So, to the end of the summer.

We arrived back in Germany at the end of August after 6 weeks in UK, and our lovely engine is still in pieces , and the offending crank shaft, ( that on Xray they had found a small fracture in), waiting for the replacement to arrive..

We are not going to talk about the hassels we have had as now its all seems so long ago, even if at the time Max was not a happy chappy !!!!  Its amazing how quickly you can forget crap.

So what are a good Kiwi couple to do??    As Max felt he would go slowly mad if he stayed on the boat waiting, so we went visiting. We drove to Saverne near Strasbourg and caught up again with Jan & Bill, and Australians we had met the previous year, Peter and Jayne. 

Stayed 3 nights and then as google is so helpful, we booked a flight out of Frankfurt to Rhodes .  Our favourite beach, Stegna Beach,

Max’s collection of summer happy shirts….

Hulk Hogan on the beach, great Bikey chick,  favourite bar at 5pm, and last night out.

Arrive back in Schweich, and we finally we get to this…checking the engine runs well at the diesel shop…These guys were just great and now the have kiwi t-shirts to prove it..

 

So the engine arrives by truck, gets lifted by the forklift and dropped through the main hatch.

Once in, the fork lift goes through the window to help put it down in the hold.

oooopps had an accident with a  forklift ???

Yes,  YEs,,, YES.

Now we are happy, the engine is in  the boat and running well. No water can track back so all should be well.  We just need to put hours on her now. We did have to put 10-12 hours out on the river so they could replace the filters and oil.

Schwiech camp site and restaurant , and entry to the marina.

The weather in the morning and at night.

So for the second year in a row we haven’t got to Maastricht  to get the boat painted.

As we have run out of time, we finally decided to winter again in Schweich and so Kiwi Rose is up on the hard, with her tent on ready for the winter.

Lets hope we can leave Schweich without any hitches  sand hope to leave next May, without any hitches..

We managed to finally get home, with cabin carpet on the roof, bike on back and at Calais Wine Super Store we picked up 11 cases of wine.. (66 bottles).

((We think the suspension has suffered.!! ))

We would like to thank all our friends who have listened to all our problems over this summer, and who we have visited and spent time with this year. Love to you all.