An Escape from the Yard

[Kyle]Wait, no... Not an escape, but a Temporary Reprieve from the Yard

Our friends Nic and Caitlin live way down south on the other end of North Island, just north of Wellington. On a good day, it's a thirteen-hour drive from our boatyard in Whangarei. It's hard to believe this country is that big. Luckily, our other friend, Rick, from Duplicat, has since moved to a house in the country, which is right at about the halfway mark. He offered to put us up for a couple of days. Begonia and Duplicat last passed each other off the Victorian coast in the middle of the night as we each circumnavigated the Australian continent going opposite directions.

Rick and his partner, Nina's, place was just what Maryanne and I needed. It is quiet and peaceful and there wasn't a whole lot to do, other than hang around and catch up over a bottle of wine; we even had a morepork (small native owl) visit outside our bedroom window one night). Rick is a real polymath who seems to have a high level of knowledge about practically everything. Nina is a chef and baker with her own business, whose skills did not go unappreciated by us either. They were very generous with their company and delicious food and we really appreciated the break.

During more energetic moments, they lent us bikes and we all rode into town for a pint over which to continue the conversation. We enjoyed lunch out, and dining in. We also got to visit the Hamilton Gardens, in their second-nearest town. That place has some amazing spaces. I particularly liked the Ancient Egyptian Gardens and the Surrealist Garden, which has giant 'trons, moving mechanical trees, made from topiary.

A visit to Hamilton Gardens; an unexpected gem

Our visit was much too short. They always are for us. Before we knew it, we were waving goodbye and being handed a couple of bag of craft sourdough bread "for the road".

Several hours later, we finally fetched up at Caitlin and Nic's house in the last hours of daylight. It was sooo good to see them for the first time in over four years. They have since sold Mahana and now spend their time living in their newly-acquired house between "voyages" on their converted bus.

The house is interesting. It was designed by the architect to resemble (I think the writeup used the word 'evoke') a caravan parked on the other side of a dock from a boat. What could be more perfect for those two? It's bright and airy and has lots of space under the high ceilings. The 'dock' starts as the walkway to the entry door, continues as the main corridor, and then ends behind the house as a series of multilevel decks looking out over the garden and the beach beyond. If you have ever seen one of those brochures for a spa that is trying to convince you that theirs is the most soothing place in the world, Nic and Caitlin's house is what they are trying to look like. Of course, even better than that is that their house comes with the two of them. Throw in a bottle of wine under the stars and I think you would be hard pressed to find a better antidote to boatyard stress.

In the morning, as promised, Nic led Maryanne and me to his workshop for what he called a conference. What we actually got were lessons from the master himself. Like Premek, Nic is an attentive and patient teacher. He has the tools and he knows how to use them. After a few pointers, so did we (the basics at least, and the confidence that we really could do this).

Nic was a patient and wonderful teacher

Maryanne was especially keen because the joinery projects had gradually become her domain, while I was moved over to projects better suited to the tall, like doing acres and acres of hull waxing. Maryanne also feels like she was let down by her early education, which pushed the boys into wood shop, while the girls were taught to "iron a husband's shirt.". I'm sorry, but I do a much better job of ironing my own shirts than she does. I don't want her anywhere near them.

Now it was her chance to rectify that bit of patriarchic thinking, and she dove into it with gusto. Nic did the part of the work that would be so much easier with an actual table saw, but mostly, he taught Maryanne to catch her own fish, so to speak. Then, he filled our little rental car with a bunch of his good 'spare' wood. He also lent us his own tools, on the provision that we get them back to him down the line somewhere. He even added a list of EXACTLY what to ask for at the hardware store on the drive home, so that Maryanne would look like she knew what she was doing to all the lumberjacks there.

There are a host of beaultiful walks from thier doorstep in the delightful settlement of Waikawa Beach

We were taken on their "magical mystery tour" bus to see the Otaki River Estuary

And squeezed in a spot of blueberry picking too

We filled out the balance of our time with Caitlin and Nic with scenic tours in their bus, walks on and around the beach, where you could just see South Island in the distance, and of course, nice, long conversations about anything except fixing boats. Well, maybe there was a little of that, too.

We broke up the long drive back with a fun stop for coffee and a chat with Lyndon (of the boat Parera, now sold) at her new home in the suburbs of Auckland; While we keep in touch via the odd electronic message, we hadn't actually seen her since 2019 in Great Barrier Island. Lyndon sent us off with a bag of cakes much to Kyle's delight. Again we forgot to take pictures!!!

We really appreciated the break and the kindness and generosity of our friends (and the food!!), and we would have loved to spend much longer with each of them, but we were also anxious to get back to our projects aboard Begnonia, conscious of the ticking clock of time, the long list of remaining tasks, and a hard date to return to the water.

Germany (with a hint of France)

[Kyle]Leaving Prague, we started a twelve-hour, three leg train trip to the other side of Germany. Here, at Breisach on the Rhine River on the border with France, lives my High School friend Geoffrey, with his wife Sarah and their 4 year old son Andrea.

We were especially lucky because just a six-minute walk from their house, they have an unoccupied studio apartment, which they were kind enough to offer us for the duration of our stay.

The morning after our arrival, we emerged to find that Breisach is a surprisingly lovely little town. A spired cathedral sits atop a steep hill, along with houses that are part of the walled-in old city. Below the cliffs, like extra decorations that wouldn't fit on the cake above, Tudor and chalet-style houses and shops spread out into the space between the walls and the Rhine. To get to Geoff and Sarah's house from their apartment, the walk takes us through the only remaining stone gate and then across cobbled streets edged by welcome mats in German.

Geoff tells us that one of the good things about Briesach is that the whole town has speed limits of thirty km/h or less. I assume he means for Andrea's safety, because he can run around and play without speeding traffic to worry about. The thing is, I'm pretty sure little Andrea spends most of his time going faster than that (the kid's a blur), so they are just asking for a pocketful of speeding tickets.

We spent the first weekend with the family dividing our time between the house and walks through the town, plus a drive up into wine country for the views.

Beautiful Breisach in Germany is now home to Kyle's school friend Geoffrey, and his family

Murals adorn many of the area's homes

And the area is surrounded with the local wine industry

During the work week, Geoff and Sarah lent us their two electric bicycles. We really like electric bicycles. The terrain in this part of Germany is mostly flat, with a few hills thrown in for variety. The electric boost really helps to flatten out the hills, which made it easy to put in double the miles we would have even attempted on a manual bike. We had a lovely time, arriving back at the house weary and saddle-sore, but with big smiles at our day out in wine country.

The bicycles gave us the chance to explore some of the equally charming nearby towns and scenery, and it was easy to cross one of the many bridges over the Rhine to France

We had a rainy, cozy day at the house, and then we loaded up their car for a trip to the nearby "big" city of Freiburg. Sarah studied there in college and knows the place inside and out. It is also beautiful, but is a bit hectic compared to Briesach, making it necessary to constantly keep an eye on Andrea any time he gets to close to traffic or wanders too far into the crowd ahead. Briesach feels very much like a small island where anybody who finds him will happily take him by the hand and deliver him home.

Freiburg was the nearest German city, and we were expertly guided by Sarah who had studied there many years ago

One very nice touch to Freiburg (and many of the nearby towns) is the series of man made brooks (Bächle), mini-canals that run through the streets, once as water supply and fire protection. They remain now to keep the wine cool in the summer, and also provide drinking water for thirsty dogs, and allow children to tow little boats along them by strings.

A few days later, Geoffrey took us into Staufen, which is an impossibly pretty little village full of adorable shops and crisscrossed with the same type of miniature cooling canals as Freiburg.

Staufen was equally charming

On our last day in Breisach, which was also Easter Sunday, Geoff and Sarah booked us on a brunch cruise of the Rhine. It was just brilliant! It feels like a strange thing to say, but it was so nice to be out on the water, even if it was in a giant boat that had had no sense of the wavy motion of smaller boats. We went up and down the Rhine, including a transit each way of a big lock with a ten-meter lift. After last seeing Geoffrey and Sarah in French Polynesia in 2018, they subsequently went on to buy a canal boat, which they took through the canals near their base in Dublin, Ireland. One great statistic that Geoffrey told me was that, as an infant, Andrea had been through forty-three locks before he had ever ridden in an elevator. As we went along the Rhine, we reminisced about our respective time on various canal systems while enjoying a delicious meal.

And we were treated to a beautiful river boat lunch cruise on the Rhine, and managed a lock or two without having to touch any lines!

Briesach has been really great and Geoff, Sarah and Andrea have really made a nice life for themselves here. One of the first tidbits of information we were given about the town was that Breisach has five ice cream shops. (Maryanne found a secret sixth shop.) With my goal of collecting samples from all five (six), I had some structure to my visit, with which Andrea was all too happy to help.

Breisach is a regular stop on the river cruise ship route. They get a lot of Americans, but English is not particularly widely spoken. This is when it's great to have Geoff around. It's such a pleasure to watch him conversing at the Saturday Market with all of his German friends in their native tongue. He's always happy to step in and translate when I get stuck. He also speaks Swedish, Hindi and most of the other Scandinavian languages as well. At one point, he explained to me that since Breisach is a border town, French is also widely spoken. Geoff says he doesn't speak French, but he knows so much about languages generally that he is much better at it than I am, even though I think of French as the local language I have a chance at understanding. At one point, on a solo visit to ice cream shop number five, after not getting any of the proprietor's German, I remembered the thing about how I could use French. I accidentally said, "I'm sorry, I cannot speak English" in my best French, to which the guy responded, "Oh, you're American!", in English.

After explaining that I wasn't one of the passengers from the cruise ship, but that I was visiting a local friend, he looked a bit perplexed. When I explained about Geoffrey, a slight glimmer came over his face. When I mentioned Andrea, he knew exactly who I was talking about. Geoff told me a story about how on one of their first visits to Breisach, Andrea dropped his ice cream cone. Before anybody could even realize what had happened, the proprietor appeared with an exact replacement. That's the kind of place it is.