Netherlands inland waterway trip – Making speed on the Geldersche Ijssel

Geldesche Ijssel

17th September 2014

Another beautiful sunny day!

We planned to get to Giesbeek which only was about 18 kms away, and most of the way would be downstream.

At last!.

We had a lazy start – did a bit of boat cleaning and got going just after 10.00 am.

Best speed – 14.8 kms / hour

The first 3 kms was upstream along the Neder Rijn, but then we made a sharp turn and into the Geldersche Ijssel, downstream.

What a pleasure.

We made our best speed ever with 14.8 kms/hr noted on the GPS.

And this was only at about half speed on the engine.

The trip still had its stressful moments.

On the Geldersche Ijssel

There were loads of commercial barges, going both ways, and many were showing the blue board indicating we must pass on the wrong (starboard) side. So we had to keep our wits about us.

What a lovely area the Rheedelaag is.

This is one of these artificial lakes created by the quarrying of sand and gravel to fill in the polders.

The Dutch are brilliant at this.

Commercial barge showing blue board

The Rheedelaag is about 5 kms long and 1 to 2 kms wide, with about 5 huge marinas, sandy beaches and bays and upmarket residential dwellings with their own jetties – an absolute boaters paradise.

WV Giesbeek was a very good marina –

19 Euro for the night – showers and ablutions included, as well as very good wifi.

Shangri La at WV Giesbeek

Walstroom was metered at Euro .50c, and amazingly cheap washing machines and dryers were available.

And, there was a clubhouse with a restaurant and reasonably priced beers and wine, so we had sundowners and a bite to eat there in the evening.

Rheederlaag lakes

We did not bother to trek all the way into the tiny town of Giesbeek itself, as there was apparently not much there at all.

Sandy beaches

Oh – there was a nudist beach about twenty minutes away, so I did go and spend an hour or so there.

A lovely relaxing day in all!

Boater’s paradise in the Rheederlaag

Statistics:

Distance           18 kms
Locks               0
Bridges            3 x fixed
Motoring time      2 hours

I tend to get hung up on the boating aspects of our trip – for a slightly different take, check out Karen’s blog

Bon voyage.