Knokkebrug to Fintele

Monday 8 June 2015

The day dawned beautifully; not a breath of wind and the sun reflecting gloriously off the mirror-like water. Engine checks done and by 08h30 we were raring to go. Fortunately the lift bridge at Knokkebrug operates from 07h00 to 19h00 weekdays so it was no problem to get service and before nine o’ clock we were on our way – almost not however; it took a bit of doing to get Elle’s bum out of the goo.

The Knokkebridge

A short 6.5 kilometres later we moored up outside the Hooipeter restaurant in the hamlet of Fintele guided in by the most gentlemanly lockkeeper we had met on our previous visit. Tied up fast we took the bikes into the ever freshening breeze and rode to Pollinkhove where there was just about nothing apart from the compulsory large church with attendant graveyard and a scattering of houses. Then on to Lo or Lo-Reninge which was a bigger version of Pollinkhove but at least had an open bakery (of course, it’s Monday!); in order to use their loo we stopped for a beer at the “Oude Abdij" Hotel and, once a couple of chairs had been removed from atop one of the tables, we sat in splendid isolation examining the mementoes’ left behind by various visiting military interest groups.

The pub at Oude Abbij Hotel

With the now strong wind behind us we flew back to Fintele to pick up our takeaway ‘paling in ‘t groen’ (eel in green sauce) from the Hooipeter which was delicious, perhaps made a trifle more so by the fact that we did not have to pay the normal 400% mark-up on shop prices for a bottle of wine.

And moored in front of us were the Aussies we had met in Nieuwpoort

Fintele mooring with Aussies 'Le Boat'

– we said hello when they returned from a 10 kilometre ride (half into the wind so they must have been a bit pooped!) to the St Sixtus Abbey and Brewery at Westvlaterin; seems like that if you do not have the ‘almost impossible to obtain’ appointment to visit the Abbey it is hardly worth the effort so we will probably give it a miss tomorrow.

With leaves and twigs from the adjacent trees beginning to shower the decks in the howling wind it was gas hatch cover maintenance and nary a nose outside for the rest of the day.

Note: Finkele, as tiny as it is, has an interesting history. Fintele comes from the Flemish word ‘windele’ meaning ‘portage’ and refers to the 13^th century practice of winching boats up/down and across the dam walls which separated the three levels of the Izer river.

13th Century!

The current lock complex, built during the eighteen hundreds, was demolished by the British during WWII and restored again after the War and is now a Protected Monument and used exclusively by pleasure craft.

Further, since the 17^th Century, the connection between the Izer river and the ‘Ijzerbroeken’ or low lying surrounding fields which become submerged during winter when the river breaks its banks, was via a wooden swing bridge or ‘Hooipiete’ which was used by farmers in the summer months to drive their cattle into the rich pastures of the ‘Ijzerbroeken’ and to mow the hay. Each autumn the bridge was dismantled and stored until the following spring. In the 1850’s the swingbridge was replaced by a fixed bridge with had a bearing strain of three tons and a width of 5.2m – this bridge was dismantled each time a vessel passed and in 1990 this was done 65 times!