A DAY OF REST - SUNDAY 28 JUNE - YERSEKE

Yesterday, when we told the nice Harbour Master that we might move on to Tholen today, he warned us that everything there would be closed so there’s not really much point.  Then he confessed that nothing would be open in Yerseke either, (except for the church and perhaps a cafe or two) so we had a clear choice of moving to somewhere where we could do nothing, or simply doing nothing.

Common sense prevailed.

Exercise is often overrated, but after a long day lolling around inside a ten metre boat, the lack of it does begin to weigh on one’s conscience, so late in the afternoon we thought we’d take a turn around the town known as the “Oyster and Mussel Capital of the Netherlands”.

Had we not done so, we may not have known that Oyster farming was invented in China three thousand years ago, the Romans refined it or did whatever they did to it 400 years ago, but as with many of their good ideas, when they left town, the instructions were lost.  Sometime in the mid nineteenth century a French chap thought it might be a good idea and that prompted a fellow from this very town to give it a go as well, and that apparently was that; the beginning of a very long and presumably fruitful relationship between this town and the Mollusc family.

Everything was closed exactly as was promised of course, so we contented ourselves with not visiting the museum, nor sampling any of the wares of the many empty restaurants overhanging the ancient ponds.  The juxtaposition of fine dining and oyster farming seemed odd at first glance, but then we noticed that the farms, which are of necessity industrial in character and not exactly the sort of thing that would top one’s list of scenic attractions, in a certain light, with one’s head tilted in a particular direction, reflected one of the great fashion colours of today.

American Flag Oyster Farm Blue.

DAZED - SATURDAY 27 JUNE - SAS VAN GENT to YERSEKE

We’ve said it before and it’s worth repeating, that the Westerschelde holds the potential for enormous discomfort, but only a little cautionary fear for those in suitable vessels who are prepared to take the appropriate degree of care. While we are abundantly cautious, sadly our little boat is not intended for waterways of that ilk nor for any but the kindest conditions that one can encounter whilst on it.   Therefore before even considering the twenty-something kilometre journey wind, tide and forecast for the several hours the crossing takes need to be in perfect alignment, with a safety margin to boot.

Thus it was that we were up at a time that even the birds barely consider acceptable, once more double checking tide tables and forecasts from several sources before setting off to cross the dull, hazy, and with today’s temperatures, inappropriately tropical, ocean’s edge.

The most favourable tidal current would not be with us until ten, but delaying till them would offer the possibility of storms and increasingly disconcerting breezes in the early afternoon, so we opted for an earlier, slightly slower passage without the peak tidal assistance to ensure the most comfortable journey before the weather broke.

As is the way when one tries to predict the unpredictable, the forecast was correct, the timing a little off, but just enough to vindicate our early start. Every squall along the way materialised happily somewhere where we were not, and we managed to be sitting happily in Yerseke sharing a a late lunch serving of mussels and chips by the time the wind arrived.    

“Sitting happily” in this case is a euphemism for “sitting in a semi catatonic state”.   The temperatures of the last week combined we think with the “stress” if that’s what it was, of implementing our instant plan, or perhaps just the shock of being here,  have exacted their toll. 

We haven’t even done the “provisioning” shop that begins each season.  We’ve decided, that having a day off tomorrow in the promised milder temperatures, will completely cure whatever it is, and as the sun slowly sank in the west so too did we, (sink), quietly into our pillows.

A CAUTIONARY TALE - FRIDAY 26 JUNE - BRUGES to SAS VAN GENT

According to the forecast, we can expect two more days of this, but just to add to our enjoyment the overnight minimum is set to increase to twenty-seven instead of the twenty four or so to which we've become accustomed.   Hilariously perhaps it has taken five days for the topless buses to realise that perhaps relocating to a shady spot will enable sufficient misrepresentation of reality to attract one or two paying customers.  

Not so the tour boats that grace the canals.  They are boats. On the water.  Of course they are the coolest place in town. (NOT).  So hordes of hatless or near topless people still fill them for the thirty minute tour and all we can think of as they go happily by is how those burnt shoulders will feel against sweat dampened sheets when the reality of the overnight minimum temperature sinks in.

That forecast also resulted in a surprise change of plan for us, not that we had much of a plan beyond breakfast.  It offered just the merest hint of an opportunity to once again cross the Westerschelde, tomorrow, all being well.   All it would take would be one mighty dash; sixty kilometres at eight kilometres an hour, the equivalent of sixteen consecutive open boat tours of Bruges but in an enclosed, space devoid of breeze bar our lonely little fan which has spent most of the last week chattering to itself in a somewhat fruitless attempt to provide us with some relief, and we would be in that part of the Netherlands where we thought we’d be in a few weeks’ time.

If you read the title above, you will have already deduced that we rolled the dice, and with cooling scarves deployed and litres of water consumed during the course of the day, found ourselves in the evening in the Netherlands once again, in Sas van Gent to be precise, loitering in arctic chill of the supermarkets’ interiors under the guise of “picking up a few things for the voyage” as though there are no supermarkets in the rest of the Netherlands.

We are a little numb, more than a little hot and bothered, and wondering if tomorrow will turn out the way we hope it might.

WE CAN RUN BUT WE CAN’T HIDE - THURSDAY 25 JUNE - IN BRUGES

Wandering round the old town today it was pretty clear that everyone was still hiding in their burrows, or at in the deepest shade they could find in any cafe serving anything wet with ice in it.  

We tried that last night ourselves.  Dinner with Dave and Ria in a purportedly air-conditioned space (but which for all the world felt as though it had simply been heated to a lesser degree than outside), was splendid in every other respect.

Note to file;- if the temperature outside is thirty-seven degrees, setting the heater indoors to twenty-something will not help in the slightest!  At some point during the evening we noticed that whenever someone ventured outside, or in from out, the waft of breeze from the opening door was ever so slightly less hot than the temperature within.

Dave, an ideas man and problem-solver to the core, asked our friendly host if he could have what for all the world sounded like a “choopcha”.  This turned out to be an old menu folded several times in such a way that it would suffice as a door stop.   With the door thus chocked open and the world suddenly half a degree cooler, and with “tjoeptje” rolling off the tips of our tongues for the rest of the evening as a possible solution to all of the problems of the world, how could we fail to enjoy ourselves?

FOOTNOTE -

Two days later, in the Netherlands, after noticing a fine tjoeptje comprising stacked beer coasters under a leg of what would otherwise have been a very rocky table, we asked the waitress what that arrangement was called in Dutch, since the Flemish and Dutch languages have identical roots.  She looked vaguely puzzled, thought for a bit, and replied:

“We call them beer mats”

WHO WANTS TO BE A TOURIST ANYWAY? - WEDNESDAY 24 JUNE - IN BRUGES

For years I’ve pondered the dichotomy between architectural intent and the architectural photographer’s perception of art.   Architects by and large, go to great lengths to produce buildings which are meant for the occupation and use of human beings, yet the great photographers of their art  go to seemingly greater lengths to ensure that not one person is seen in the completed building, presumably in an effort to portray it as an inanimate piece of sculpture rather than a breathing machine filled with human habitation.

Today, as if the world doesn’t already know, we are in the middle of a heat wave of disconcerting extent.  Despite being older and wiser and knowing better than to do so, we wandered off into the heat haze not long after lunch o’clock, to complete a couple of errands.  We can’t be sure how much heat was radiating off those ancient cobble stones, but with the air temperature in the shade hovering in the mid thirties we guess the answer lies between “quite a bit” and “a lot”.   If there had been a cricket match on, one of the commentators may well have given a “players’ comfort score" that was very low indeed.

Despite all of that it was a shock to find the main square looking like something of a ghost town. 

It’s the first time after many months of cumulative life in this city that we’ve actually seen the square vacant.  

Combined with the lack of horse drawn carriages, the horses having quite reasonably been given the rest of the week off on compassionate grounds, and given the resulting silence and lack of bustle, it felt for all the world as though something was amiss.

Though we may complain about the usual summer encroachment of thousands of tourists into “our’ space, perhaps without them we should reluctantly admit there is just a little something missing.

 

ORANGE WARNING - TUESDAY 23 JUNE - OLDENBURG to BRUGES

The marine notices said that the entire canal infrastructure between where we were and where we wanted to be would be closed till midday.   So we phoned to make sure and were assured that only the lock in Bruges was affected.

Therefore we timed our run so that we’d got to the first of Bruges’ lifting bridges, the lock would be open and we’d be moored in the shade of the port before the real heat of the day began.    When we reached the first bridge however, the lovely voice from the other end of the line suggested that as the lock was not going to working until five thirty, we might like to put ourselves on one of those kabob skewers and wait where we were, slowly revolving for the next five hours so we warmed evenly in the orange light of the heatwave warning.  So we sat, fruitlessly keeping watch for anything resembling a sign of life near the bridge control.

We did have some sympathy for the dozen or so commercial barge crews affected by this outage, even if we envied their air conditioned wheelhouses, although once things did get going, because of the unique shape of the lock, the waiting pleasure craft were allowed to go to the head of the queue and sneak into the otherwise unusable half.

This meant we arrived in Bruges, tired, hot, and somewhat relieved to be sitting in the shade even though the port was as devoid of movement as the air was.  Theres’ nothing can be done but settle down for a few more days of grinning stupidly and nodding in agreement every time someone says “You’re from Australia, you must be used to this”.

We really don’t have enough spare energy to argue.

OH POO! - MONDAY 22 JUNE - DIKSMUIDE to OLDENBURG

We had considered getting away early, but the heat of the day doesn’t tend to dissipate until long after sunset, and we were flagging a bit afater two days of gently pacing our activity while slowly being broiled, so it was closer to nine when one of us lifted the floor to stow away the last of the tools.

Anyone who has passed through farmland in Europe at certain times of the year will be familiar with the distinct olfactory sensation that relates to the spraying of winter’s excrement over summer’s crop planting, a process which is apparently so disgusting to the plants that they then race as fast as they can towards the sky in an effort to get away from the ground which they no doubt conclude is the source of the unpleasantness.

We’d had the occasional gentle waft overnight, not surprising given the proximity of our mooring to paddocks of freshly growing green things, but the moment that floor was lifted our sympathy for the plants increased enormously as we were hit with a solid wall of what could only be described as “pong”.

Having now reached some sort of pinnacle in our lives where imitating that Mongolian contortionist in a confined space that smelled like a, well let’s face it, a sewer, is less than appealing, we did the only sensible thing we could think of under the circumstances, and called for help.

It only took Super-Thijs a few seconds to discover that simple human error on our part was the culprit, to tighten the joint loosened by our error, and send us happily on our way to Oldenburg.  There we spent the evening with the heat tempered a little by a cool sea breeze, and our already ebullient moods enhanced by an after dinner visit from Dave and Ria.