26 August
Leerdam to Geldmarlsen

We were in two minds whether to leave the boat in Leerdam and cycle up the river to Geldmarlsen, or take the boat the couple of hours up-river.

While we prevaricated, I took a walk around town, stopping in at a couple of market stalls as Saturday is market day. I followed my nose to a van selling rotisserie chickens and couldn't resist taking one home for lunch.




 

We hadn't far to go to visit the glass works.

Skip spent the morning visiting the glass blowers at the end of our dock and cleaning out the blocked sink. I suspect one was more fun than the other.

We opted to take the boat up river.  A happy decision. The Linge is our favourite Dutch waterway so far - very, very pretty and always something to look at.

The Linge is such a pretty river.

Being a glorious summer weekend, everyone was out on, or in, the water. There was everything that floated on the river today from inflated inner-tubes to chock-a-block-full day trip boats and everything in-between.

There are a couple of these boats doing day-trips up and down the river.

There are hundreds of small plots along the banks, most with private boat moorings and most with their owners enjoying the good weather on the riverside.
We gathered from a few For Sale signs, that one can buy these small plots for recreation use although it is obviously not permitted to build any solid structures on them as all we saw were umbrellas, tents or awnings - not even the odd garden shed. Some were pretty basic - bit of mown grass, a BBQ and a few plastic chairs but some were really quite ornate with beautiful gardens. 

This is an "Oeverparceel".

I had to go and ask Mr Google, natch, and he informed me that on average along this river it costs around 30 000 euros to buy one of these Oeverparceels, as they are called. There are apparently also restrictions of how many and what size boats can be moored on these plots.

Today's beautiful riverside home and ...

 

... and today's windmill. I'll try not to make a habit of it.

The upper reaches of the river became increasingly rural with beautiful tree-lined pastures down to the river and mile upon mile of apple and pear orchards.

There are very few public moorings available for visiting boats along the river, so we had our fingers crossed we would find a space at the town yacht club. Luckily there were a few spaces available, and the havermeester waved us in to a prime spot side-on to a grassy bank near the facilities (and router). We would have been happy with a bow-to mooring slot, but prefer side-on moorings when we can find them as it is easier for both us and the bikes to get on and off.  The cheapest mooring fee so far - 8 euros, with electricity from a pay meter, 50c per kilowatt.

After a short walk around town, we headed back to the boat for "borrel" (tapas) and a spectacular floor show provided by nature as a thunderstorm passed some ways north of us, lighting up the sunset. We wouldn't have minded a little rain as a relief to the heat, but it remained dry.

I gave Skip the night off, and we had "borrel" for supper.

We like it so much here, we are staying another day, and we like the river so much we are going to cycle up and down it tomorrow.