Thu, 10 Jul 2003

author Tim	location Amsterdam, Netherlands
posted 23:02 12/07/03 CEST	section Europe2002/Europe/Netherlands/Netherlands 2 ( all photos )

Another Ferry ( 3 photos )
(Continued from Across England)
This ferry was different to the one that took is to Ireland and back in several respects, not the least that all our meals were included in the price. We had actually organised quite a good deal with the Caravan Club, and this was a nice suprise.
We ate a hearty breakfast in the sun, watching the world go by, before having a look around the ferry itself, which proved to be rather boring.
Due to the lack of trade restrictions in the EU, there is no such thing as Duty Free, so shopping is a waste of time too.
This left writing emails and sleep. I chose the former, Liz the latter. There was a place to plug the laptop in, so for the trip I caught up with some emails which have been waiting for replies since March (sorry Kim!).
The sailing was almost dead flat, far less rough than the Ireland trips were, to the point that most of the time you wouldn't have even known that we were moving. Move we certainly did, however, and six hours later we saw "proper joined on Europe" once again, sailing into the port of Hoek van Holland (Hook of Holland).
The call came to return to the vehicles, which meant wandering back down into the rather spacious bowels of the ship, where upon returing to Rosie a kind soul pointed out that we had a flat tire! Uh oh, not good news.
A quick consultation with the staff later, we got out the gear to organise a tyre change. The jack on this is unlike any we had ever seen, but we soon had it sorted out. Next task was to get the wheel nuts off. Much harder. The problem was that the spanner device we were using is one size too big, and also the nuts were of course put on with a pneumatic tool which is far stronger than I. We got three of the five off by standing and jumping on the tool, but the other two kept slipping (since the thingy was too big).
No problem, as by now we were the only vehicle left on the boat, so we were attracting plenty of attention from the staff. Their replies to our worried querying of "when does the ship sail again???" were along the lines of "no worries, we'll sort it out". A few minutes later, someone appeared with a socket set with the correct size bit, and before we could blink, a new tyre was on and we were quite literally ready to roll.
Since this was the first time we had used that tyre, we were cautious, especially with all the bumpy driving off the ferry, but no problems with it so far.
Our next problem was where to go. We needed to get to a service station to put air in the "new" tyre, so we headed off randomly looking for one, once again on the right-hand side of the road. It actually feels correct again, even though we keep looking the wrong way at intersections. The simple rule is "follow everyone else", which has worked just fine thus far.
We eventually found a service station, where we filled up the tyre and were free to wander. It's strange driving here, because we have Dutch plates, so people actually don't look twice at you. Not used to that at all.
So, where to go? That question was answered by the road we ended up on, which showed that the closest big town was Den Haag (The Hague). So, that's where we aimed. There was also a campsite listed there, so all the better. The sign posts here are eons better than in England (don't even get me started on Ireland), so finding the place was a doddle, even through the rather complex intersections that seem to dominate the landscape.
The place in question was Kijkduinpark, best described as a holiday town. It has a swimming pool, bar, kiddy play centre, supermarket and pretty much everything you would ever want should your idea of a holiday be "go somewhere and do as little as possible". As such, the price tag matches well. Not having any other information and not wanting to drive much further (our body clocks were further thrown out by loosing an hour). Half an hour's check-in process later, we were ready to roll.
The place was absolutely packed, so finding our spot was a little challenging. This first problem solved, we were ready for the pool. If we are going to pay for this stuff, we are sure going to use it. The pool turned out to be very difficult to get in to (they're good at this here), meaning that we actually had to walk through what looked like toilet cubicles and out the other side to gain access. We were quite confused for a while, but just tried to look like we knew what we were doing. The swim was nice, but too warm, and there were too many kids, so we were soon back at Rosie, doing some journal updates, getting changed, then back to try the strange Dutch beers in the sunshine.
This was enough for the day, bed called out loudly.

author Tim	location Wassenaar, Netherlands
posted 22:48 CEST 11/07/03	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/Across England ( all photos )

Drive to Harwich ( No photos )
Awaking feeling much better than the night before at the ungodly hour of 4:15 am (body clock going very strange), we tried as best we could to be quiet as we packed our things.
After all their help I hope we didn't wake them up, but the throaty gutsy roar of Rosie in the morning probably didn't help matters much.
On to the totally empty roads, we again tackled the problem of getting in/out of Romford, failed, tried again, got fuel, and were on the way to Harwich.
This rather pleasant drive took about an hour and a half, leaving us plenty of time to enjoy a cup of tea and a thrown together breakfast in the car park of the ferry terminal.
As the gate eventually opened we drove through only to be pulled aside by an elderly lady. On reflection this wasn't too suprising since we were by far the cheapest looking vehicle beside all the monolithic motorhomes with screaming kids. Worried at first, we ended up having a great old chat with the woman who was quite impressed that we had thrown all our jobs away and were seeing the world. Not sure what she was intending to do (full search of the van? of us?), but as we drove away she said to her friend "Not even going to bother with that one". Strange. Maybe we're just nice people. And nice people don't smuggle drugs or weapons of mass destruction.
We drove onto the ferry, which was rather huge, locked up the van, and wandered upstairs to enjoy the eight-hour journey to Hoek van Holland, The Netherlands.

(customised)