Max and Lucy Exploring the Inland Waterways of Europe 2012

 We set off for Europe in August 2011 in search of our ideal River Cruiser. We rented a friends Motor Home and ferried from Dover across to Calais then motored down through France to St Jean De Losne which is considered the centre of the French waterways, and visited a few boats and added one of them to our short list, but knew we had a long way to go before we could make our final decision. At this point we had organised a few days holiday in Grindalwald, Switzerland at a friends beautiful apartment right in front of the Eiger. Amazingly beautiful. Made you want to start singing

" The Hills are alive with the sound of music "

After a few days of exploring Grindalwald we set off for Holland in search of more boats. Our first appointment was at Vlaardingen, just outside Rotterdam. Viewed a beautiful 44Ft cruiser called JADE. At this point we didn't know what was available in Holland so just inserted JADE on our short list and continued our journey. We toured through Holland and viewed about 30 Cruisers, which were all beautiful but when we eventually narrowed it down to a short list of 4 boats, JADE came out on top. So we went back to Vlaardingen and purchased her. We then, with the existing owner, motored up to Oostvoorne, about 20k West of Vlaardingen. Nearly in the bloody North Sea. There we had her winterised and ordered a large tent to be made for her to protect her against the elements, which has now proven worthwhile as it looks like a pretty vicious winter ahead. After we had tucked her away we headed back to drop off our Motorhome in Hastings, which proved to be invaluable, and headed back to New Zealand to sort out the family, house etc

We have now decided on a new name for our boat. It is KIWI ROSE

Well its April and getting very close to departure date for the UK and then on to Netherlands to pick up KIWI ROSE. I had my last day at the job on Friday so now unemployed..... A bit scary. The next couple of weeks before departure will be frantically packing and getting mail stopped or redirected and organising our BON VOYAGE party and then OFF.

20th April 2012 

Picture of boat with winter tent

Well arrived in UK and since then has been constantly shopping. Hired a Ford Transit Van and loaded it to the hilt with stuff that we had accumulated over the past 12 months.Then last week trundled onto the Euro Tunnel and off to Oostvoorne ( Holland ). Arrived at the boat, managed to eventually take the tent down and unloaded. Absolutely knackered after a 3AM start. Stayed a B&B in Oostvoorne. The following day we were in the middle of sorting out all our stuff when a man knocked on the hull and said he was putting us in the water. Twenty minutes later we were in the water, however we never had enough time to change the name to KIWI ROSE and Mario,our friend who we met when we were winterising her last August stated that the boat has to be out of the water then change the name and smash the traditional bottle of champagne over the bow. All for good luck. We did not want to test the gods, so we spoke to the boat yard and they agreed to take it out of the water again in a week or so to rename and smash champagne and then straight back in the water. We agreed last August that Mario would antifoul our boat. Antifouling was completed a couple of weeks before we arrived. Beautiful job. Mario was at the mariner, thank god, when our boat was launched and he assisted me getting it onto the new mariner. Had a couple of days in Oostvoorne and the trundled the Transit Van back onto the Euro Tunnel and back to Bosham.We are now still shopping and filling up our small Toyota Yaris for the trip back to Oostvoorne on Tuesday ( 1st May )