We arrived in Gouda, turning right into town and going though 3 very small bridges and a mini-lock to park on the town quay. We saw Kaikoura go in and watched their spreaders in the trees, so went very careful as we went alongside the pontoon – well not pontoon as it is non-tidal.

We were quite tired so didn’t go out and ate on board and watch a DVD. The next morning we got the bikes out and cycled 100 metres to find we were already in the town centre, just a 2 minute walk from the boat. The Saturday market was in the square, so we got fresh bread, cheese and veg. We sat in a café on the square and had coffee and David had a great open sandwich for elevenses and we just people watched the in the sunshine.

We lunched back on the boat as we were leaving at 3 for the 3.15 bridges and actually made the rail lift bridge and road bridge for the late afternoon opening as the next one was not until 2100 as most of the bridges in Holland close Sundays and have limited opening times on Saturday.

This one only opened 4 times on a Saturday so there was a queue.  If we had of missed this one the next opening was 21.13 and the waiting pontoons are pretty non existent for two large boats unless you’re a barge… Anyway we caught the bridge and kept going through the next 3 bridges which are all camera operated.  We all decided to go as far as we could until the bridges close at 18.00, as we went through the final bridge the guy leaned out of the window and tapped his watch – obviously not happy we were in the bridge sequence so late on  Saturday night.

We missed getting to the marina we had planned and ended up mooring outside of a barge mid bridges as the lock master had gone home, together with Kaikoura and a Dutch boat that was also heading for Amsterdam.  At least it was free, we walked up to the pub for a drink and just to stretch our legs, while Steve, Di, Hollie with Helen and Kathy went out a Blues Band pub and hung out till midnight

Love from Suzie Too xxxx