April 2023 – Part 1
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With much anticipation Nicki and I arrived back in Reitdiephaven on 26th March ready to prep Shensi for our travels over the 2023 season. Immediately we launched into unloading the car, sorting out the water and power, and waiting and feeding Casper and Pip, followed over the next few days by boat maintenance and general ‘house’ keeping until a week later we were able to start the engine (on 3rd April) for the start of our seventh year of cruising (the first on the Thames, subsequent years in Europe so far) with the aim of reaching Auxerre in France in July to take part in this year’s DBA rally.
We set off at about 11am, gently turning into the Reitdiep kanaal towards Groningen with a plan to stay in the town for a night or two. Everything was going well until, as we approached the third bridge, just some 20 minutes later, the engine overheat alarm went off and we had to pull to the side and moor up to check things out and let the engine cool down. (This wasn’t an actual mooring though, just some space alongside a building site and near a rail bridge, and we had to manoeuvre ourselves into an out of the way position with easy-ish access to land for the dogs, and then we contacted the bridge control to advise that we wouldn’t be moving for the time being due to an engineer failure – in fact we ended up staying there for two nights before the issue was fixed.) Disappointingly I couldn’t get the engine to re-start in the morning, so we located a local mechanic (Alec) to come and help us. He arrived at 7:30pm that day, and after three hours of work he managed to get us running again. There seemed to have been an airlock in the fuel line possibly caused by a faulty shut off valve.
With a sigh of relief, the engine rumbled into life in the morning and once again we were on our way, eventually arriving at the Museumbrug in the centre of Groningen where we stayed for three nights (no-one called round for payment, so we had free mooring here).
We spent two days in the town moored in front of the Museumbrug, soaking up some of the atmosphere and doing a little sightseeing – the height of our visit (literally) took in The Groningen Forum which we happened upon by pure chance. Nicki and I separately (separately since no dogs were allowed inside and, as ever, they were with us) popped in to look around, and then decided to return the next day without the dogs to take in the rooftop views and enjoy a coffee looking out over the city.
Moving on, on 7th April we cruised along the Noord-Willemskanaal for about four hours in good weather, finding a nice mooring spot at Taarlosebrug despite being close to a road/cycle track, and where we stayed for a few nights. We are able to walk into the nearby town of Assen for a casual stroll through the streets which were pretty quiet especially as it was the Easter weekend.
We left this stretch of water and joined the Drentsche Hoofdvaart cruising toward Veenesluis, and were escorted all day by a bridge ‘team’ (mostly actually just one person) as there were many, many lifting bridges (17, I think) plus a couple of locks. We did have an hour’s stop at Pieter Hummelenbrug along the way to top up grocery supplies and for the bridge ‘team’ to get lunch, and there was then just one more bridge and sluis to go before we stopped for the night just past Veenesluis in Dwingeloo, which turned out to be one of many good moorings on this trip, good dog walking and quiet.
Waking the next morning to a wet and chilly day, our bridge ‘team’ was ready to take us to the next bridge and sluis (Haar sluis, with an intriguing sculpture on the side of scales with golden buckets hanging either side about which there is no information on Google) but fortunately it was only a short trip of about 40 minutes and the weather cleared up before we arrived in Dieverbrug, our next stop for a couple of nights. Dieverbrug seemed to be a small village, but it did have a bankside petrol pump where we could top up our fuel at a very reasonable price (154.9/litre) and the walks along the canal were very pretty and peaceful.
There was only one shop that we came across, which contained a fascinating collection of beautiful ornaments, garden statues and furnishings.
Having spent two nights in Dieverbrug, we duly arranged for our escort to meet us at the bridge and take us on to Paradijssluis (on the outskirts of Meppel) and fortunately the weather had improved and was sunnier and dry, a bonus for us all. Our mooring was just past the sluis with a grassy bank next to a cycle track, and just behind that was access to a good sized lake and walking area. Being so close to the town of Meppel, we chose to walk the 5 km towpath/cycleway – mostly along the canal – and look around the centre’s old buildings, small streets and beautiful squares, stopping for a coffee before heading back to Shensi.
Our view across the kanaal was a nice looking restaurant with three former lime kilns in it’s grounds – during our first day, we saw a wedding taking place in the garden, and on our second day there appeared to be sone sort of ice-bath challenge going on, with several people lined up in robes ready to sit in a bathtub full of ice!
