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.

YELLOW WARNING - SUNDAY 21 JUNE - DIKSMUIDE

One of us thinks it was the brilliant job he did packing last year under what were somewhat trying circumstances, the other thinks that it’s all the systems she’s put in place over the last seventeen years.

Whatever the case, oblivious to the heatwave warnings, by the end of the day the boat was ship-shape once again, with all the little optional repairs and modifications done to boot and we declared ourselves ready to rumble.

That was a little premature of course because we had been surviving on last year’s crackers and a jar of almost out of date jam, but we braced ourselves and walked into town in the evening cool, by then in the low thirties, to buy the minimum of provisions to get us through a couple of days.

Then there was nothing to do but to sit outside in the calm of the night feeling quite content with our lot and wondering where we might go tomorrow.

 

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW - SATURDAY 20 JUNE - DIKSMUIDE

Every year within hours of coming aboard, or days, depending on whether or not we’ve remembered to print the new photo before we arrive, we execute what in these times of computer jargon is called, a refresh of the four photographs in our little frame.  It lives on our galley counter and inexplicably is the only place on the planet deemed fit to provide a public showing of our offspring.

When the frame was new, we only hand one grandchild, a tiny little thing who became a man, and a small fluffy granddog who we loved (almost) as much.  Despite, almost two decades ago issuing a memo to our offspring and their spouses that they were to do nothing that would give rise to the birth of a child between May and September, our travels were interrupted on five further occasions so that we could be around for those happy events.

That frame is a constant reminder of how quickly life evolves, and now perhaps a reminder that we have aged just as much as the baby in the photo almost twenty years ago.    The old photos are removed and placed in a makeshift album, that more than anything else provides an astonishing measure of the time we have been fortunate enough to spend on our peripatetic adventures.

It’s more than a symbol of family on the other side of the world, (after all they are just one small video call away these days), it’s a reminder of where we are and of the adventures we’ve had and the people we’ve been privileged to meet along the way.   

Curiously the switching from old to new each year has become a subconscious ritual that forces a reflection on where we’ve been, a happily misty eyed revision of those old photographs, a wave of gratitude for all that we’ve experienced, and excitement for whatever is to come.

TRAINLAG - FRIDAY 19 JUNE -PRAGUE to DIKSMUIDE

Our decision to take the overnight train from Prague was a bit of a throwback to the days when we could buy a Eurail pass for a season, and sleep on a train as we moved across Europe saving a day’s travel and a night’s accomodation cost to boot.  

This time though, we didn’t have a two year old and her four year old sister to frighten off those who sought to share a compartment with us, so for about the same as our room cost for a week in Prague, we had paid the privacy supplement and settled in for the sixteen hour journey to Brussels with only each other for company.

We slept well enough we thought, lulled by the gentle rocking of the train, interrupted only by the fire alarm at four am, and a half hour delay while someone decided it wasn't an emergency. yet despite those thinks, our bodies are feeling their age and our brains are wondering if we really did sleep at all.  

Perhaps its something they put in the water.

Thankfully, back in Diksmuid, Thijs put our Joyeux into the water as well, and with a minimum of fuss we were able to at least make her suitable to move aboard albeit too late for any provisioning.

Which is why we came to be sitting on the Tea Room terrace in Diksmuide as the sun slowly sank in whatever sector it sinks in the Northern Hemisphere, watching in silence, trying to gather our thoughts, stationary for the first time in a month (but it felt like a lifetime), quietly planning our next move. 

We’re home.  

 

AND AWAY WE GO! - WEDNESDAY 20 MAY - DICKY BEACH to DUBAI

What a whirlwind week we’ve had.   

Having made our travel arrangements to travel through Dubai, exactly two days before the first missile was directed at its airport, to say we were unsure of how our travel arrangements would look would be an understatement.

With the ceasefire of hostilities in place, modified scheduling of flights out of Brisbane resumed barely two weeks ago, while the leader of the free world seemed to have no other agenda than to disrupt our plans.

Even while he threatened annihilation of an entire country (a step down from from “a civilisation” at least) last night, we started to believe we might a actually be flying, so hastily booked a hotel room and transfers at the other end, where we might make some plans as to what happens next.

The result of all that uncertainty piled on top of our missteps of last year, was that the ride to the airport felt quite different this time.  Not the wind-down after that last minute cleaning panic, not the “what have I left behind”, not “here we go again”, just a kind of contented relief, and of course gratitude for all the things that have aligned to allow us another year “on the road”.

HOW’S JO? - TUESDAY 19 MAY - DICKY BEACH via MT KOSCIUSZKO

For lots of reasons mostly to do with being a bit occupied with life, we’ve been a bit remiss in not bringing updates on the state of well-being of the other of us.  

Eight months ago, during our consultation prior to surgery, her orthopaedic surgeon stated that his objective was to receive a postcard from us twelve months from that date from somewhere in the world after we had returned to our usual peripatetic ways.   He warned that we could expect that it would realistically be 18 months until her recovery could be considered to be “complete”, and even now we have no reason to doubt that prognosis.

We have sent him the above as an interim measure.   To mark the sixth month anniversary of that fateful day, a photograph taken just below the Mt Kosciuszko lookout, about half a dozen kilometres below Australia’s highest peak.   We thought about completing the walk, but then thought that there’s no point in getting older if you don’t get wiser, so settled for the half distance six kilometre round trip.

From that one can deduce that the world is once again our oyster, although one which for a time at least, we may well be exploring at a pace that reflects the condition of our lower extremities.