8 to 12 July In Groningen we moored at Reitdiep Haven, which is about 4-5 kms from the city centre. This is a new modern marina surrounded by houses with water frontage and with shops along one end - including a supermarket and 2 hairdressers. For once we were moored with boats about our own size. We easily cycled into the city and had a good look around, including doing a bike tour. Groningen is a University city with about a quarter of the population students. One of the places we really liked was the Prinsestuin - the prince's garden. Also the Martini Tower - named for Saint Martin, not for the drink. After climbing 251 steps we enjoyed the views of the city. We also visited a couple of museums that had been recommended to us by the Rotterdam Maritime Museum. The first we travelled 40 minutes by train to the nearby town of Veendam to see the Veenkoloniaal Museum which I think means the peat district museum. We expected it to be more about the peat production and transport - and it did have some of that - but it also covered the history of the area, before and after peat was a major industry. The other was the Noordelijk Scheepvaartmuseum - the Northern Shipping Museum. We tried to catch up with the librarian, but was told that he had a died a couple of months before and so there was no-one who could help us. But we visited the museum, which had a lot of information about shipping through the ages in this area. I was especially interested in some of the old photographs of people working with peat. Yesterday the forecast for today was for heavy rain most of the day, so we thought we would stay an extra day, but this morning the rain was light and the forecast had improved, so we decided to head off. We had to go through the difficult bridge out of the marina harbour and then turned onto the main canal going south. There were a lot of bridges to be navigated, and when we got to the first one it had a double red light that means that the bride is closed. There was already someone waiting. Howard called them up and they said that the bridge was broken, and they didn't know for how long. We decided to turn around and try a different route, but almost immediately the bridge went to one red light only, which means that it was operational again. So we turned around again and soon were able to go through the bridge following the cruiser in front of us. By this time a sail boat had caught up to us so there were three of us. Two bridges later the bridge had no lights at all. The cruiser and sail boat moored and we loitered waiting for the bridge to open which took about 10 minutes. Before we could go about 10 boats came through going the other way so it had obviously been out of order for a while. The next bridge also had no lights, and nowhere to moor so again we loitered for a quite a while - with boats moored on either side of us this was a bit tricky, but we did well. By the time we got away, another boat had joined our convoy. We continued on through the city and at the ninth bridge the rest of our convoy turned left and we continued on. The second bridge on this section was a railway bridge and we had to wait for about 15 minutes before they were able to open it. By this time the bridges were further apart and we had an easier time. But the rain also got heavier. We did have to wait for 45 minutes at one bridge as they closed from 12-1pm for lunch. Howard was happy to see a group of fishermen who were friendly. In Drenthe we went through 2 locks with rises of about 3 metres each, and then decided to stop for the day and have moored in a nice grassy spot. We counted 23 bridges and 2 locks that we went through in about 5 houses cruising. The rain has stopped by instead we have quite strong winds.
2 Comments
Pamela
12/7/2017 11:06:53 pm
Hi guys. You seem to be having an amazing time - lots of adventues
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Cheryl
14/7/2017 04:28:22 am
Clearly a well-developed level of patience is a 'must have' for barge travelers! Bridges and their 'timetables' obviously make for a lengthy process.
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