Hard work - sweet wine

After we had to say goodbye to our friends, we headed to our WWOOFing site in Cobble Hill. (WWOOF: worldwide opportunities on organic farms. Here, one can work on an organic farm in exchange for food and lodging.) Maggy and Chase (names have been changed) run an organic vineyard here. Since it is located outside, the winemaker picked us up by car after urgently advising us against switching to another bus which would have been necessary for the last leg. How wise this advice was, we would only learn a week later. But more on that below. Maggy, a very likeable but also business-savvy woman, picked us up and showed us our accommodations and the farm together with her husband, Chase. We were housed in a guesthouse, a new modern wooden house that was spaciously designed and very well equipped. Absolutely no comparison to our accommodation in Vancouver - Surrey (see blog article 'Sometimes cheap is just cheap'). The vineyard itself is very idyllically located next to a lake, where Canadian geese and frogs hang out, and right across from a golf course. In the background, one can admire the mountains. But the farm itself is also very beautifully arranged. There are several vineyards and lavender fields on the property, as well as a pavilion, a testing house, a labyrinth, a barn, and both the residence and the guesthouse. Additionally, two white goats live there, and one of them is even a unicorn! Initially, we thought the amount of work required for such small fields must be manageable, but this turned out to be a mistake. We soon realized that the work was impossible to keep up with, even though everyone was helping: Frank, a wine expert from California, Chase, Markus, a permanent wwoofer from Germany, Agnieczka, a Polish native who lives in Alsace with her French boyfriend Thierry, and who was also accommodated in the guesthouse, and of course, Mrs. Waas and Mr. Ärmel. (All names have been changed). The last four people are not used to physical labor, which soon showed up as muscle soreness, blisters on their hands, knee and back pain. The tasks that awaited us were diverse: cutting lavender, harvesting grapes, weeding, building protective nets around the vines, cutting and assembling protective nets... Each plant is processed by hand and without the use of chemicals. Moreover, one is outside in all kinds of weather. Sometimes it was too hot, sometimes too cold, and sometimes we were completely soaked from the rain. Anyway, the weather and nature dictate very precisely what one has to do here. So, we had to spontaneously go to the vines once and harvest the fruits within a very short time so that the harvest would not be lost due to a change in weather. And since they are organic grapes, many wasps buzzed around the vines. Nonetheless, we came to appreciate this workplace: great panorama, frogs and rabbits scurrying away from us, a flock of Canadian geese flying over our heads several times a day, the two goats who - depending on interpretation - cheered us on, laughed at us, scolded us, or simply wanted attention, the sweet grapes around us, and last but not least - the scent of lavender. Wonderful! Moreover, particularly Agnieczka and Ms. Waas quickly began to identify with the work and nature. Every dead vine was mourned, every fruit that could be harvested celebrated, every earthworm noticed with joy since it is good for the earth, and every frog that accidentally got buried while digging was freed. Additionally, a certain ambition flared up: 'What, the workday is already over? Nonsense. We are finishing this row.' 'We should stop working just because it's pouring outside? No way. Then let’s cut the protective nets in the barn.'

On a Friday evening, Maggy and Chase invited us to a wine tasting. We were introduced to 10 different wines. They were really good and interesting varieties. Furthermore, we could now appreciate the wine in a whole new way since we knew how much work goes into it. It's just a pity that we can't taste our own harvested wine. It won’t be drinkable until next year.

Maggy and Chase really deserve our respect. They are both technically retired but wanted to start anew with a new project and moved from California to Vancouver Island to run an organic vineyard, which means a lot of work. And Chase, at the age of 72, is still doing the physical work. Hats off!

Chase is indeed a wonder man. He holds a doctorate, used to play hockey, rugby, and Canadian football, has lived in the UK, the USA, and France, was a football coach in the UK, directs plays for the amateur theater, and also sings and performs concerts. Oh yes, and during the COVID pandemic, he honed his cooking skills and is probably quite good at that too. And it must be said that he is in very good shape. Better than us, and that at the age of 72. We usually don’t like such things, but Chase and Maggy are so likable that we forgive them for being perfect.

Since both have a lot of work to do on the farm and are so nice, we complied with their request to extend our stay by a day, as another type of wine needed to be harvested before the next rain.

Cobble Hill itself is a small charming town where the residents know each other. There is a nice café, a food truck with surprisingly good food, an organic ice cream vendor, small antique shops, and various stalls selling eggs, fruits, vegetables, and homemade jams. Cobble Hill even has a wellness center and two buses. But with those, it’s a bit of a hassle...

There are two different buses here that share the same route in certain sections but take different routes in other sections. They regularly travel certain loops, meaning you can think of the route network as two overlapping eights. But only in broad strokes. Their rollercoaster regularly includes extra loops. These appear at different places and are operated at different times, sometimes yes and sometimes no. And since sometimes only three buses run daily, one has to make sure to catch the right one. It becomes especially complicated when one has to transfer to a rapid bus that goes to Victoria, among other places. Here, even the employees lose track of the fares. But unaware of this complicated bus system, we set out for Victoria. After all, Google Maps indicated a simple connection for both the outbound and return trip. What could possibly go wrong? For the outbound journey, indeed nothing at all. The return trip looked quite different. First, one had to consider that there are certain drop-off and pick-up points for the rapid bus in Victoria. This means that one cannot simply get on at the same stop on the return trip. But we mastered this hurdle with flying colors. We got on the bus and purchased tickets to Cobble Hill. While still on the bus, the friendly bus driver made an announcement asking 'the young lady' who wanted to go to Cobble Hill to come to the front. When Ms. Waas arrived at the front, the bus driver explained to her that everything was much more complicated than she would think. We were on the 66, but it would have been better if we had taken the 99. We had to transfer to the 9, but that would take forever (because of the loops). So, if we knew someone in Cobble Hill, we should have them pick us up at the Mill Bay Shopping Center stop. However, we did not want to accept this at all, since we only had to wait 12 minutes for the next bus. The bus driver therefore said goodbye to us with a heavy heart and pointed to a café where we could pass the time. Strange, it was just a 12-minute wait... Now, two things happened simultaneously: 1. The bus departed and 2. the result Google Maps had provided changed. Going forward, it was now a 1 hour and 30 minutes wait. The café on the other side looked anything but inviting, so we did more research. Aha! The 8 should come in 20 minutes, which although it was supposed to take a loop didn’t bother us. The bus rolled in on time. We were now warned, as the bus system indeed seems more complicated than one knows from Lummerland. Therefore, we wanted to directly ask the bus driver if he would take us to the right place. But even before we could open our mouths, the bus driver welcomed us with the words that he knew everything about us. The previous bus driver had informed the other nearby buses via radio about our daring plan, namely that we wanted to go to Cobble Hill, apparently had no clue, were resistant to advice, and were from Lummerland. But since these are Canadians, they naturally expressed it much more politely. With this bus, however, we could only go one stop. Google Maps, which repeatedly changed the result, and the bus driver agreed on this. Unsure, we got off at the next stop, where the now definitely right bus should come in an hour. We used this break to do our shopping. 10 minutes before the scheduled departure time, a bus pulled in. 10 minutes early? That’s strange. But that’s probably due to the loops. Still, we were cautious and told the bus driver, just to be safe, our stop where we wanted to get off. Yes! He would stop there. After 5 minutes he asked us to come to the front. He had made a mistake. With all the loops, one would get completely confused and he wouldn't stop at our stop after all; after all, he was coming from that very stop. But we should just get off here and wave kindly to the next bus that would be going in the other direction - if it indeed took that route. The driver wasn't even completely sure about that. The driver would, if everything went smoothly, stop and explain to us which loop he was currently taking. 'This will never work,' thought Ms. Waas as she stood with Mr. Ärmel and the heavy groceries on the side of the road and was already planning to walk somewhere else. But she was to be proven wrong. After about 3 minutes, a bus arrived, was waved down, stopped, knew again about our story, and wanted to take us to our vineyard. Being a radio celebrity has its perks. We didn’t have to explain much about why we stopped a bus in the middle of the road, but were allowed to get in and sit down. At the next stop, Agnieczka and Thierry got on, who were also in Victoria and wanted to go back to the vineyard. They were in good spirits. They had taken bus 99 from Victoria and had a 10-minute transfer here. They found the bus system really comfortable. Additionally, each had underpaid by $15 because they had been wrongly (but perfectly right for them) informed. They just couldn’t understand how we could already be sitting on this bus. Then we must have gotten on somewhere where there wasn’t a stop, but that couldn’t be. We pretended not to understand the question. Some things are best left uncommented...