The River with 2 Names

One really odd thing about Belgium is how the generally invisible border between Flanders and Wallonia is made stark by language.  One minute you're following road signs in Dutch and then a 'welcome to Wallonia' sign flashes by and the name of your destination changes completely.  For example Geraardsbergen sits in southern Flanders and everyone happily speaks dutch (and english).  A few kilometres on and they ask (strictly in French) if you came from Grammont.

The River Dender changes name less dramatically, becoming the Dendre as you cross the non-border.  But the lock keepers change and french is suddenly compulsory having been banned 5km previously.  The Walloons are more laid back than the Flemish and they seem to have a rule against lone working that means a lock keeper doesn't do anything until his mate turns up (in a different van).  There's certainly no staff shortage in the Wallonia Public Service.

Still in Flanders, we spent a night in Aalst where the local dialect supposedly means that 'hello' sounds like 'onion'.  Each year they have a festival where onions are thrown at the crowd from the town hall steps.  I suspect this story has lost something in translation but when I called the harbour master Mr Onion on departure, he laughed politely.  He was a classic Flemish harbour master, keen to show off his English and even more keen to welcome us.  He was waving us in to a mooring and then saw the idiot Retriever.  He promptly waved us further up to a place by a gate to which he lent us the key so the aforementioned Retriever didn't have to walk along the metal grid pontoon.  Cora thanked him with gifts of hair and slobber.

We took on young Alfred for the weekend.  Julie equipped him with his very own boat cup, plate and spoon.  This is our typical boat policy, we have everything we need to live on board and don't bring stuff from home.  Yes folks, I have special Taddy-pants.  OK, you didn't need to know that.

In beautiful weather, we cruised south along the Dender valley.  It was gorgeous with spring in full flow.  Our journey was shared with a cruiser from the club at Aalst who organised all the locks and bridges and provided a running commentary by VHF.  When we got to Geraardsbergen, the lock keeper pointed out that we had reached the limit of Flanders and, if we wanted to continue in a couple of days, we had to call 'the French' to arrange it.  He then did this for us.

We had a lovely weekend in Geraardbergen (or should I be saying Grammont yet?).  We could see things were changing because it was hilly and I got to push the push chair up the hill.  The weather continued to be lovely and we washed the idiot Retriever who had found mud.  She has her own paddling pool for this purpose . . .

After a couple of days, we sent Alfred and his minders home and continued on into Wallonia.  As arranged, our personal team of lock keepers was waiting for us on time at the first lock.  Then they drove from lock to bridge to lock to provide a first rate personal service.

All the way to Ath where we stopped for another couple of days and found a Lidl close by!

We were also by the railway but that seemed quiet enough.




By magic (and my dodgy French), our next lock crew, this time in 3 vans and featuring a Gerard Depardieu look-alike arrived to help us on to Ladeuze, possibly the best mooring we've had so far.  Nice grassy mooring with electricity and water included.  It was just up the road to Chez Gina, an odd little cafe presided over by Gina, 84, who everyone kissed as they entered and left.  She spoke no English but still told us her story.  And took great offence when I tried to leave a tip which she returned with a stern look.  It felt that we had travelled 10km south and 30 years back!

After another 2 days, Gerard came flying by with a jolly wave and we were off down 14 locks that would take us back to 'big water'.  It was a windy Saturday with sudden storms.  At 12, the lock keepers announced they were going to lunch for 30 minutes and left us sitting in a lock. We had lunch too - when in Wallonia . . .

The Dender/Dendre was fabulous.  Nice towns, beautiful scenery and plenty of lock keepers who were pleased to see us.  They aren't kept busy!

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