A Cigar in Belgium: Journeys of a Narrowboat by Anne Husar

Author:Anne Husar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

One of the four Ascenseur Historique.

The next day was very windy and cloudy, not the best of weather for boating and unseasonable for late June. We decided to stay one more day on this blissfully quiet canal. No other boats came through the lock to join us throughout our stay but there were many passers-by who stared at Snail, some with more insistent curiosity than others. Having first read aloud our little ‘Please respect our privacy’ sign in the workshop porthole, one German-speaking couple spent a while filming us ‘close up and personal’ regardless. Another American sounding pair had a good long look and then declared the boat to be a caravan. On the whole we found Belgian ‘gongoozlers’, the British term for these towpath onlookers were unfailingly polite, friendly and less intrusive than other nationalities although we were soon to encounter an unsettling exception to this.

The weather had calmed the following day so back we went through the old lock, filling up our water tank first from the hosepipe dangling on the lock office wall. It didn’t really need doing but following our mantra of get it when you can, we thought we should. Out came the lockkeeper with an invoice in ‘typical for bureaucratic Walloon’ triplicate for the princely amount of three euros, the set charge apparently for a square metre of water. We had only taken a little, just enough to top up the tank so this was very expensive water but we had learnt a lesson. From then on in Walloon we waited until the tank was almost empty before using their three euros worth.

Back on the Canal du Centre we looked forward to experiencing the very modern Strepy-Thieu boat lift. This had been built in 2002 at enormous expense as a quicker alternative to the four Anderton style lifts which a newly dug stretch of canal now by-passed. Astonishingly this vertical lift takes boats up seventy three metres (that’s over two hundred and thirty-seven feet) in one breathtaking operation and with the building that houses it standing one hundred and seventeen metres high, it’s visible for miles around. The surrounding grass covered hills that had been newly formed from the excavations were planted with rows of neat walnut trees, adding a pleasing sense of symmetry to the perspective and a possible harvest opportunity later in the year. As we approached this towering contemporary structure the lights changed to green and a flashing arrow indicated which of the two available tanks to enter. As so often on our Belgian travels we were all alone and it seemed amazing to us that this gigantic boat lift was going to be operated just for Snail and for free. We entered the high-sided tank, roped up and waited. Over one hundred and forty vertical cables each as thick as a man’s arm lined the walls around us each with their own sensors and computerised operating box. These cables disappeared upwards to the lofty ceiling very high above our heads.

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