Oudenaarde, Bossuit Sluis, Espiere canal, Leers-Nord and St Leger – 7th to 22nd June
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7th June – Sunday morning saw us leave Gavere, heading towards Oudenaarde., and a short 3 hour journey later we were mooring near the centre of the town on the main water route. We had deliberately chosen a Sunday to make this stop as generally there is little commercial traffic on a Sunday, and we knew that we would probably be a bit exposed on this section. Unfortunately there were still quite a few large barges passing by, with one almost dragging us off our mooring but luckily we got away with just a frayed fender rope.
After settling in we explored nearby and found a lovely bit of woodland very close to our mooring which was great for Casper; later that day we took a leisurely pre-dinner walk into a town that we had visited before in less sombre times, before coronavirus took hold.
On our return and during the evening we could see that there were a few ships nearby that would in all probability be leaving when the bridges opened up at 6am (with consequent disruption etc to us), and after some consideration we agreed to get away as soon as possible the next morning.
8th June – So, a very early start (6.05am!) on Monday saw us aiming for Bossuit with the intention of passing through the lock and stopping on the other side for the night, and by 10am we had arrived (and took the opportunity to fill up with water from the free water available just before the gates. It had been three weeks since we last filled up and we still had about a week’s supply left, so not too shabby.) Up to that point everything on the waterways had been reasonably quiet, but suddenly we felt mobbed by the commercials again as they began to appear and queue up for the lock! We thought it best to wait until things had calmed down before we took our turn into the lock.
There was some confusion with the lock keeper as to whether we had paid our waterways licence, but it transpired that there were two entries in their system under the name of Shensi, and once that was noticed it was sorted out reasonably quickly.
To our shame, once in the lock both Nicki and I got distracted from our ‘duties’ and almost got our mooring lines trapped (again), but luckily the lock keeper spotted it and stopped the lock filling – we are such amateurs at this, it’s not like it’s the first time it’s happened to us at this very lock!! Anyway, we made it out the other side in one piece, and decided to turn the boat to point at the lock before mooring up so that we were ready to go back through again in the morning. Free electricity was an added bonus here, so we were back up to capacity for a few days after this mooring.
9th June – Once back on the river and heading for Leers-Nord, we passed through the first lock in Wallonia, and as before, there was no sympathy for those with limited language skills. It’s now French all the way! Once again we were required to fill out forms declaring who we are, where we’re from and where we’re going, and with that done we entered Wallonia and finally arrived at the Espiere canal, a small canal leading to the town of Leers-nord on the Belgium/France border.
We stayed overnight here and took the opportunity to catch up with Maarten for a few hours – always nice to see him and hear what he’s been up, and, of course, to see the gorgeous Django. Tina wasn’t there so unfortunately we missed seeing her this time round.
10th June – Onwards and upwards again today, this time turning into the Espiere canal from the Escaut, the Belgian section of which runs along to Deule in France, where it becomes the Roubaix canal.
The bridges and locks along this stretch of the Espiere is manually operated by a small team, so having made contact they met us at three first bridge and continued with us through two locks and a further two lifting bridges to the lovely Leers-Nord.
Having made the trip two years earlier, we knew that the canal was not wide enough for us to make a turn for our return journey back up through Belgium, and that we would have to pass through the lock at Leers-nord and into France in order to reach a stretch of water where we could safely manoeuvre the boat round and continue on. However, that was pre-coronavirus and on arrival at our destination this time, we found that the lock was closed due to the COVID19 border lockdown restrictions, which meant that not only would we not be able to make the cross-border manoeuvre, but that we would have to either stay and wait for the border to re-open or journey all the way back up the canal in reverse, which would be somewhat of a challenge! On the plus side, there were no other boats around in this remote location, and we had the bonus of free electric and water, with a lovely bar onsite (where we were treated as something of a novelty as there were so few visitors around and we were the only boat) so we thought we would wait it out.
Well, that turned into ten days with the place to ourselves, plenty of nice walks both in Belgium and in and out of France, visits from Maarten, a friend who lives nearby, and from Keith on his way back from Luxembourg where he got us some cheap 90+% proof alcohol for Nicki to make various concoctions, and a petanque rink just for us (or so it seemed). All in all a very pleasant and relaxed time.
A week into our stay at Leers-nord we heard that the borders were due to open soon, but sadly this did not include the opening of ‘our’ lock – the French side of the canal was still closed to us for at least a further two weeks.
20th June – Despite the turning issue we decided we would bite the bullet and finally set off back down the canal in reverse at the neck-breaking speed of 2kph. With Nicki on look-out on the stern, slowly but surely and with all the controls ‘back to front’, we passed through two lifting bridges and one lock and two hours later arrived at Sint-Leger, mooring in front of its lifting bridge for a couple of nights. (The lock keeper kindly agreed to meet up with us again on the Monday morning for the remainder of the journey to L’Escaut.)
That evening two of the local residents stopped by to welcome us to their village, with one of them inviting us for drinks the following evening. That went well and made for a very pleasant interlude.
Then it was into an overnight stay at the last bridge along the canal (Spierebrug) and back onto L’Escaut.
