Tiel to Den Bosch (cont’d.) – 21st to 23rd September)
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(Den Bosch is a contraction of the Dutch “des Hertogen bosch” (aka ‘s-Hertogenbosch) which means “the Duke’s forest”)
To continue our trip – despite the journey being nice and relaxed we encountered an obstacle at our very first sluis (Sluis St Andries) just as we turned off the Waal – it wasn’t working! The sluis keeper informed us that there was a problem and that we’d need to wait (maybe an hour, maybe longer) so fortunately we were able to tie up to a jetty and wait it out.
Nicki managed to escape for a short while with Casper and wandered up to the lock to see what was happening but other than the gates at the other end seeming to be stuck half open she couldn’t see what was wrong.
Eventually, four and a half hours later the lights turned green giving us the go-ahead to enter the lock and we were off again. Obviously that skewed our timing somewhat, but we carried on to the lifting bridge before Den Bosch at the junction of the Maas/Zuidwillamsvaartkanaal, managing to arrive at 6.30 ready for its final opening of the day at 7pm, and from there onto the mooring at Sluis 0 before entering the town.
Den Bosch is a lovely town with lots of interesting features, plenty of odd statues (courtesy of Jhieronymus Bosch), a lovely green area for walking following the perimeter of the town, a boat ride around the town’s smaller waterways and lots of history, and so we spent a couple of nights in Den Bosch, with time to explore and stock up, and with weather good enough to eat outdoors on the stern.
As our mooring was very wide and fairly unpopulated, Bob took the opportunity to try his hand at manoeuvring the boat across the canal and turning it 180 degrees in the process (as we would be returning back up the canal), and then mooring up again.
23rd September – Overnight I had decided that, having yesterday moved the boat to face the other way, we would in fact leave via the town route, so Bob got a secund chance at turning the boat towards Sluis 0. This Sluis only opened at 11am so it was a fairly relaxed start before heading off to our next stop in Heusden.
