Tuesday 25th
April to Thursday 27th April 2017
Our train was not due to leave Brussels until 12:52, so even with a
late(ish) breakfast and coupled with a late checkout of 11am, it allowed us to
have a bit more of a wander around.
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| Sad to say but there is graffiti in nearly every place we have visited |
So we exited the hotel and headed in a mainly northerly direction and
found ourselves back at the canal – some type of gravitational field operating
in that regard; but this time there was actually a barge using the lock and so
we hovered around watching it all – it was just like any single lock that we
would have done a thousand times – except about 100 times bigger and it was all
operated by a lock-keeper in the control room.
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| She's a bit larger than Ferndale, but the same process is followed |
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| Lock full, gates open and then they come out |
The ropes were just a little bit bigger than we would have had onboard at
any time.
Slowly the water rose and then when ready, the gates slowly opened; there
was no rush of water from the prop, but just enough to move the barge forward –
certainly sticking to the 5 kmh speed limit.
About 400 metres up from the lock was a lift bridge – no windlass
required – we had spotted one of the lock-keepers head off earlier on his bike
to get the bridge ready for the barge to carry on beneath it.
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| Lift bridge - you can see the road level on the left - the operator is in that little room on top of the bridge |
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| There is always someone wanting to "photo-bomb" the photo |
That was some excitement for us – to see how the bigger boys do it all –
might have been nice with a Dutch barge doing all of that (even in Belgium
After that we carried on back to the hotel; a last check in the room and
then we were checked out and off around the corner to the station.
Through the Border Controls for both France
and the UK and it was a relatively
short wait and we were in our seats and pulling out of Brussels
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| We came when it was a bit dull and cloudy, but on leaving Brussels the sun was out again |
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| ...and we looked out on Belgium for one last time on this trip |
The scheduled stop at Lille
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| Back in Endgland and here we are crossing the Medway |
We already had the train tickets to take us back to Lincoln – funny thing
is that we took 2 hrs and 20 minutes to get from Brussels to London, but it was
over 2 hours and 30 minutes to get from London to Lincoln (our connecting train
at Peterborough was waiting and we caught it with just a minute to spare).
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| Not exactly sure where we are here, but there are certainly narrowboats down there |
We were back on board Ferndale
The following day we took the boat back into Lincoln
The tickets that we had previously bought for Lincoln Cathedral and the Castle allowed
us a return visit so we decided to use those as well as pick up Diane’s
medications that we had left to be prepared before we left.
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| This is for Diane's sister Vivienne |
It was to be one last trudge up the hill and later on, one more down – we
took Marilyn’s advice and had our walking poles with us and they made it
easier.
For the castle it was another walk of the walls and we took some time to
have a look inside the County Court House – it was a trial regarding an injury
matter to someone in the Lincoln Hospital but held interest for both of us – so
much so that we stayed a fair while longer than we first though we would – plus
it was a great deal warmer inside than out.
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| Just cannot get over how over-powering the cathedral is in comparison to the castle |
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| The second Motte and Observatory |
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| The County Court House |
At the lunch recess we headed out and across the way to the Cathedral
where we had a bite to eat and then headed upstairs to see the Library/Reading
Room – the design and construction of this was handled by Christopher Wren (of
St.Paul’s fame) – the inside was just fantastic as were the volumes on display;
the staff were extremely helpful and whilst Diane was engaged with a young man
who was enthusiastically telling her all about the library and the books, I was
discussing travel in Russia with the woman who was also there to answer any
questions – I think that it was predominantly about the library, but we drifted
to Russia (as you do).
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| And the Australian Coat of Arms in Lincoln Cathedral and part of the WWII memorial |
After that we were off again, and down the hill, and back to the boat
where we were thankful that the fire was left lit and it was cosy and snugly
warm inside.
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| We spotted this and the one below earlier in our stay in Lincoln but I hadn't included them into previous blogs.... |
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| ....talk about making sure that you can see behind |
Diane thinks that there may have been a bit of train lag (not jet lag
mind you) from our return travels – I just think that we were tired after
walking more than the equivalent of a marathon whilst we were away.
We did sleep rather well on Wednesday night.
Thursday was moving day – we had seen enough of Lincoln and we were ready
to continue our cruising travels and our rough itinerary that we had – this, of
course, meant that we had a bit of a cruise to Torksey.
It was only 10 miles and whilst we didn’t open the after-burners we still
managed it in just over the 3 hours.
The lockie was right where we first moored up, getting some grass cutting
done and advised us to move down close to the lock ready for the next day, and
we ended up mooring on one of the water points – we were later on joined by
three other boats – so it was all the normal thing to do.
On good advice from Jennie we headed to the café and had cake and coffee
which was lovely.
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| Looking from our mooring at Torksey - ready for tomorrow |
We were now ready for the next adventure of the river tomorrow.
13 Miles
YTD: 280 miles (451
km), 154 Locks, 13 Tunnels, 3 Lift Bridges, 3 Swing Bridges
Total: 4912 Miles (7905 km),
3305 Locks, 137 Tunnels, 69 Lift Bridges , 175 Swing Bridges
Walking
distance so far: 41.9 km (previous) + 5.3 km (Tuesday) = 47.2 km (Total)
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