2020 Aus With Hannes at the Heart of Ceduna

Zoonie
Fri 14 Feb 2020 02:55

With Hannes at the Heart of Ceduna

Ceduna has a welcoming atmosphere and is made up of a multicultural population of around 3,500 and we were heading to the Community Foreshore Hotel/Motel once again to have dinner with Hannes who had arrived with a healthy appetite after a 700 km drive across the Nullabor Plains. I really liked the Foreshore Pub; it is open from early in the morning till late and has a passing trade of business and leisure clients but also is a reasonably priced venue for the locals to eat out as well. Aborigines were free to come and go and treated like everyone else, although they are restricted to low alcohol beer for their own sakes.

There were no other yachties there at the time, although Hannes did say he wished Cayenne was moored out there near Zoonie. The last time we were moored together was in 2018 in Minerva Reef with Birgit and Andreas on the red hulled steel Muktuk, if you remember. We had a fun evening sharing stories of our exploits over the last couple of years.

The next morning I was standing in the cockpit soaking up the beautiful blue around me and waiting for Hannes to come down the jetty and for Rob to collect him for breakfast on board. I was also looking forward to being out there again and crossing the Great Australian Bight.

The cork popped out of the bottle of Prosecco as we shared a long luxurious, no time pressure breakfast. I remember it was a very hot day and when we went ashore Hannes was struggling with sore knees as he slowly recovers from the Brahman River virus he contracted in Eastern Australia last year. Cortisone tablets are helping with the painful swelling around his joints.

Hannes and Sabine purchased their vehicle when they first came to Australia and promptly bought a roof top tent for it which has served as a comfortable ‘penthouse’ sleeping quarters ever since. So sensible, off the ground and away from snakes, creepy crawlies and damp.

We walked along to the Indigenous Arts and Cultural Centre where Rob and I bought an acrylic painting of fish and a seahorse done in the dot style. The young lady who carefully wrapped it for us said her mother had painted it. Hannes told me the pointillist Seurat style used by the aborigines has only been adopted in the last two hundred years. I wondered if the early French visitors had brought it?

Next at the Ceduna Bakery and Coffee Shop Hannes approved of the coffee and we chatted some more, making the most of our time with him. We separated after the coffee, Hannes off to do some chores and Rob and I headed for The Red Cross Office where Carmen worked on the charts, eventually printing them off straight onto A3 paper as PDF files. First Australians use the centre as a social hub and a little girl gleefully popped the buble wrap around my painting just for the fun of it. Carmen did not want anything for her completed task but we gave her a note anyway.

We had two more light evening meals with Hannes, with new topics to cover and stories to tell each time, before saying our farewells and after hugs we made our way the short distance back to Zoons in a howling wind. At least this time we had remembered to leave Zoonie with her anchor light on and an interior light to guide us through the dark. I wonder when and where we will meet up with Hannes and Sabine again.