Channel Hopping

Friday 30th October

Hello Again

From Villers Sur Mer we carried on around the Normandy Coast visiting the D-Day beaches of Juno Beach & Sword Beach then drove further up to Gold Beach or Courseulles. The D-Day landings were the largest military operation in history. Early on 6th June 1944 (WW2) the allied troops stormed ashore along the 80km stretch of beaches – this then resulted in the Battle of Normandy and the re-occupation of allies on the French soil. We also visited a 360 degree cinema showing original footage and photographs of the landings on the Normandy beaches, in Arromanches. We also saw the remnants of the makeshift harbor at Port Winston.
We stayed by the beach at Courseulles and walked into the village and bought some fresh scallops and oysters and cooked them up for tea in the camper…..oysters were great…big and juicy…scallops were good but not quite as sweet as the ones from Marlborough Sounds.
We also spent a couple of days having a look at the top of the Normandy Coast and went to Cap de la Hague, the point where the Altantic Ocean and the English Channel meet. A very rugged rough coast line which we had a great walk around or should I say were blown around!!
After a final grocery shop of the great French food we headed to Cherbourg to board our ferry to Portsmouth….we didn’t have to worry about being late….it seemed that the clocks had changed for daylight saving to end a couple of days before and we were oblivious to it, so after a bit of a laugh and an extra hour wait, a six hour ferry ride we were back in the UK. Driving on the correct side of the road again took a bit of getting use to but great to be able to read and understand the road signs, things we are buying the supermarket and of course being able to converse with most people. Hard to believe that we had six months in Europe! Off the ferry at 4.30am and then found a quiet carpark to sleep for a few more hours.
We have spent the last five days around the Devon and Cornwall Coasts. Seeing places such as Weymouth, Plymouth, Penzance, Lands End and St Michaels Mont. We also had a great visit to Polperro – an old fishing village with a natural harbor that you walk about 1.5km down to – we could have taken the horse and cart but needed the walk. The town is full of very narrow lanes which are lined with café’s and shops selling all the gear for crabbing – a popular thing to do here. We walked around the cliff top and got some great views out to sea as well as over the village. We enjoyed a Devonshire Tea and Cornish Pasty here – hence why we needed the walk!!
We are now at Padstow on the west coast of Cornwall – the time is 4.45pm and it is almost dark here !! We are probably heading towards Stonehenge tomorrow and will find somewhere to stay near a village pub as it is Halloween and it looks like everyone here celebrates it.

Until next time…..

High on Life

Friday 23rd October

High on Life

Well Amsterdam – how do we describe it to those of you who have never been here – to start with we had two nights out on the town here! Very lively place with a definite distinct “odour” in the air! Lots of coffee shops here – not quite the menus we have back at home – things on these menus included expresso, latte, lady joint, foil, skunk joint & hashish to name a few. Signs in lots of pubs windows saying smoking allowed in here – cigarettes and joints! Seemed quite unreal with the police riding their bikes around and seeing people in the coffee shops and pubs smoking marijuana in full view of them. The other exciting (not quite the right word) part to Amsterdam is the girls in the windows – Brent called Rae naïve as she didn’t quite expect to see so many girls flaunting their wares right in front of you and then watching men enter their rooms. These girls obviously are the Dutch welcoming party as they smile at everyone, chat to the many men and we think invite them in for a 20 minute cuppa. We didn’t get tempted though ‘cos a cuppa can cost 50 Euro or more and there’s a lot of wine drinking in 50 Euro. They are treated well these girls with nice warm rooms behind their glass windows, someone should look at their thermostats though as obviously too warm and they have to peel off sooo many clothes, better than freezing I guess and also keep’s the cuppa’s warmer longer. At any one time there is on average 380 girls working so lots of window shopping here!! Apparently some men tried to set up their own business in the windows but after three days and no sales they decided to leave it to the girls!!!! Amsterdam is also home to quite a few museums. We visited the Torture Museum, Hash Museum and Sex Museum – all very unique and nothing much has changed over 150 years. We also saw Anne Franks house – this was the house where she wrote her famous dairy during the war years. The other thing we couldn’t believe about Amsterdam was the huge number of bikes here – everyone bikes everywhere, the bikes rule the road. There are about 150,000 bikes stolen each year but Brent reckons they just forget where they left them!
We have done a lot of sightseeing in the last week in both Holland and Belgium. In Holland we visited –
Madurodam which is a miniature Netherlands – the area of this place was 18,000m2 and took us through old Holland/Netherlands right up to some of the modern architecture. Everything in the place was operational but obviously in miniature. The airport had airplanes going down the runway and also had an operational baggage carrier. The boats that were cruising around the canals had to wait for the bridges to lift for them to go under. The church even had bells that rung on the hour. We bought a souvenir pair of clogs from the mini clog maker – we could hear them being made, next thing a mini truck pulls up at the clog maker and the clogs are dropped into the back of the truck and the truck then drives around to us for us to pick up our pair of clogs – amazing.
We have also visited Kinderdijk which has 19 working 18th century windmills. It was a very crisp fresh Sunday morning when we biked to see the windmills and unfortunately there was no wind so there were none working for us, however one of the windmills is open to the public so we walked around inside it – hard to believe that this windmill housed a family of 10 back in the early 1900’s.


We also had a tour around the Delta Works which is a massive dam built to protect Holland against flooding after the big floods they had in 1953 which killed 1900 people. The Waterland Neeltje Jans is where the tour starts and is right by the main surge barrier. We walked inside the barriers pylons and could see how the whole thing works – if the sea-water gets rough & rises more than 3 metres then the barriers are automatically shut and the water would then flow back out to the North Sea and not into all the canals around Holland. They needed to do this as at least 40% of Holland has been built below sea level. The Delta Works took 20 years to complete and is seen as one of the world’s greatest engineering works. The Oosterschelde which is the area of the Delta Works is now a National Park – we had a boat trip out to the Oosterschelde but realize how lucky we are back at home when people on the boat were disappointed not to see any seals!! The Dutch really treasure their National Parks but I suppose when you live in a country that is the most densely populated in Europe you would too. New Zealand has 6 times more land area than Holland but Holland has 4 times the population.
From Holland we drove through to Bruges in Belgium. Bruges is another pretty wee town but this time with lots and lots of chocolate shops! Belgium is known for it’s beer, chocolate and mussels. We went to a shop in Bruges that stocked 350 different types of Belgian Beers. We did sample some of the chocolates (very nice) and a couple of the different beers. Rae liked the raspberry flavoured one (1.9%alcohol) and Brent liked the Duvel (8.5%alcohol) – Duvel is the name Belgium name for devil. We also had a great pot of steamed mussels.
From Bruges we travelled up to Ypres – which is where hundreds of thousands of soldiers fought over this cramped corner of the Western Front for four years of concentrated warfare during WW1. Ypres and his surrounding areas (Flanders Fields) were where 103,000 New Zealand soldiers fought during WW1. 60% of these men lost their lives here and considering we only had a population of one million at the time it is the greatest loss of lives in New Zealand history. Flanders area includes the famous Passchendale fighting grounds. The total loss of lives for the Commonwealth was 185,000 so this is aptly been assigned the memorial area for our WW1 troops. The Menin Gate is a memorial for the soldiers that passed through it daily on their way to battle on the Western Front. This bridge is in Ypres and every night at 8.00pm the Last Post is sounded here. The traffic is stopped and the night we were there, there were 500+ people attending including some school groups who laid wreaths. A very moving ceremony. It was surprising for us whilst visiting the bridge in the afternoon and reading the names of 54,000 soldiers who lost their lives we saw a fresh bouquet of flowers from “From the Parliament and People of New Zealand”. Whilst this place serves as a memorial for all the lost Commonwealth Soldiers, the New Zealand soldiers are named in another well known memorial cemetery at Tyne Cot. We visited Tyne Cot which also had a very informative information centre – the names of the 47,000 commemorated there are continually read out over loud speakers and in the centre their photos are displayed accordingly on screen. From Tyne Cot we then went to Polygon Wood Cemetery and Buttes New British cemetery where the New Zealand memorial stands. The weather was very dull and dreary and it wasn’t hard to imagine the conditions the soldiers fought in. We then left Belgium and drove into France and we went to Anneke Cemetery where Rae’s Great Uncle is buried – a casualty of WW1. Rae felt very privileged to be able to visit Harry Gilchrist’s grave on behalf of the Parke Family. All in all a very sombre couple of days but also very gratifying.
We are now in Villers Sur Mer which is on the Normandy Coast of France where we are intending to visit the Normandy D-Day beaches in the next day or so.

Au revoir

Not at all Bad

Wednesday 14th October

We left Bad Konigshoffen on Sunday 4th October and only got about 20km up the road to Bad Neustadt where we had another lovely soak in their hot pools. Bad in German means ‘bath’. Whilst we were soaking and relaxing we met a family, Chris who was originally from UK, Sylvia who was originally from Poland and their daughter Samira who is 2 ½, we got talking to them and we ended up with a fantastic pizza meal at their home just out of Bad Neustadt. We have often amazed at the amount of languages some people can speak. Samira speaks both German and English but can also understand Polish as well – incredible. We really enjoyed their company!
From Bad Neustadt we travelled through to Bad Sooden-Allendorf, a pretty wee town that is split in two by a river, one part being Sooden and the other Allendorf. We had a good time just wandering around, we loved all the old houses that are attached together – you would have to be careful going home after a night out that you had your bed and not one down the road that looks the same as yours!
We then travelled through to Hamlin – this is the town that the Pied Piper of Hamlin originated – Rae was thankful to him having marched the rats from the town – although walking round the town it really is ‘Rat Town’, you can buy anything in the shape of a rat – bread, marzipan, biscuits, key rings and anything else touristy you can think of. In the centre of the town there is a big clock tower and three times a day there is a small mechanical show with the Pied Piper and the rats which make a grand entrance on a turntable much like a cuckoo clock – good for the little kids and also the big kids!
After a night in Hamlin we travelled to Wolfsburg which is home to the VW Factory – wow what an amazing factory and museum! The museum houses lots of old cars from the Model T’s, VW’s, Audi’s, Lamborghini’s right through to the brand new Audi R8. The area of this factory and museum totaled 26 hectares. The factory which produces the new VW’s and Audi’s was also on the site and once the cars have been manufactured they are stored in two towers that house 400 cars each – everything is done mechanically and we were fascinated to stand and watch two cranes placing cars 19 stories up then retrieving another car for someone to drive away in. When you pick up your new car - you need to find the right waiting area, then your name comes up on a big screen before your salesman greets you and then takes you downstairs to your new car – so well organized and so busy!
We then drove up to Luneburg which is also known as the ‘Wobbly Town’ – centuries of salt mining in the town have caused the buildings to have a noticeable lean on them – not quite as much as ‘Leaning Tower of Pisa’. The buildings also have swollen walls which cause them to look like they have beer bellies.
From Luneburg we then drove through to Roy and Grit’s (the couple we met in Florence) home in Trittau just east of Hamburg. We ended up staying four nights at their magnificent home! We were really made to feel very welcome by these very generous people whom we will hopefully see next time in New Zealand. We woke on Friday morning to beautiful blue skies so we were off out sightseeing Hamburg, the second biggest city in Germany with 2 million inhabitants. Hamburg is a pretty city with lakes and a huge harbour on the river. The sea is 80km away. The harbour has an average of approx 38 container ships each day arriving at the port. We had a nice trip up the river and we then did the Hop On Hop Off bus trip of the town – Roy and Grit have lived in Hamburg for many many years but they also learnt new facts about their home town whilst on the bus! Hamburg is also the richest city in Germany – there are 8,500 millionaires and billionaires living here. After the bus tour we then drove around some of the stunning houses that the rich lived in! Because Hamburg is surrounded by rivers and lakes they also boast that they have more bridges than Venice! Hamburg is also known for its red light district – Grit and Rae had to sit in the car whilst Roy and Brent went for a walk down the street – not too sure why?? There was a big sign on the entrance into the street saying “No one under 18 or women allowed’ – Roy & Brent came back smiling, Brent said they just went window shopping!!! On Sunday we drove up to the Baltic Sea and walked along the board walk – a very pleasant peaceful place. We were both surprised how calm the sea was – definitely not like our seas. We left Roy and Grit on Monday morning feeling like we had had a holiday, with all the lovely different foods we enjoyed, along with living in a house and great company – just like a holiday!
From Hamburg we travelled further up North to Hooksiel which is on the North Sea – again another very calm sea. Hooksiel was a lovely town to wander around and do some shopping!
As we said Auf Wiedersehen we both commented on how much we enjoyed Germany and the friendliest of the people.
We have today arrived in Amsterdam – so we are now away to try the local delicacy whatever that may be….. cheese possibly???????

Until next time……

Prost

Saturday 3rd October


Salute – Cheers from Germany

We left Interlaken and travelled over the Swiss Alps reaching an altitude of 2460 metres with some spectacular scenery over glaciers, snow covered mountains and little skiing villages. We travelled into Lichtenstein which is the sixth smallest country and famous for being the world’s largest producer of false teeth, we had thought we would stay here but after looking for a car park we realised we were about to cross the border into Austria – oh well that was Lichtenstein – blink and you miss, to be fair there was nothing that looked really exciting for us to look at! We drove through the bottom corner of Austria and then back into Germany to Lindau. Lindau is a little island on Lake Constance. We biked into the town but first we had to bike into Austria, just to say that we biked from Germany to Austria – albeit 800 metres! Lindau is a small harbor that has a grand looking entrance into it, with a large lion statue on one side and a lighthouse on the other. We climbed the lighthouse for a view over the town. We then decided to leave Lindau and headed further north up the Lake to Langenargen, we also biked into the wee town and had look around – a really peaceful town with beautiful lake views and a big marina. All told for the day I think we biked about 18km which isn’t too bad for us!

We left Langenargen and travelled through to Munich, where we found a parking place for campervans about a 20minute walk to Oktoberfest (well a 60 minute walk when you get lost). We arrived at Oktoberfest about 1.30pm – my goodness!!! It is a huge area covered with huge beer halls and in between the beer halls there are food stalls and fun park areas – very similar to Dreamworld only bigger!! Oktoberfest attracts 6 million people over the 16 day period. We had heard that the festival would be full of young kiwi’s and aussie’s - well we didn’t meet any other kiwi’s or aussie’s, we sat with Swiss, German and Dutch people and we were about the average age – certainly nowhere near the oldest. At the place where we camped we were surrounded with Italians – think the Kiwi’s go for the opening and the Italians for the closing and everyone else in between. You can only get served if you are seated at a table – lots of the tables were reserved but we managed to prop ourselves down at the end of tables. The only way to buy a beer is in a 1 litre stein – and yes we did see the ladies carrying 7 at a time!! The stein is so heavy you can hardly lift it up, but Rae did manage to do so several times but drew the line at lifting 7 of them at once. Every beer hall has an oom pa pa band playing and is all very lively and exciting. We thoroughly enjoyed our day and were home tucked up in bed by 11.00pm.

Yesterday we left Munich about 10.00am and after stopping for a greasy brunch (it was needed) we drove to Bad Konigshofen which is a little village similar to Hanmer with the thermal pools – this was just what was needed after the big day at Octoberfest. We had a good soak in the pools and then this morning we walked into the village. Have decided to stay another night here just relaxing today and will have another soak in the pools later.

We have driven a bit on the autobahn which of course have no speed limits – very interesting!! Rae didn’t want to drive on them at all but they are just everywhere so no choice. We had just got onto the first one when a wee sports car went past us – we were travelling at 120km and the wee car really shook the 7metre 3.5tonne camper. Many of the autobahn are only two lanes each way with barriers down the centre – we both thought that they were going to be big 6 lane motorways! Some of the cars would have to be travelling in excess 200km – in saying all that the traffic is all really well behaved and when you see a sign telling you to slow down to 120km because there is a corner, everyone obeys. Definitely not what we are use to.

We are now travelling towards Hamburg, North Germany, where we are meeting up with the people we met in Florence and travelling a few days with them, hopefully to show us up around the North Sea.

Hope the weather is warming up for you all at home!!

Auf Wiedersehen