Sun, 13 Jul 2003

author Tim	location Bremen, Germany
posted 09:39 15/07/03 CEST	section Europe2002/Europe/Netherlands/Netherlands 2 ( all photos )

Northern Netherlands ( 8 photos )
A bit of a driving day this one, we headed first for an interesting feature on our map - a fourty kilometre or so long causeway joining the provinces of Noord-Holland and Friesland. Called Afsluitdijk, it was quite interesting to drive along. About a third of the way across there was an information centre where we found out that it was actually a dam, created to increase farming land. The scale of the thing was quite impressive, and driving along it the road in the distance shimmered as if not there. As in many other places here, there are bridges that open up while yachts sail through, leaving the motorists to get out of the cars and wander around for a while, which is a pleasant change from the monotony of diriving around.
With no fixed plan and only knowing that we needed a supermarkt to take on supplies, we headed into the town of Leeuwarden for a bit of a wander. Finding a supermarket when you have no idea what they are called can be a bit tricky. Eventually taking the easy option and pulling into a service station, we were directed to one but told to expect it closed as it was a Sunday. This turned out to be true, so we headed onwards.
Heading up to the coast, we pulled into the town of Holwerd for a look around. Seemingly completely devoid of life, it was still nice to look at the way the gardens are all immaculate and the streets perfectly clean.
From there, we headed out to the ferry port for the little island of Ameland. There was a huge car park, almost completely full for day-trippers to the island. Being reasonably late in the day by now, we had no real desire to head over. Instead, we marvelled at the children playing in the mud, while their respective adults sat on the wharf as if were a beach, getting a tan.
We headed a little further along the coast to the holiday town of Lauwersoog. Like almost every town along the coast here, it had a caravan park which looked good enough for us. For no real reason over any other, we pulled into Camping Lauwersoog. While Liz negotiated to get a site in the reception, I negotiated the children on ride-on toys and adults with much bigger toys in the form of massive caravans to hold a place in the entry queue.
This done, we pulled into a cosy spot where someone else had taken our power connection. The standard "do you speak English?" asked, we had actually found someone who didn't very well for the first time. We managed to gesticulate and use nouns and verbs enough for me to discover that his connection wasn't working. After he plugged back into it though, it seemed fine this time.
While Liz had a walk around the site, I managed to fall asleep in the afternoon for the first time in ages, soaking up the sun and narrowly avoiding getting burnt.
Dinner cooked from what little supplies we had remaining, we watched half of Lord of the Rings on DVD before night-time beckoned us to sleep.

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