On Our Way To The Baltic - NETHERLANDS - GERMANY

HARWICH TO THE HOOK OF HOLLAND

 We took the Stena Line ship from Harwich and it was like driving into the mouth of a white pointer.

On arriving in Rotterdam we drove to see Arthur and Diana in the yacht club where we stayed overnight and the next day we drove up to Kuikhorne where we used to keep our boat to visit Edi and Otto. It was a very misty morning as we headed north and across the Afsluitdijk.

Edi made some great german soup and we sat around the table playing dice and chatting until late in the night

Then it was back to Rotterdam to drop off the Dixons and off to Ijmuiden to visit Liz overnight. Our next stop was to visit Jan and Ellen in Harderwijk and it was with great pleasure we met Ellens father who is 97 and lived in Australia when Ellen was born after migrating over in 1949. After the family came back to Holland in the early sixties he had not spoken english but today his english was still perfect. What a nice man.

We visited Hoorn where the early ships left from to go to Indonesia. The Gilt Dragon whose wreck was found near Leeman left from here too.

We went onto visit another of our favourite places in Holland , Elburg to see the collection of boats.

Then it was off to the German border.

Our first night we parked close to a truck stop and McDonalds. Just up the side street where it was quieter we noticed motorhomes of a similar colour and vintage to Harry, so we went up and parked behind them. After having a couple of fellas wander around Harry we hopped out to check out our surroundings for parking signs. Then we encountered our biggest faux pas up to now. Sitting in the front of the motorhomes in front of us were scantily clad young ladies and the vans unnoticed by us as we drove past had " Sexy Girls" with a big love heart and a row of red light on the windscreen!! We drove very quickly back to McDonalds to park for the night alongside the noisy highway.

On our way we have seen a huge use of solar panels, often the whole of the roof is covered in them.

We are also farting well up here, as you can see by the exit sign.

We stopped in Lauenburg, a town we had visied in the boat in 2009. It is on the Elba River.

We arrived there about 7.30am and as we drove into town we noticed sandbags in a pile near the landing.

Then we saw this statue holding a sandbag and thought it was all part of the scene.

But when we wandered around the town and saw the soldier next to the pretty, old building, he said, they were preparing for flood waters on the Elba to arrive and flood the town and we shouldn't be here. Needless to say we hightailed it back to Harry.

We spoke to a couple as we passed this house and they were preparing to get their house ready for the flood. They said their cellar would flood first. They showed us the number on the cover in the street to show where the floodwater would come to when it reached 9.52 metres and they were expecting over 10 metres.

On the way out this fellow was shovelling a huge pile of sound into bags and the police, army and others were gathered at the start of town to start filling sandbags.

Thank goodness we are heading north. We called into Schwerin to see the castle. We saw it in 2009 when we were here in Courlis. Kevin looks much more rested and enjoying a beer when he was here in the boat. Now there is no drinking until Harry's wheels stop for the night.

Our overnight stop here was in a new truck and motorhome stop on the highway.
Another funny sign. I hope we dont meet any of these fellows on the road.

Now it is time to hit the road again ( sounds like the song) and we are off to Poland. Auf Wiedersein.

We are running about 2 weeks late with the blog as internet is hard to find.