For the last 4 weeks instead of travelling in our motorhome we have been taking Courlis back to France Netherlands to the centre of France
Our last photos and story are on our canal blog on kygilbert.blogspot.com
It was a very sad day when we left Courlis on the jety with a for sale sign.
It was a very sad day when we left Courlis on the jety with a for sale sign.
Our boating days are over, we had seven great years boating and now we are on to our new adventures in Harry our Motorhome.
We left St Jean de Losne, France at 7am to catch the first train and arrived back to the t’Eibertsnest Marina in Netherlands at 7pm.The journey was made easier by buying tickets from the train office for all our trains from St Jean
Paul was having trouble with his motor and it looked like it was the diesel. A look and a tinker with the motor then it was time for a meal and drinks all round. Now we are driving on the roads, drinking alcohol is a problem so we decided to stay the night alongside the marina.
Next morning we set off to Joure to visit friends and once again our overnight was in the motorhome section of the marina. Can’t get away from boats yet!! Paul and Christine travelled down to Assen then onto the Turf Route canal and we wandered around visiting little villages we hadn’t been to before. The weather is fine and it is nice to take it easy. I love the streets with the rose hedges separating the bike paths.
Early afternoon we got a call from Paul and after talking diesel motors for a bit we decided to try and find them. They are in an area of very small villages and after plugging the village address into the GPS off we set. Now I don’t know if I had the shortest or fastest route set for roads but it started to become interesting when we were told to turn off the bitumen and onto a stony track
which led onto a sandy track into a forest. Of course Kevin being a good four wheel driver regardless of whether we had a four wheel drive pressed on. In the end we couldn’t stop as it was too sandy to start losing traction and who would know where we were!! I never thought you could get lost in the Netherlands
Finally we came out into the village to find signs leading to a highway about a kilometre away that would have bought us straight here. We found the boat alongside the lock and soon it was heads down and bums up to check out the motor again.
The motor is sucking air and there is water in the fuel, probably from being stored over the winter, but from here the only way out is to keep going so it was decided we would hang around further down the canal so we would be on call to help. They made it to Gorredijk and found a diesel mechanic who could look at it in the morning. So it was decided another night camping near boats was in order so we could have a few drinks. This time it was on a bit of an angle and it has been forecast for high winds and rain so we did straighten it up after this photo.
Next morning we met Jacko, a man with a great sense of humour who owns a marina where he stores boats in the winter and rebuilds special wooden classic boats called . He sorted out the motor and then Paul and Christine went through the bridges to his workshop on the canal to pump out some diesel from the bilge then they set off back to t’Eibertsnest Marina then by car back to England
We spent the afternoon in Jacko’s workshop cutting our table to make a hinge side on each side so we could get onto the seats with out having to push the heavy table back and forward.
We left here late afternoon and it is still raining. No wonder we don’t get any rain down under in the west it is all up here. This is 4pm on a summers day.
We looked in the camping book for an overnight stop and saw that McDonalds in Heerenveen allows 4 motorhomes overnight in their car park so off we set to use the internet then go to bed. Back in the van after using the internet we were suddenly surrounded by tractors. It seems that the young farmers around this way along with there girlfriends go for a spin to Maccas for burgers.
The tractors left and all quitened down and off to sleep only to be woken by a loud dutch female voice right next to our bed. What a shock I got, then found out it was the radio we had been playing with and hadn’t turned off properly. What a pantomime trying to read the symbols and words which were all in German, we had no idea what any meant so Kevin remembered the front cover came off and back to sleep we went. Another interesting stopover.
Tonight we are experiencing a night on a farm in Nagle in the Noord Oost Polder which was once the floor of the Zuider Zee before being drained to make new land. They have places for 10 mobile homes or tents with very clean showers and toilets including toilet paper. (I have been caught out in some marinas) a place to empty chemical toilets and grey waste and we can fill tanks with drinking water and have electricity all for 13 euros. Tonight there is a motorhome from Germany
It is amazing that all we see around us has grown or been built since the Zuider Zee was drained the sea floor fertilised and ploughed to grow crops.
After a lovely quiet night this morning we visited the museum in Schokland which was once an island in the Zuider Zee . It is included in the Unesco World Heritage List and is a symbol of the struggle against the sea that has always been a part of the Netherlands
For centuries Schokland was densly populated but as the sea level was rising the island became smaller and smaller and after repeated flood disasters in 1859 the last villagers were evacuated by royal decree. In 1942 when a large part of the Zuider Zee was reclaimed Schokland in Yellow ceased being an island and can now be reached from all sides via what was once the sea floor and is now the farming country of the Noordoost Polder inside the blue line. Not far away is the town of Urk in Pink which was once also an island 18 k from land in the Zuider Zee and is now on the edge of the Polder. We visited here in the boat to see the eel auctions. You could see Urk and the Eel Auctions on our boating blog kygilbert.blogspot.com in 2008.
Now the island stands out as the higher ground in the fields surrounded with a line of trees and hedges.
As we were driving along what was the former Zuider Zee to Schokland we passed the red ship markers which show where a ship is still resting after being found during the draining of the Polder. The Noordoost Polder added 50 000 hectares to the Netherlands
We also saw these amazing cows, at first I thought they had blankets to keep them warm like we have seen on horses.
We travelled to Flevoland this afternoon and decided to camp in a parking area on the top of the dijk which runs along side the Ijsellmeer and the land area of Flevoland.
The Flevoland province was also created from the sea floor and is about 7 metres below sea level.As we were driving along the highway we passed the sculpture which shows by the boat on a wave the original sea level.
Lelystad, the capital, is where the replica of the Dutch ship Batavia Batavia in our marine Museum in Fremantle , Western Australia
We took Harry to see the Batavia
Then went south to Almere to stay for the night. Everywhere you look on Flevoland there are wind turbines.
Tomorrow we will go to Harderwijk to see Jan and Ellen for a while then to Weesp to catch up with Diana and Arthur who are on their way to Leeuwarden to do the Eleven City Route in Friesland. We will then head South to warmer country.
