog walking areas. We quickly settled in and then took out the dogs for a well-deserved walk, and returned to find we had been joined by another barge.
By now we were a bit tired so were more than ready for a quiet evening, and then the local River Police turned up (in their car) to check some paperwork – this was our first real encounter with officialdom, and luckily we were prepared. Out came the ships papers and they noted all the details, asked a couple of questions and left. I was told that if you have everything ready and look organised then they are a lot more relaxed and this seemed to be the case but I think I was expecting more – from horror stories of how they inspect each bit of pipework and date stamp, this couple of officers did not even set foot on board!
