Tuesday 30th June 2015 Namur to Anhée 22.3kms 4 locks

Hellboy going into La Plante lock

15°C Hot and sunny. Winded and set off upriver at 9.30am. An 80m empty called Tora-Zo had just gone past and was waiting on the quay below La Plante lock. A loaded boat called Avana came down, then Tora-Zo went up (we were too long to fit in the chamber with him). Another empty called Hellboy arrived and went up, still no room for us. Finally the lock emptied and we went up at 10.30 am with two cruisers, rising just 1.5m. When the lock was almost full Mike took

Tailfer weir and lock

our bag of rubbish to find a bin. The lock keeper had to unlock it for him, he said that if he left it unlocked all the locals would come and fill it. Hmm, sounds like the Belgians need to issue their citizens with bigger bins. Above the lock there was a moored police patrol boat.  Mike had connected the Markon drive so I did some washing. The largest of the two cruisers sped off into the distance, but the smaller one stayed behind us. Showed Mum the big riverside houses and

Police patrol boat moored abv Tailfer lock

gardens on the outskirts of the city, as they are very much like some of the mansions along the Thames. The big cruiser was going up in Tailfer lock when we arrived. The lock emptied, nothing to come down, and we went in with the small cruiser and waited about twenty minutes before the keeper closed the gates, during which time Mike disconnected the drive for the Markon and then looked after the boat while I hung up the washing. It was 12.25pm by the time we left the lock just 2.22m higher. An

Quarry at work (dust cloud) by Tailfer lock

empty boat called Mikemo was moored on the right opposite the quarry and Dependant was loading aggregate at the quarry on the left. In Profondville there were lots of kids playing in the river in blow up boats which wasn’t disturbing the huge flocks of Canada geese much. Took a photo of the hilltop hotel and belvedere looking back downriver. The forested hills were becoming steeper and climbers were enjoying the sunshine climbing the cliffs above the river. Up

Belvedere at Profondville

Rivière lock with the little cruiser, up another 2m. A loaded 80m boat, called Grace du Dieu, went into the lock as we left. A boat called D C Mosa 2 from Breskens NL, loaded with sand, went past at Godinne, propelled by an ancient thumper of an engine, it had embossed on its bow its former name of Gerda Openlander. An Australian cruiser from St Jean-de-Losne went past heading downriver as we approached Hun lock. Just below the lock, Europa was being loaded with soil from tipper lorries at the new quay and climbers were going up the

Climber on the cliffs at Hun

cliffs below the lock. Mike took photos and said they were mostly women climbers. As Hun was a deeper lock at 2.8m, the recessed bars in the lock wall were too high for me to reach so I grabbed the one we needed to use with a boathook while Mike climbed on the roof to thread the end of my locking rope through it. As we left the lock, a loaded French 80m boat called Black Pearl was waiting to come down. Hellboy (what a name for a rather boring looking boat) that had gone

Moored on the quay at Anhee

upriver first thing this morning was now moored on the left bank downstream of the island at Yvoir. A jet skier was zipping up and down the river in the ski zone, driven by a middle-aged man. Lierdam (85mx9m) a loaded Belgian boat from Antwerp went past heading downriver. We tied at the quay at Anhée on the low section and Mike did more rudder tweaks. We’d just finished doing our third tweak as a cruiser arrived and moored on the last bit of the low section in front of us. Never, in all the many times we’ve moored here, has anything else of any size come and moored here too. We did a third

What is this large mustelid, staggering past our boat?

test run then moored on the higher quay to give them more room. They were Belgian, but Northerners from Flanders, but the skipper spoke French so we could communicate with them and explain the rudder tweaking. Mike had spotted an animal in dire straits, he said it looked like it was suffering from heat exhaustion and asked me for a bowl of water for it. I gave him a small bowl expecting it to be a small animal but he said he wanted bigger one as it was the size of a cat. What is it? Have to climb the wall to go and look. I’d never seen anything like it but it must be in the same family as

Well, it looked three parts dead until my fingers got within three feet of it!

stoats and weasels but much bigger and looked three-quarters dead, eyes closed and rapid, shallow breathing. I dipped my hand in the water to sprinkle a few drops of water on it from a distance and in a flash it came to life leapt up and bit my finger!  Wow! That was a shock and boy did it hurt – and bleed! I thought it had taken the end off my finger. Back on the boat to wash it, blood was pouring out of a gash at the first joint on my index finger, plus a few more small puncture wounds. Mike put a sterile pad on it and wrapped it with sticking plaster. The blood came through it in no time so I wrapped a piece of kitchen roll round it and went for a lie down as I was a bit shaky after Mike remarked “I wonder if it had rabies?” When I checked in my guide books later I found the animal was a type of marten, probably a pine marten. Mike said it had gone into the garden of one of the new houses at the back of the quay. The lady from the house had phoned the police who were sending someone to pick it up. Hope the poor thing recovers and it hasn’t got rabies!!