September 2022 – Part 2
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The next day in Stadskanaal a guy (Dion) called round to ask us to take part in a special two-day rally happening that weekend – apparently the rally organiser had spotted us moored near the town centre and quickly called Dion to suggest that he invite us along. It seemed that they were very excited for us to do so, as it was the 30 year anniversary for their STAR railway and a big event had been organised with lots of working stream trains, tractors, engines and vintage cars, plus a few vintage and ‘interesting’ boats, and it seemed that we fell into the latter category. Having agreed to join in, we arranged to move SHENSI further along the canal to a more appropriate mooring closer to the event, although this meant mooring outside of some local houses, with the railway station and museum just round the corner, but took us further away from the town. However, the four of us were given free access to the whole event including a return journey on the stream train to Veendam (a bit annoying as I had already bought tickets before we were invited along, but still, it was all for a good cause), complementary burgers and drinks, and an invitation to a barbeque on the Saturday night for all participants. Despite poor weather over the weekend we all had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
Finally the weekend was over and it was time to move off. We did have a slight delay within minutes though, due to roadworks taking place across a bridge. Once we were allowed through though, it wasn’t too much further along before we stopped for an hour – this time for the bridge and lock team to have lunch. The lock keeper stopped and chatted to us for the whole time though, even calling his American wife over to meet us, but eventually it was time to continue our journey through the many, many bridges until we reached Veendam for a two night stopover.
The next day held an interesting surprise for us along the way – I noticed on PC Navigo that a police launch was heading our way, followed by two well-spaced-out tugs. It turned out that the police were escorting an enormous 12 meter wide liner being pulled and pushed by the two tugs, all of which were followed by a large 100+ meter long commercial barge. Neither the liner nor the commercial were showing AIS signals so we had no real warning of what was due to pass, but luckily we were in just the right place at just the right time and able to pull alongside a commercial quay and stay well out of the way.
After all that excitement, we continued on to Groningen where we were planning to stay for a few days, mooring up at the Museumbrug (and able to fill up with water, connect to the electric and empty the black tank). We all walked into the town centre a couple of times, and booked into the Cappuvino restaurant for a celebratory meal for Bob and Jane’s 50th wedding anniversary – lovely company and a lovely meal.
Moving on, three days later saw us heading in the direction of Leeuwarden, via Stroobos for one night and then onto Grou to visit a Vetus engineer who could investigate why our generator would not run. We ended up staying two nights in Grou, and whilst the particular problem was fixed, another issue with the Mastervolt system appeared. So yet again I contacted the Mastervolt and got the relevant updates which thankfully resolved the problem.
From Grou to Leeuwarden I opted to go through the little town of Wergea, which PC-Navigo said would be ok but which turned out to not be the case as the journey almost didn’t work out. Up to that point Bob had been at the wheel, but I took over to go through Wergea, an extremely narrow stretch of waterway with streets and back gardens within touching distance, and a few locals shouting out words of warning, putting it politely. Still we made it through very slowly, although despite all of us keeping a look out for pinch points, etc Nicki did advise that we had disturbed a section of garden fencing with a ball fender – we were all definitely glad to leave that stretch of waterway behind us.
At last we arrived in Leeuwarden after just four hours of travel, only to have to moor up in pouring rain, never normally a pleasant experience and on this occasion doubly so, as having moored up we then decided to move slightly further along for better access.
Later that same day we were happy to spot Caro pass by and moor behind us, so at last we were able to catch up with them again. The next morning Nicki went for a dog walk with Caroline, Roland and their four dogs, after which they left on their journey, and Nicki and I left Bob and Jane to look after Casper and Pip while we went away for four days to Turkey for Adam and Ayses wedding.
Our last couple of days of September were spent in Turkey – despite not having Nicki’s residency permit available, we had no problems leaving Schipol airport or arriving in Izmir, and reached our hotel at 1am the next morning, very tired but excited for the next few days attending the wedding.
Izmir seemed to be full of stray cats and dogs, and it turned out that they are regarded more as communal pets and were mostly healthy looking and content, with bowls of food scattered around the area.
We spent our first morning strolling around the area near our hotel, eventually ending up at the waterfront and meeting up with Adam, and then heading back to his hotel for drinks, where we also met his mum and partner for a few hours; later on we headed out for a meal with Chrissie and Rob, after which we met up with Stuart and Sara for drinks, and shortly after that with some of the other wedding guests, before retiring for the night.
