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Monday 20 May 2013

Going for Ice cream

Today we decided to pop into Buxtehude for ice cream. Big sister was away on horse camp, so it was just Mum, Dad and a 4 year old princess.

We got out the canoe, popped on A's life vest, dug out the paddles, leapt over our fence and dropped the boat into the water. As we live on a tidal river, one needs to take advantage of the window of opportunity. That is, we want to go to Buxtehude when the tide is coming in. Then we eat ice-cream and have a coffee while we wait till the tide changes.

Today we decided not to "park" in the main part of the harbour but we wanted to see if we could get further. We made it to "Am Fleet" in the middle of the old part of Buxtehude. 

Here we are making our way up the Fleet. Its pretty narrow but we have a thin canoe ;-).


It was then only them a matter of jumping out in front of the coffee shop. We tied up the canoe by some steps leading to the water. This provided much amusement to passers by, probably waiting for me to fall into the water as I climbed out.

Our local parking spot and we did not even need to buy a parking ticket - that means an extra scoop of ice-cream.


Pizza, ice cream and coffee were ordered and enjoyed.

On our way back A insisted on paddling but did not want a paddle but a length of reed. We actually collected several of them as they don't last long. It was at this point that we needed to recall the importance of the journey and NOT the end destination. That is because there is no ice cream on the return trip. Luckily I had freshly baked chocolate cake to keep up the motivation.


On our trip we saw the local pair of swans, baby ducks, and just enjoyed being on the river.

Here we are just turning into the main bend with Estebrügge in front of us. You might be able to spot the church steeple just right of the middle of the picture. The water looks very still, but we hardly needed to paddle as the river narrows dramatically at this point. We were swept along by the tide.


This is the last bit of the trip as we enter the village and you can just see the blue and white painted swing bridge in the distance - our target.



Home sweet home. Taken just before we did our landing manoeuvre. Then we had to haul the canoe over the fence again...well Ron is so good at these things that I only needed to provide emotional support.


I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.