Looping NZ Style: Out and About in Darien...

What I forgot to tell you last night was...

We had stopped in at the Wine Bar for a gander (to see what it was like), and ended up ordering a small bottle of Prosecco ( Italian Champagne) each ($6) and then, because we were starving, we ordered a Cheese platter. This was, after all a cheese, wine and meat store...all gourmet, of course.

Well, the cheese platter had a selection of 3 locally made cheeses...all excellent! not nearly enough crackers, and some grapes that hadn't been washed. Nothing gets me 'excited' like poor service, sloppy presentation and poor preparation of food. There is just no excuse for it!

We paid $12 for this cheese platter... we had to ask for small side plates, and the server brought us polystyrene plates! Bah! Sloppy! and not at all professional. My pet peeve!

We enjoyed the food and wine, which I used to drink a lot of in my youth when I lived in Venice, Italy...nice to revisit it!

I am telling you this as a prelude to the rest of the next day...

We rose about the usual hour this morning, Saturday 3rd May. It dawned overcast, but that is not unexpected right now. I love this view. Clouds and boats reflected in the water:)

This shows' Untide' in relation to the other boats...Shrimp Boats further down the river...can you just see them behind the second yacht? and on the left, where the Shrimp Factory is.

We took our time over our first coffee...answering mail and doing some business chores etc...and showering at leisure and then putting the first load of laundry on, downstairs.
While that was washing, we decided to try out the Purple Pickle restaurant, which only serves Breakfast and Lunch. Fine by us!

It sure was Eclectic!

A Very Happy Place!:)

Of course we opted to sit outside!

Our view looked down towards the river.

Waz ordered the Big Breakfast...Hard poached eggs, hash brown, chicken fried steak with sauce, and instead of toast, ordered a croissant. $9
I ordered the Scrambled eggs Benedict, which came with a bowl of fruit.$8

The coffee was excellent, being a Kona (Hawaiian) Hazelnut kind, and it was an endless cup. Very generous!

When the food came, we were blown away....and it TASTED FANTASTIC! You don't hear me say that very often, but what a pleasure to eat something that was flavorful and delicious, all in one mouthful...and the scrambled eggs were served on a croissant! YAY!
The fruit bowl had the most wonderful fresh blackberries, watermelon and blueberries and strawberries. Yum!! As you can see it filled us up nicely. If we have brunch, we usually hang out for dinner time before eating again. Works well for us:)

The best value for money of anywhere we have eaten to date.

Right after breakfast, Waz went back to the Hardware Store and he and the attendant brought the new Starter battery down to the boat.

This can cracked us up...Aircraft remover???

I had been charged with opening the boat up ready for them, but got waylaid for a little bit (well, a lot, ok!) having loves with a couple of rescue Fox Hounds. Gorgeous they were....anway...I kept the boys waiting a few mins, and then we went back up the hill from the dock, to the hardware store again, where waz had to get some new terminals as this battery was a bit more modern than the previous one, which we figgered, must have been about 6 yrs old.It did well then. No complaints...except it was just another thing!
While he did that, I took the camera and recorded the Market Day in the middle of town.

Nobody around much until well after 11am. I took these on the way to brunch.

This is the main street of the Historic District of Darien

This is the oldest 'standing' (barely) building in Darien. It is in all the oldest photos of the Town, dating wayyyy back. It was an old Cotton warehouse, just above the docks, down to the right. It is in a very bad way, and really needs to be restored!. Lots of old buildings, but this one has a special feature, which of course, is part of the history of the area.

This feature is called 'Tabby', here in Darien, Georgia. In St Augustine, Florida, just over the border, it is called by it's Spanish name..Coquina. It is a shell/'concrete' mix without the cement. It is all that remains of the buildings from the ancient docks, as the rest of the buildings were wooden, and they burned down, leaving the Tabby, as all that remains. You can even see where the rafters and wooden floor boards fitted into it! Fascinating stuff!

We will visit the Fort tomorrow...but you can read about it now!

This town really does have a fabulous history

I hope you can read this! It is in need of repair.

Now, there are lots of people on the town dock fishing, and I thought it was shocking to use this Tiger Shrimp for bait...eat the thing!!! The young man below...Nathan, by name, put his hand down there for comparison! They are Thai imports and lots are found in the Atlantic Ocean, now. Not a good thing...a bit like the Carp up in parts of the Mississippi, where there are special lock features to stop them migrating north to the Great Lakes.

He obviously enjoyed having his photo taken!:)

It is late, so Im going to bed...will continue this tomorrow morning..soooo much to tell you!

Tomorrow...4th May,Sunday.

We had a bit of a sleep in this morning and got up and hour later than normal, in which case the sun was already well up and a glorious day it is too...Excellent for taking photos and discovering places on our bikes. Waz just pumped up the tires, so we are ready to go, after I have finished this blog. I find that if I don't record each day, I forget, because of all the incoming new information. I will have you know that it is hard work doing all this learning and discovery. No mean feat, for sure. We are very curious people, so of course we have to find out everything there is to know, and information overload is common...to the point where I cant remember anything. Thank goodness for Mr Memory, Wazzy!

Back to regular programming!
WE watched the rehearsal for the wedding, on Friday night, and then these signs appeared in the morning..THIS morning. The chairs were out early for the 5pm ceremony. The bride and entourage came down to the waterfront for pre-nuptial photos...all barefoot! It is a pretty place, so I hope they turned out well...the photos, that is.

Just to the left of this path, is the under bridge...where locals have painted..or was it the kids? We colorful!

Looking back across the ruins and the Tabby (Coquina), which was the old waterfront. It was a very busy, bustling town way back when...and the major port for cotton, warehousing, timber, which was rafted down river. We are told there is still one Paper Factory upstream, and there is a lawsuit in place right now in regard to the discharge of effluent, down the river. The locals and State Govt. are trying to clean up the river and improve the quality of the water. That will be a big fight, Im thinking. You can just see the boat on the town dock...right.

This musician was outside the Wine Bar, Previously mentioned...and the rest of that story is this.

I was going to keep my mouth shut about the $12 cheese platter...but I decided, in their best interests (who do I think I am?) that I would bring it to the attention of the management. I did...find the owner and the right person to make the 'suggestion' to. He was gracious and offered us our money back. We had eaten and enjoyed the cheese, so I declined the generous offer...and we went back later for our free glass of wine, which we were entitled to, apparently, being on the Dock! We also bought another bottle of Prosecco each to enjoy while we watched the Kentucky Derby, inside the Wine Bar. We even wasted $5 on a sweepstake, at the bar. I got #14, which came in well back in the pack.

It is a bit hard to get the idea of size of this Horseshoe Crab..which is mounted here as an artwork.The whole thing is knee high on a man.

One of the ruins, that is also for sale, is this old Picture Theatre. The sloping floor is there! It will need to either be taken down brick by unreinforced brick, or build up inside and secured somehow. I am not an engineer, so that is all conjecture, of course.

Wooden double-hung window frames...the glass long gone:)

After walking all over the town photographing broken down historic houses...again..we went back, around 2.30pm to the Market place. This couple were selling Lumpia, Pansit and meat on sticks...My favorite kind of Filipino food. Of course, the woman in red is Filipina!:) They were VERY busy! We bought what was left of their Pansit (Rice noodles with carrot, celery, beans et al) and a couple of meat sticks, for a late lunch. We were hungry after all our capering around.

Just One More Thing...on the right. This group of shops, with the Wine Bar at the other end, is rather picturesque, don't you think? Well, this store had rooms with different artists work in them..great idea and some lovely 'things'. A good thing we cant collect THINGS, coz our pockets would be bare.

We left the market area and went down the main road...this old group of buildings, we found out, belonged to a Greek fellow, who is now 99 yrs old! His grand-daughter has just opened up a Home Deco's store at the end of the block. She said the grandfather had a hardware store and occupied 2 of the four fronts, along with an Hotel, and a Pharmacy, this end.

This is the original inside wall of the pharmacy. See the wooden strips? They were so that wall board could be hung inside the bricks. This is now a church antique kind of store.

And we found this original Exercycle there..lol...What a hoot!

Original Pressed Tin ceilings!

Now, the RiverKeepers are a group of Local Body folks charged with the upkeep of the river. The Altamaha is a long, major river here in Georgia, that goes approx. 167 miles from its source to the sea. The up river industry foul the waters of the river to the tune of 60 million gallons of industrial waster PER DAY! Disgraceful and they want to keep doing it! I think we have found one of the sources of the pollution...We have discussed this almost every day since entering the river systems.

On our walk we came across the Darien Museum, which is a local effort by an Historical Society to show the richness of the former Busy port town, but the town was burned to the ground by troops...Long story, but if you are interested, you can google Darien and find the whole story.

The museum was a bit bare, but lets hope they find more artifacts etc from excavations that are currently happening around the Fort area.

WE came back to the boat with our food, sat under the drying laundry to eat it, and enjoy a cup of tea. We watched the Wedding happen..it was all over so fast! lol...and then, around 5.30 we went up to the Wine Bar for that freebee and the Kentucky Derby.

I felt a bit light headed after two glasses of wine...one and a half more than my limit, so we came home to make Italian Sausages and fresh zucchini lightly cooked in the microwave with some cheese on top. Simple, but delicious. I had bought a bag of fresh Zucchini and Tomatoes, at the market.

The sunset was stupendous, and I just love the Shrimp Boats in the middle of it! This time of day is the best...after first thing in the morning, of course:)