Station Zwijndrecht

Wed 31st August
In Which a Mutiny is Planned

Today started with an extended boat ride out of Antwerp, through several locks and alongside massive port facilities. It was fascinating to watch the way that the water is controlled inside the locks in order to raise or lower the ships inside. Since we seldom see such goings on in Australia, several of our participants decided to stay out on the desk so that they wouldn’t miss anything. They didn’t.
While we were safe and dry inside the lounge, Pauline stood proud on the prow – just in time to catch a veritable deluge of slimy green water cascading down from the huge gate. It left her completely saturated, and also left the rest of us in hysterics.

She stood on the deck with the water dripping from her clothes and pretended that it was all planned that way.

Today was the day that we crossed from Belgium in Holland and our first impressions of the new country were that it was sparsely populated and very waterlogged. And yes, it was also VERY FLAT. No wonder that the Dutch have spent much of their history trying to devise ingenious ways of surviving in such adverse conditions. The entire region is crisscrossed with an elaborate network of canals and drainage channels – and yes there are also large windmills all over the place as well.

Our first lunch stop in Holland was at a lovely hotel/cafe by the bike path. I almost accidentally left without paying the bill (serves the owner right for trusting the memories of people our age). A little further away we passed through Willemstadt – a prosperous looking town with a marina full of pretentious large boats. It soon became obvious that people who own such vessels never actually sail them – they just sit on the decks drinking and smoking and trying to impress those who pass by.

It was somewhere along the way that Lynda happened to spy a bike shop

She immediately stopped and announced that she “had to buy something”. She rushed inside and returned a few minutes later with brand new pair of cycling gloves. Apparently she had lost her previous pair somewhere and need a replacement. It was not until the end of the day’s ride, when she took off her helmet that she found where she had packed the original gloves. They were safely inside her helmet and she had actually been wearing them on her head for the entire ride.

We found our familiar boat waiting for us at the wharf in Dordrecht. In Holland’s wealthy past this town was actually the second largest city, but now its position has been overtaken by Rotterdam. After a superb dinner of salmon and mashed potato we went on an evening walk around the city. It was yet another perfect, warm summer’s evening with the northern constellations twinkling overhead.

It was also about this time that a few of us came to an interesting discovery. Thanks to Europe’s intricate network of rivers and canals, it would actually be possible for the Magnifique to take us all the way to Budapest. All we would have to do is take Captain Roy, throw him overboard and then take control of the boat

Paul had once hired a Bull’s Cruiser at Meetung, so we already had some experience about driving boats. I had a working GPS and a couple of walkie talkies. I am sure that we had a range of other skills among the other passengers so it would not be hard to form a working crew. Could you imagine the fun we could have on our pirated vessel as we took it across the continent ? It would surely reach the news services and capture the imagination of elderly citizens the world over. We also figured that, at our age, at least we wouldn’t have to languish long in prison. It would be thoroughly worth it.

It had been yet another wonderful dayRead more