All Ist Klar - Day Two

One thing increasingly hard to get anywhere in the world is a good night's sleep. However, pitch darkness and strangling silence make it far more likely. Morning arrives with a cuddle from the bed and I don't want to let go. Even after breakfast, there's a big temptation to hop back in, but Peter is waiting for me in the garden with a bike and there's barely time to give the bite on my arm a scratch before we're tanning across country on saddles that were almost certainly being used the last time I was here.

Our first stop is an ancient Viking fort. When I was four, it was a sprawling, magnificent empire, laden with adventure and mystery. Today it just looks like a wee hill, in the rough shape of a doughnut. Watching some kids play hide and seek in the long grass at least reassures me that the adventure has not ended for everyone.
On the far side, someone is here for another reason. A man who looks to be in his late 20s sits in the lotus position, swathed in a flowing terracotta robe. Peter explains that there are some who believe this place was made by aliens, and by meditating here it's possible to communicate with them. The dude may be as mad as a bottle of chips, but he's a serene looking motherfucker, that's for sure.

We continue on to a graveyard. I love graveyards, they're great. I love the history and the sadness and the enduring love, and this one has all of that in spades. In former times, Fohr, like the other North Frisian Islands, relied quite heavily on whaling as its main source of income. So influential was it in the 18th and 19th Centuries that a new language – Frisian – was born. A weird mix of German, English and Dutch, it's the bi-product of sailors travelling to, from and through this part of the world. Like Gaelic in Scotland, today it's a bit redundant, but they still do their bit to try and save what cannot survive: signs are generally written in both languages; old timers speak it down the pub; you can study it as a course in a university 100km away.
Successful whalers were among the richest people in town and liked to show off their wealth in life (with large thatched-roof houses and ornate tiles gathered from around the world) and in death, with wonderfully detailed headstones. The “speaking stones” as they are known, tell the fortunes of the dead, which is cool enough on it's own, but in the case of Lucky Matias, has resulted in celebrity.
Matias was a tremendous seaman, captain of a large, successful fleet. He was, in short, filthy rich. But, like a parable from an ancient book of Norse ethics, his was not a happy tale. With his wife he had five sons – which ordinarily would be a cause for celebration in the early 1700s. But two were still born, the last of whom also led to the death of his wife. Three of this sons, though, did make it to adulthood and followed their father to sea, where each of them would die. Matias, the poor bastard, lived into old age, rich but absolutely alone.
“It was the revenge of the whales,” I offer.
“Perhaps. Yes.” Peter replies grimly.

By now my havfever has kicked in good and proper. These circumstances, when I want to tear my eyes from their sockets and scrub them with a toilet brush, are about the only time I miss the desolation of Dubai. We cycle on, down to the beach, then back to the house, tired but happy. We pick up Ursula and head for coffee and cake at some dainty little cottage. I opt for a pharisaer – coffee with rum and cream – which, like most things has a long, mildly funny tale attached, involving a priest, prohibition and bending the rules.
It's not long before I have to leave, to continue my journey on to the next island Sylt. One of the highlights of the trip will be this transfer, on board a 51-year-old double decker bi-plane. A Russian design, it was so well engineered that the same model was made for 45 years before a better model was developed. Still, after I've said goodbye to the Dreyers (who, in many ways, I'm closer to than large sections of my weird extended family) I'm a little nervous about getting on this big bag of bolts.
I'm on board with six or seven VIPs who have been on Fohr for the launch of a new art gallery. As I'm the only non-Germany speaker on the plane, the pilot has to give the safety demonstration twice.
“So, there are two emergency exits, und if you have to use them, um...” He struggles for the words.
“Then good luck?”
A few people laugh for no other reason than, like me, they're shiting it.
When the Hanseflug manoeuvres to the end of the run way, it sounds a lot like an old bus; when it cleans the engines, with a guttural backfire that sends plumes of black smoke flying out the fat exhausts, it sounds like the tolling of the death bell.

But when it gets going, man, then it's something special. The forward thrust puts us in the air almost immediately – none of this rattling along a scary pavement to results unknown (for a start this is a grass runway) just forward, then up, up and away. And when you're up, you travel so slowly you can really take time to see how the area has been put together by Mother Nature and modified by man. You can even take some good pictures, up to the clouds, or down to the sea below. It's a beautiful, graceful journey and quite easily one of the Best Things I've Ever Done on any of my ten trips abroad.