ON A THREE DAY BOAT TRIP

                                         The EAU-CLAIRE  S.S. MINNOW

The five of us headed out on a 3 Day adventure on a boat. Hey that sounds just like a TV show that was around a few years ago. I reckon that the boat can be reffered to from here on as the S.S. Minnow. Unfortunately some on board were playing a little short of a “full deck” so a couple of us had to help out by playing more than one part for the show:


The cast were as follows :

The S.S. Minnow                                     EAU-CLAIRE                               

Captain Jonas Grumby “Skipper”
&
Thurston Howell 3rd.                                Leo


Eunice “Lovely” Howell 3rd.                    Margaret


Roy Hinkley “Professor”
&
Gilligan                                                    Scruff

“Mary Ann” Summers                             FBD (Ali)

“Ginger” Grant                                        Aunty Pat



The weather was perfect and we avoided being Ship Wrecked on a Tropical Island, but the “Skipper”, Thurston Howell 3rd, the “Professor” & Gilligan did (so we were told) get wrecked at the “Relais Fleuri Hotel” one afternoon while playing “Charades” with the owners and some of the locals.

 Good PR for Australia and Australians in a foreign country. Once we knew that they had heard of “Skippy” our task as ambassadors became a lot easier & the cash injection into the local economy on that night probably saved the town from Recession for the rest of 2010.

The “Skipper & Thurston Howell 3rd” particularly liked the “double bar room type swing doors” on the Gent’s Toilet. He strode back into the bar pretending to have his weapon/s drawn
(yeah, your probably right, you don’t get that silly playing with one) and was greeted by the amused locals chanting something about cowboys. (leave Broke Back Mountain out of this)

                                         A huge storm hit !!!!!


From Ali:

Should you go to Einville au Jard and visit the little hotel identifying yourself as an Australian, you will get an hilarious report of the evening, esp if you speak French- cos they don’t speak any English!

About the non-f-French speakers, one of them tried to sing the praises of explorer Nicholas Baudin (remember this is in charade language- hard enough in your own tongue). Never heard of him, you say? Ditto the French.

As for Scruff’s effort to try to establish the year the hotel was built, the French use a 24 hour clock and his guess of 1830 made no sense- clearly the pub hadn’t closed and it was well past 8pm. They just had another drink. So did we while we waited for them to come back for dinner.

Hotel Normandie, Amiens

Leo and I arrived at the Hotel Normandie late afternoon and found a quite small doorway which was just big enough to enable a couple of average size blokes like us to enter and checked in at reception. The young lady at reception was very charming and indicated that our room was on the 2nd. Floor of the establishment and that we could take the stairs.

When we enquired about a lift the “news was not good”.


It was at this stage that the “Width of Leo’s Backside” (WLB) became the base measure for any measurement that needed explaining to anybody that wasn’t there. The spiral staircase needed to gain access to our room was 1.1 WLB wide and of 40 steps duration. We were just thankful that our suitcases (mine, about 23kg) was less than 1 WLB.

We entered our room to find a double bed, a single bed, a desk, chair and stool a TV hanging off the roof, pointing towards the double bed and an “en suite”.

As you can see from the photo below, the room is approx. 5 WLB in width

The lenght of the room is approx 12 WLB.
 

 
But wait there's more !!! The en suite was built for fashion models, not average size blokes like us !!!
 
 

The pan was on a box, (must have been an after-thought) The folding door "almost" closed, The shower cubicle was a bit squeezy (only 1.05 WLB x 1.05 WLB) to use the mirror I needed to stand outside the en suite because unless I had my reading glasses on, it was impossible to get the image in the mirror in focus. When using the "Thunder Box" it was a little disturbing knowing that Leo's bed (the pillow end of his bed) was only about .8 WLB from the opening of the door that would not close properly. He is a nice bloke but I don't know that I really want to be that close while I am exercising my bodily functions. I mean "heaven forbid" what if I accidentally "passed wind" and the aroma was not pleasant. I could never forgive myself !!!

Well we survived the experience and caught the train the following morning to meet up with FBD (Ali) Margret and Marg's sister Pat.

The next adventure is a 3 day boat trip along the canal country of France. Stay Tuned!!

 

Tour of the BATTLEFIELDS of FRANCE & BELGIUM

                                         Westhof Farm Cemetery

DAY 1

Leo & I set off to Lille to meet up with the touring party. Our guide was Steve, he served in the British Army and is an avid war historian. We traveled in a Renault Mini Bus with 3 other Aussies (Ian, Lyn & their 24 year old son Hugh) from Queensland. Really nice folks, they had similar sense of humor to us and we all got on well.

Leo’s father served in the 44th Battalion, 3rd Division AIF in WW1 and returned from the war. I was in search of ”Great Uncle, Private Harold Heath’s” final resting place in the Westhof Farm Cemetery in Belgium.

It was quite strange as I arrived at the cemetery. From my prior research I knew that I could walk straight up to his grave site. He was in section 2 of the front row, 5 graves this side of the monument. The cemetery is only small, but (as with all of the CWG sites) it is “manicured”. Each site has a book with all of the names (and some details) of the dead buried there. A visitor’s book enables you to leave your name and a message if you wish. Unfortunately the sun was not on the face of the headstone and it was difficult to see or read (or photograph) the details. I did the best I could but the results were not good. Everyone was very disappointed for me, and unknown to me, arranged to go to the cemetery early the following day on the chance that the sun may have been on the face of the headstone. But alas we still missed out. It was suggested that water poured on the headstone may highlight the inscription. It appeared to but the photos are still quite ordinary.

The Buglers at the Menin Gate

I will not go into details of the other places we visited during the day because they are too numerous to mention, but the day was finished by being at Ypres and watching the “Last Post” ceremony at the Menin Gate” & 8.00 pm (This ceremony is carried out 365 days a year and has been since 1927 to express their eternal gratitude for saving the Independence & Freedom of Belgium) We estimate that approx 800 - 1000 people would have witnessed it tonight.

DAY 2

Today we visited many famous places of military interest including the Somme, Fromelles Battlegrounds, Bullecourt and where the British and Empire forces launched an offensive around the town of Arras in early April 1917. We are to stay overnight in Arras and we drink quite a few beers before going to a function in the evening and drinking quite a few more. Fortunately for us, we can sleep in Sunday morning.  NOT!!!!!

DAY 3

ANZAC DAY . The alarm is set for 1.30 am for an early start to get on the bus to be at Villers-Bretonneux for the Dawn Service. I went prepared to take lots of photos and video of the service but it was so moving that I only took 1 photo. There were approx 3000 – 3500 people at the service and you could have heard a pin drop. It looks amazing on TV but to actually be there was something else. After the service I was interviewed by Channel 7. Leo reckons that it was only because I was wearing my Akubra and looked like Bazza McKenzie.

Afterwards we were taken to the village of V-B for breakfast and were given the opportunity to march in their Anzac March up the hill to a memorial for another Anzac Day Service. As we reached the top of the hill the crowd started to clap and cheer. Leo said they only did that because they heard that the tall bloke in the Akubra had been interview by Channel 7. I was starting to get the impression that he was jealous. We visited the local school that had been built from money donated by Victorian kids after the war

The rest of the day was taken up with visiting other Battlefield Sites & Monuments of interest, finishing up at our overnight accomodation at the Hotel Normandie in Amiens. Now that is an amusing story, stay tuned.