13° C Sunny spells, grey clouds, breezy. Set off early to
get a good start hoping to get to Lingen. We arrived at the swingbridge at 7.55
a.m. (in Germany at last!) and a voice
announced something over a tannoy in
German which none of us understood. We had to wait until 8.25 a.m. before the
bridge swung and let us into the lock chamber. Meanwhile I sponged off most of
the sticky mess covering the roof, which must have come from the oak trees we’d
been moored under. We rose 0.1m in the first lock and went on to the summit
level of the Haren-Rütenbrock kanal. I did the chores and made a cuppa as we
ran down to the first downhill lock, where we dropped down 0.8m with the keeper
operating the lock from his desk in Haren. A long straight followed to the next
lock, where we had a short wait while three cruisers come up the lock. We
dropped down the deep lock, 1.9m, which used to be worked by a very genteel
lady who came out from the lock house to press buttons and
work the lock for
us. Two more cruisers waited below. By the next road, a high level
bridge carrying the A31 autobahn, a crane boat was busy putting stones along
the edge of the bank and backing it up with dredgings. Mike went inside to
‘phone the bearing company while we were on the long pound. First he got an
answering service, then he got through to a bloke who was a bit disorganised,
first he hadn’t got a catalogue and then his computer screen had gone blank.
Mike told him he’d ‘phone him back. We arrived at the liftbridge which had been
under reconstruction and had been keeping the canal shut since we arrived on
17th May. We waited and waited with a side
wind blowing harder and harder. Mike
spotted a work boat and threw a stern rope around a little bollard next to it
and the construction crew’s portacabin, this stopped the wind blowing us on to
the other bank and our boat rested against a little open boat, using it as a
fender whilst we waited for the bridge to open. Bill hovered on the bend a
little further back up the canal for a while then came alongside. Mike went
inside to try ‘phoning the bearing company again and got transferred to a girl
called Jenny and had to explain everything all over again. She said she would
ring him back. A cruiser appeared on the far side of the bridge at 11.30 (after
we’d been waiting over half an hour) and we went through the bridge and into
Haren. The bearing company ‘phoned back, Mike agreed to
compromise and have a
106 mm dia pulley (he wanted 110 mm - a larger diameter pulley was needed for slowing the water pump down) and she said they could get a bush to fit
it for him from their other depot. She found the last bill we’d had and noted
that last time they sent us stuff we didn’t pay the carriage, she said she’d
have to charge us this time. Mike arranged with her to send the parcel by post
to Bad Nenndorf. Jenny said they didn’t normally send stuff abroad. When she
saw our address she remarked that she lived in Tipton. Small world? Everything
should be OK to post off to us next day, but she said she would call us. We
went through the liftbridges into Haren expecting to have to tie up above the
lock as it was getting close to twelve o’clock and the keeper should be off to
his lunch. To our great surprise it was the same guy that came on a moped to
work the bridges when we were there last time, four
years earlier. He asked us
for 2 Euros each and showed Mike his computer screens in his brand new lock
cabin. No more uniform and kepi, he was very casually dressed as befitted an
office worker. It was 12.15 p.m. when we set off upstream on the river section
of the Dortmund-Ems-Kanal (DEK). One Dutch cruiser was waiting below the lock
to go uphill on the canal into the Netherlands. We ran up to Schleuse Hüntel
and waited while Marina came downhill, then we followed Corrona into the lock
with two cruisers. The lock was 210m long, so there was enough space. A boat
called Anita loaded with rocks, was waiting above when we left the top of the
lock at 2.15 p.m. The river wound through some gentle bends after the canal
section and we went into Meppen. Under the bypass bridge past a long gravel
loading quay, where two 80m boats were loading, Breediep and Drieklag. Swapped over to the left hand side to go
round a left hand bend into the town and passed a loaded boat, 80m Eberswalde
from Berlin, coming
downstream through the bridges round the bends. (We did
that last time). Mike called the keeper at the lock at Meppen. He said there
was one to come down (we thought) and a 67m loaded called Rival came out of the
lock, then there were just us two narrowboats to go up the big lock on our own.
The keeper leaned out of his third storey window and shouted something which we
a) couldn’t hear and b) couldn’t understand anyway. BEA-D a loaded tanker was
waiting above to come down. The lock filled at the front and back from
economiser pounds, then from the pound above to fill its 7.5m deep chamber. The
next canal section was 5 kms dead straight all the way to Varloh lock. We met
the next loaded boat, Murene 52m x 6.3m, about 1.5 kms from the lock. When we
got there the lock had been refilled and another loaded boat was coming down.
We went up the lock and Mike asked the keeper on VHF if we could stop overnight
on the landing, He didn’t understand the answer he got. We tied up anyway -
where else was there to go? It was 6.30 p.m. Mike went off to get the car half
an hour later. No sooner had he gone than a police car came stooging slowly
down the towpath, had a good look, but didn’t stop. I prepared garlic pork for
a stir fry for dinner but didn’t cook it until Mike returned with the car. He
was back at 9.30 p.m. having taken the car on to Lingen and ridden back on the moped.
Put the moped back on the roof, I cooked dinner and we ate it, both of us shattered.
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| The rebuilt liftbridge on Haren-Rutenbrock kanal |
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| Liftbridge on Haren-Rutenbrock kanal |
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| Liftbridge on Haren-Rutenbrock kanal |
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| Vertical liftbridge in Meppen DEK - photo from 2005 |
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| Below Meppen locks - photo from 2005 |
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| Above Varloh locks DEK - photo from 2005 |
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