2023

For the past four years since 2019, we have planned to take the barge to Strasbourg while exploring the Alsace region. In 2021, I wrote "In 2019, I wrote on this blog that "Having moved Kanumbra up north at the end of last season (2018), this year will see us breaking new ground in our cruising. So far, we have no real idea where we will be going, except that we want to start by going up the River Doubs (Canal du Rhône au Rhin) to Mulhouse, before joining the Grand Canal d'Alsace and heading north to Strasbourg. After that, it's anyones guess!""..

Well, our plans were curtailed in 2019 by boat repairs and wet weather, 2020 turned out to be a bit of a fizzer, for well known Covid reasons, and we didn't even get to France, and for a long time we thought 2021 might be heading in the same direction. But we finally got Travel Exemptions to leave Australia, and spent several months in France in 2021. Unfortunately, the death of Rita's mum in Switzerland in August disrupted any plans we might have made, and we only got a couple of weeks of local cruising done in 2021. Last year, high temperatures and low water levels aborted our plans to cruise to Strasbourg.

So this year, we have decided not to make any cruising plans! We have booked our tickets and will be in France from April till November (assuming that by then I will have collected my Carte de Sejour, which has been plagued by various delays within the Prefecture). But we will wait until we get there, and are settled in on the boat, before deciding when and where we will cruise. The only activities planned to date are to join Arnim and Heidi for a bike ride in the Aachen-Masstricht region in May, then perhaps a road trip to Scotland in the campervan to meet up with some Spooky Ladies, and then we will host old friends Craig and Ginger Hupp from the USA for some time aboard Kanumbra in September. Apart from that, anything might happen (or might not!).