England

It is as Emily said.  After 5 days waiting in Dunkerque, France, we crossed the English channel and survived. 



Crossing the shipping lanes in the English Channel - not as frantic as we'd expected

We then waited 5 or 6 days at Ramsgate for good enough weather to get up around the corner into the Thames. 



Neat shops are tucked under the road that runs up the cliff

The marina at Ramsgate

While we waited we visited towns such as Broadstairs (where Dickens wrote some of Bleak House), Sandwich (where the Earl invented some kind of convenience meal), and Canterbury (where they make great French fries - oh, and have some kind of old cathedral).

The beach at Broadstairs - A little too cool yet for swimming

Cycling along the white cliffs at Ramsgate
 



Before Dunkerque (I forgot this part), we took a side trip to Iepers (Ypres), a town in France with a significant role in WWI for Canadian troops.  We saw where John McCrea wrote In Flanders Fields, walked through a rebuilt trench system, and stood with lots of visitors for Last Post at the Memorial arch.



 

Rows of headstones at a graveyard in Flanders - no poppies where the grass is mowed

After Ramsgate, we got into the River Medway, stopping first at Chatham where they have a most excellent museum built on the Historic Dockyards.  We got to tour a submarine and warship, make rope the old fashioned way, and learn how wooden ships were built hundreds of years ago. 

After a few days there we headed up the river to the first lock, where you get out of tidal salt water and into non tidal fresh water.  This was exciting on account of the many times we ran aground.  When this happens in tidal water, you simply have to wait 'til the tide comes in and lifts you off the sandbar or rock bed, or wherever you happen to have got stuck.

 



 The Medway was lovely and we left the boat for five days and stayed in an apartment while Tom did a boat show in Southampton.  As Emily mentioned in her post, we watched an inordinate amount of television  - because it was there.  We also visited an excellent exhibit about the Titanic, as Southampton is the city it sailed from on its unfortunate voyage.



After reaching the top of the navigable Medway, we turned around and returned to Chatham, from where we set out for London. 

London was fabulous!  We were not expecting to have such a good time, being not big city people.  But the whole event started with an excellent mooring at St. Katherine's Dock, just below Tower Bridge (which is the nice looking one, not to be confused with London Bridge which fell down and was replaced with something completely nondescript).  Having done no real research ahead of time, we were very pleasantly surprised to find that the Tower of London (really great castle/palace/fortress) was just down the street on the other side of the bridge.  We also found all the usual sights such as Trafalgar Square and Canada House, Buckingham Palace, St. James and Hyde Parks, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and the parliament buildings, etc.  We managed to visit the Science Museum, Maritime Museum in Greenwich, Tower of London, Museum of the Bank of England (who would've guessed that would be interesting!?), the British Museum and the National Gallery. 



After London, we headed up the River Thames, landing at lots of places we've never heard of, and some of great fame. 

For instance, books and spring rolls were acquired in the main street of the town of Staines. 

LEGOLAND was thoroughly enjoyed in the town of Windsor. 

Oh yeah, we popped in at the Queen's place in Windsor, too.  That was actually very cool, and although we didn't see her, the changing of the flags on the central tower of the palace let us know that she showed up while we were wandering through her little abode.

 After Windsor, we moved further up the river and focused on getting the boat ready for our own royal event, the visitation of my parents.  They arrived yesterday evening, and after just one small mishap with the rental car which must be driven on the "wrong" side of the road, Tom obtained them from Heathrow and delivered them to the boat.  So now we are six folk on a boat and have found ourselves moored about 50 feet from a pub in a town called Sandford on Thames which has absolutely nothing else going on so is very pleasant and rural and quiet, and is a short morning's boat ride from Oxford.  We will spend a couple of days in Oxford and then turn around and make our way slowly back down the river. 

That's assuming I can pull Tom away from his new local, the King's Arms.

The River Medway

We just got back to Chattum after spending fifeteen nights on the Medway. Five of those days wee spent in Southampton. In Southampton we rented an apartment. Dad went to be in a boat show and Georgia, Mom and I went swimming, shopping, wandering, out for lunch and staying at the apartmrnt watching TV and being bored. we had left our boat in Wateringbury. On the Medway, there are ten locks. Eight of those you have to do by yourself. it is a bit hard.

Georgia and I pushing one of the lock gates.

 

 

Tomorrow, I think we are going to start going to London. mom wanted to be in London for Canada Day, but we weren't.

 

 

EMILY

WE SURVIVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We made it to England alive. Thank goodness for that. Yesterday everybody woke up surprisingly early in Dunkirk. Sorry, we forgot to write about being in France. Well... we were in France. Just Dunkirk really. So we woke up, and started getting everybody and everything ready. We packed things away because we knew from experience that when it's wavy, things seem to fly all over the place. Then, mom and dad cast off (I was supposed to, but no one told me we were leaving.) Then we went under two bridges and through a lock. I hate locks. They are so boring. And this one took about three hours. Finally, we got out onto the sea. I was thankful to get out of the lock, but I was not thankful to get out on the sea. This is the north sea by the way and there are lots of waves and lots of current and lots of ships. We talked for a bit and then Georgia fell asleep. Then Mom started not feeling well, so she went to lie down. I was reading and I felt fine. So did dad. We left at around 9:30 and at lunchtime we were around the shipping lanes in the middle of the English Channel. We weren't really sure if we were going to make it to England that day, but when we got to Calais, mom and dad decided we would keep on going. So around lunchtime, we asked mom to make us lunch. We hadn't made sandwiches before we left because we had no bread. Actually we had no food at all. Except for pasta, but I'd rather not boil water when the boat is rolling. So mom made us ham and omelette wraps. She says that it was very hard for her not to throw up the whole time she was making dinner. Georgia didn't eat all of her wrap, but after a bit she threw up.
We cleaned it up and all went back to sleep. I slept or read the rest of the way and before I knew it we were passing the White Cliffs of Dover. Then we were in Ramsgate (a.k.a. Rampage). We got landed around 3:30. That was confusing because we had re-lived an hour and we weren't sure if the clocks had changed. Apparently they had. We paid and mom got confused with the pounds. Then the girls walked around town and got groceries. We had indian food for dinner.

Today, we went to Broadstairs. I couldn't remember what it was called so I called it Fatstairs. When we were getting the bikes off the back of the boat, Georgia dropped mine in the water. It was high tide and Georgia and Dad had to go find something to get it out of the water with. They came back with hooks that they had found in a scrap pile in a boat yard. They got my bike out and it was covered in grey muck. They had to clean it and by the time we got going it was 2:30. We biked along the dodgy bikepaths, and got to Broadstairs around 3:00. We had lunch of fish and chips. Georgia and I are having a problem with speaking in a British accent when we hear other people speaking with one. After lunch we had icecream and got back to the boat by 4:00. Then Dad went to go get groceries. That's it for our adventures in England so far!!!!

(: EMILY :) is happy to be where you can buy English books!

 The purple line is the route we took roughly

Bruges

Having found Ghent to be quite spectacular, we didn't really expect Bruges to surpass it.  It did, however, and has now made it to the top of our Most Beautiful Cities in Europe list.  Virtually every corner turned reveals a quaint streetscape, charming square or picturesque canal. 


Many of the medieval buildings are still standing are and maintained in very good shape.  This does mean, however, that the city is packed with tourists and all the trappings of tourism.  The main arteries in the old city centre consist primarily of shops selling souvenirs, Belgian chocolates (the country's best chocolates being offered at virtually every shop) and waffles. 

We spent some of our time in Bruges doing chores like laundry and replacing the bicycle that was stolen in Ghent (a very expensive mistake!) and spent most of our tourist time just walking around.  The girls and I visited only one museum, a medieval hospital with artifacts and art from the late middle ages.  Needless to say, it makes us thankful to be living in the age of advanced medical science!

 

The Old and the Beautiful

After docking in Ghent, we proceeded to do absolutely nothing.  Being a constant tourist can get tiring, and sometimes you just need a day of rest.  When we got up the next day we walked toward the centre of the old town and were astounded to see how great it all was.  Among other things, Ghent boasts multiple cathedrals, all in a row, and a tremendous number of old buildings.  One of the main gathering spaces is the Graslei along the river Leie.  On each side of the river the streets are lined with old buildings, many with outdoor cafes. 
In one direction you can see the Castle of the Counts, also called Gravensteen, a story book type of castle built in the 1400s.  This is now a museum that allows you to wander the rooms, some displaying artifacts of battle (full suits of armour and the like) and some showing off devices of torture (we skipped this room).  You can also climb to the top and look down on the city below.



While we were in Ghent we also visited the Museum of Design.  This establishment cleverly placed a series of playmobile characters around the museum and required the kids to find the characters hidden amongst the objet d'art.   We also visited the Museum of Textiles, as Ghent's claim to fame is the production of fabric and its distribution around Europe.  We also took the requisite canal boat tour and ate a box of Belgian chocolates.   

 
 
 

Not All Picturesque

When we left the very fancy marina at Kortgene, we headed through Middleburg to Vlissingen (pronounced Fleshingen) to a much less fancy marina.  On the way we passed this empty looking hotel.  Although "bad" is the word for "bath" in Dutch and may be an appealing marketing strategy for nationals, we wondered if the name might be putting off the foreign tourists.


Overall, the Netherlands was beautiful and looks like a great place to live.  Not everything is picturesque, mind you.  At Vlissingen (pronounced Fleshingen) we had a bit of a hike to get to the grocery store and found ourselves walking through a neighborhood that might be described as a little rough around the edges.  Fortunately, this was more than compensated for by the clubhouse at the marina that served wine, beer and excellent French fries. 

From Vlissingen we had to cross an inlet of the North Sea.  This was eventful only for the first fifteen minutes or so, starting from the moment when the sea started rushing into the locks as we were motoring out.  We had timed our departure so that we would be riding with the incoming tide which eventually worked to our advantage but got us off to a bit of a rocky start.

From Vlissingen, we crossed to Terneuzen, another industrial town where we stayed just one night.  Then it was off down the Terneuzen-Ghent canal and into Belgium.  This is a very significant commercial canal for the city of Ghent, taking all their manufactured goods out to the North Sea and wherever they go after that.  As a result, our first impression of Belgium was not quite what you see in the tourist brochures!  

Taste of the High Seas

We left Dordrect Tuesday morning at about 11 am in the spitting rain.  Our goal was to move as far to the south west as possible, near to where we will cross into Belgium, so we intended to put in a good eight hours or so.  Of course, we also intended to leave at 8 in the morning...(note that the sun sets very late here, and the girls rarely get to sleep before 10, hence, the 8 am start is unlikely, if not impossible).  In any case, most of the day's motoring was pretty dull.  Tom is still keen on looking at every shipyard, shipping dock, barge and yacht we pass, but we girls have moved on.  Emily and Georgia spent much of the day designing houses on their IPads while I read a completely pointless novel.  Which was all well and fine until the excitement began.  We had to cross a large stretch of open water and we had our first taste of the high seas.  I had been starting to wonder why a boat like this one would be made with 3/4 inch lips around all the horizontal surfaces.  I guess it was about five o'clock when we were taking five foot waves (I say eight, Tom says four) on the side, making the boat roll like mad.  Everything lose slid back and forth, including Georgia, who was asleep on the leather bench at that point.  If I hadn't been holding her back, she'd have landed on the floor with quite a rude awakening.  I don't think you can really get the feel of it, but we've included a little bit of video taken on Tom's blackberry.

Needless to say, by the time we docked at 6:30 or so, we were all pretty wiped out, so we've stayed put today, enjoying good internet access and a playground for the girls.