What a chilly morning it was this morning! It was so cold last night we left the diesel heater running. In the morning the thermometer outside read -2*C and the mooring lines were frozen stiff. The trusty Perkins engine didn’t miss a beat when we started it up and motored slowly out of Peruwelz yacht haven.
We motored down steam to Peronnes lock, dropped 10m and then turned briefly to the north to collect fuel and water. It is amazing how much more simple life becomes when locks are emptying out as opposed to filling at the rate of knots.
At Peronnes we took on 117L of diesel to fill up the tank, and a full tank of water. We then started motoring up stream (yes going up hill again) towards France
The sun came out and the kids joined us on deck, making a pretend aeroplane and I was the pilot!
Just after midday we crossed the boarder into France. This presented a slight problem because the VNF pass for France that we were meant to complete online was not working. We proceeded to our first French lock Ecluse De Fresnes where the lock keeper was very helpful and gave us a temporary pass until we could reach an official VNF office.
After passing two more locks and rising up another 20m we reached Port De Plaisance Valescaut. This is our first paid yacht haven of the trip so we took full advantages of washing machines, water and 240V power.
Thank you Richard for your daily updates. We love reading them and especially seeing photos of the children. Aren’t they resourceful at finding things to do! I loved today’s one with all the soft animals. Boats are in their blood!
I am also forwarding them onto Diana and Cathy.
I do hope you get some warmer sunny days.
Love Trish
Glad you are enjoying the posts. Tell Diana and Cathy to sign up for the blog, it would be good having them onboard! Let’s schedule a talk on WhatsApp soon xx
Hi mate, Loving your blogs thank you and living my life on dreams at the moment. Lyn went to London yesterday but I’m not heading to Europe until April. I stuffed up my WordPress log on after I had written a large comment to you. Hence the email! All good in Brisvegas and hope to head to Tasmania in February/ March before the trip back to Europe. Love to meet your family at some stage. Cheers
John Mclean
+61 419 861 844
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