Belgium 2011

We spent the next few days travelling down towards Belgium, stopping for a night at Dordrecht, Willemstad and Bergen Op Zoom.

Arcturus on the dock in Willemstad

 I felt sad about leaving The Netherlands and a little apprehensive about entering a new country. We now need to find new phone cards, internet, super markets etc which we did on the first couple of hours we had arrived in Antwerp.

                                  
                                                   Willemdok

Travelling through the port of Antwerp was an experience. It was extremely busy with barges and big ships and us little sports boats felt like a cork in the ocean. At times I felt a little sea sick. I was down making coffee and suddenly the boat started to bounce all over the place and things were flying – a small boat went pass at great speeds. They really are a pain. It is however quite scary when the boat is lurching from side to side.

                                  
                                         Penny when the waters were calmer

Antwerp Port

                                             Russel puting the Belgium Flag up

 We arrived in a great marina close to the centre of town and then planned our next adventure.

 We hired a car which was a bit of a drama in itself. We booked a car over the internet to pick it up on The Thursday morning at 8 o’clock. The wedding was at 1.30 and we had 2.5 hours to drive to Steenwijk. We decided on Wednesday to go to the railway station and make sure we were going to get a car as we couldn’t have delays on the Thursday. Just as well as the girl said she didn’t have any cars and anyway didn’t start till 8.30am and then she had work on the cars if any came in.  We panicked.  We then asked if we could pick one up that night. Yes she said if one comes in. So we waited all day for her phone call. When it came we had 1 hour to get to the airport to pick it up. They close at 5pm. We rode to the bus station and caught the bus to the airport and we finally had the car.

                                                                                              

Next morning we packed and drove to Steenwijk with Jane. (Jane is our Tom Tom) We arrived at 11.00 to a house full of relatives getting dressed.  They were all very friendly and gorgeous people.

                              
                            Outside the housebefore we all left

Russel had the task of driving John’s car with his two girls to the different wedding venues. (there were a few). We drove first to the yacht club De Kluft where we had coffee and ham rolls and then we all followed the main car the had John and Rinolda in to Vollenhove where the marriage service was held. The ceremony was in a lovely old house with a delightful celebrant that sounded like she was enjoying her role. Not that we understood what she said but we did get it all explained later by Lara.

                        
                                   John and Rinolda with John's two girls Lara and Demi

It was a marriage for all four of them and they all looked gorgeous

We then had champagne and cake cutting in the grounds of this beautiful house.

 

 At about 6 o’clock we all headed back to the Kluft where we had a barbeque. At about 8.30 lots and lots of people arrived for the party. Up till then there had been about 40 relatives and close friends.  We danced until about 12.30 when we caught a taxi back to Steenwijk where we slept the night at John’s house. The rest of the crew stayed at the Kluft hotel.

It was a wonderful day and a great wedding. It was great to be invited to a Dutch wedding.

Next morning we headed to have lunch with the Gilberts who had arrived back from Paris the night before. We had a big chat and then headed towards the Zeeland area.

                                          
                                                       Yvonne outside her van

We were very tired and by about 6pm we hit the freeway traffic and ground to a halt. I asked Jane where to go and she gave us a motel just out of Gouda, so we pulled off the freeway and booked in for the night. We had visited Gouda on a previous trip so we didn’t have to do any sight seeing. We just had a meal in the town centre and then crashed.

                                         Map showing Zeeland area

Next morning we headed passed Rotterdam to the Europoort (Rotterdam harbour). The harbour complex is huge it extends some 40 km from the city of Rotterdam to the sea. The industry was incredible. We finally arrived at the sea – this is where an extension to the new harbour is being undertaken.

 

 Some time ago land from the sea was reclaimed which was called  Maasviakte 1 – now they are into Massviakte 2 – a completely new harbour extending the existing. Apparently when the Global Financial crisis hit the world and Dubai island making developments stopped they brought the equipment to Rotterdam and are making the new harbour. Sand is dredged from the seabed about 11km off shore and dumped at the new site – concrete blocks used in Maasviakte 1 as the hard sea wall are being recycled to the new section – the are 2.5m cubed and weigh about 30 tonnes each. The place was fascinating but as our luck had it on Saturdays it is closed so the display centre and the tour were unavailable – next time!!!!   .

The dredging machines in the distance

We left there and headed down the N57 until we arrived at the big water park of Neeltje Jans. It is on an island – this island was the construction site for the massive storm surge project. In 1953 large tides combined with winds from the north west broke through dykes and other protection and inundated large areas of land – this same event also hit the south east of England. As a result plans where developed to stop such devastation occurring again. The photo shows the extent of the project. The island has been turned into a theme park but the site has other aspects such as access to the storm surge structure and extensive expos on things such as Mussel farming – this area is famous for its Mussels – we had some  - yummy.

After spending the rest of the day here we decided to look for accommodation. It is now school holidays and we were by the seaside. Accommodation was hard to find so we looked up on the Tom Tom again and using the phone numbers we found a little hotel in the forest after spending sometime winding around the narrow roads. It was very cute. We had a meal that night in Domburg. Domburg was a very lively little town full of holiday makers. It is here that we had the traditional dish of Mussels. They were cooked in the local beer and served with chips and salad. We both enjoyed them immensely

                                            Hotel where we stayed

Next morning we drove to the local beach which was a short distance from our hotel.  We then left for our trip back to Antwerp stopping at Middleburg and Vlissingen which were delightful towns in the Zeeland.

                                                The Beach near Domberg

                                                 The Beach at Vlissengen

                  
                                                    large boats pass the local beaches

We really enjoyed the Zeeland area of Holland and were pleased that we spent sometime exploring. I think travelling by car and not the boat was a better option here.

We then spent the next few days exploring Antwerp. The Carr's caught up with us and Lois and i had an afternoon shopping. I also found a shop that sold lamb chops so I stocked up.

                                  
                           Oh no the girls have gone shopping again!!!

                                      
                                                 Groen Platts in Antwerp

                                   Over looking the marina

                                      Antwerp with the Schelde River in the back ground.

We will be heading down this river today. it is tidal and we must go at 10.00am to get through before we run out of water.