About two months ago, Jan and I were talking about taking the (his) canoe out for a weekend somewhere. Life kinda got in the way but finally we both had time on July 7-8. Relatively close, even for Dutch standards, we chose the Brabantse Biesbosch, beautiful albeit sometimes crowded, leaving from Hank.

We already had a lot of rain the last couple of  days and my Hammock Gear cuben Winter Palace was still held hostage by my friends at Customs. So I took a blue tarpaulin from the local hardware store. It doesn’t look pretty but it works, with the ginormous sum of € 4,50 and the shocking weight of 880 gram [31 oz] and a surface area of 2×3 mtr [6.5x10 ft].

Saturday morning it was warm and muggy, and it stayed that way till the evening. As luck would have it we didn’t see too many other people at the water and there was nobody at our chosen campsite.

We set up camp, had coffee with 43 (Kaarentie tres), did some woodcarving and a lot of “nothing”. Around six in the evening it started drizzling, that transfered into rain, that changed into a drizzle and back again. This went on and on.

Rain, and waking up under a tarp, dry, warm and comfy in your hammock…. there are very little better ways to wake up… After our breakfast from the hammock we forced ourselves to break camp and paddle back. We donned our poncho’s while drizzle, rain and hard rain changed roles. Luckily for us it was warm so we didn’t really mind the paddle back.

Exiting the canoe a lot of water got from the poncho and impromptu rain skirt over the, till then, dry legs. Ah well, we tossed all the gear in and on the Landrover and like something the cat dragged in, we had a bite and a beer in the harbour restaurant. After drying out a bit we left a successful weekend.

Thanks for your interest and ’till next time

Grtz Johan