10-11 September Our friends Andrew and Jo arrived on Sunday evening in Gouda and on Monday morning we set off towards the Vecht River. On our first day we went to Oudewater. There were 12 bridges that we had to get opened and two locks to be negotiated on our way, so it was a relatively slow trip - it took over 3 hours to do just 12.5 kms. Luckily when we arrived at Oudewater there was a mooring spot just big enough for us. After we were safely moored another boat came along hoping that we were leaving, so we timed that well. Oudewater is nice old town, with a number of cute old buildings. It's main claim to fame is that it had a witches scale that was used to prove that a person wasn't a witch in the middle ages. The theory was that a witch has no soul, so will weigh a lot less than a normal person, so that they could prove that someone wasn't a witch (or was). Apparently people came from all over Europe to get certified as not being witch, and avoid the terrible punishments for witches. Unsurprisingly, in all the time they operated they never found a witch - perhaps because the actual witches wouldn't volunteer to be weighed. There is now a museum in the old Heksenwaag - witches weigh house - but unfortunately it was closed on Mondays so we couldn't visit. On Tuesday we headed to IJsselstein, with quite strong winds, but with only 4 bridges to negotiate. We actually passed a tug boat travelling at less than 6kms an hour - it's quite unusual for us to pass anything else underway. IJsselstein is also a nice old town, and we enjoyed a walk around, including a visit to the local church where the choir was practicing - which sounded wonderful. The church was only built in 1887, but was still very impressive with huge stained glass windows. On Wednesday we travelled through Nieuwegein. At one point, we we were following another barge, we came to an old disused lock, now permanently open, that we had to go through. It was quite narrow (about 5.5 m wide - we are 4.5 m). The boat in front suddenly stopped and there was a bit of manoeuvring as there was a cruiser coming the other way through the lock. It was quite dramatic for a moment.
After after going through the lock alongside a commercial (they only used half the lock), we were in the large Amsterdam-Rijn canal. Luckily it was empty as we exited the lock and we had a fairly calm trip. Joanna steered most of the way. We entered the Vecht near Maarssen and are moored there for a couple of days.
1 Comment
Hilary
13/9/2018 06:51:49 pm
Gorgeous heron picture!!! PleAse email to me!
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AuthorWe are sharing stories about and travels on our barge Moondance. Archives
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