From New Zealand to the old Zeeland

Travelled out of Maastricht Wednesday morning.  Can never get away early enough but always a good sleep in.  After restocking the larder off we went to our next destination which was the province of Zeeland – a large island closest to Belgium.  Looked at a few camps but decided on Janse campsite as it looked larger and immaculate compared to the first one we saw.

It was quite a long trip coming to Zeeland from Maastricht (bottom of Netherlands).  We travelled on the main highway as it would have taken us twice as long travelling on the minor roads (took us about 4 hours anyway) like we have done on other occasions.  It was interesting on the highways though as there were hundreds and hundreds of trucks.  We figured they were travelling from Belgium or Germany up to Rotterdam perhaps to take the ferry over to England or up to Amsterdam or on further up to Scandinavia.  There were just as many coming back towards Germany and Belgium most likely from Rotterdam.  We stayed in the slow lane most of the way as Vicki was driving and trucks aren’t supposed to move into the passing lane on most parts of the highways.  This is great if you are in car and can go the 130km speed that’s posted.

Seemed to take for ever to get to the west side of the country, but as we found when we were riding our pushbikes here, the kms seemed to glide by as it is so flat.

Where we are staying is right on the beach (a short walk over the dunes) and then miles of beach to walk along which is awesome.  They have sand erosion prevention in the form of vertical logs in lines (see photos) and little surf club type cafes every 500m for miles along the beach.  Great summer beach pub crawl :-).  The weather was lovely when we arrived on Wednesday and went for a walk along the beach.  We even toyed with the idea of a swim the next day but the weather turned a bit crappy so didn’t get the chance.  On Thursday we biked down to Westkapelle where there was a small Bosch service centre.  We spoke to the guys there about our fuses blowing (it blew again when we arrived at Zeeland) and they said to bring the van in on Friday to have a look at it.  There are both pushbike lanes and walking lanes everywhere. Pushbikes definitely have more rights than cars and you see the cars watching out for pushbikes all the time.  The only bad thing is that the scooters are allowed to use the bike lanes too and they wiz past at high speeds nearly taking out anyone in their way.  Gave us a hell of a fright coming back from Westkapelle when they screamed up behind us with horns blaring – we wondered what the hell was going on.  Really scary when you go to cross the road.  You have to look in the opposite direction for the cars, bikes and scooters plus any other vehicles coming from whatever direction you forgot to look!  You do have to look out for all push bikes as they don’t look out for you – they just keep on riding on regardless of who is in their way.

Westkapelle was heavily bombed towards the end of the war when the yanks liberated Zeeland by bombing and breaching the dikes to flood out the Germans and then staged an amphibious assault. They have a monument with all the names of those who died with a Sherman tank and assault craft. I am always reminded that, when walking around admiring the beautiful buildings that they were nearly all destroyed and remarkably rebuilt still with a sense of history. You have to admire all the countries rebuilding efforts and the will of the governments and people to not let the devastation remain. Wandering around you really don’t get a sense that it was all smashed up 70 years ago.

Friday – we took the van in to the service centre and had a look around Westkapelle which is a nice little village, but doesn’t take long to look around.  The go here is to have Frites (chips) – they are everywhere and you get them served up in a paper cone with either mayonnaise or ketchup.  We took the van in at 10.30 but ended up having to amuse ourselves until 5.30 when they had finished looking.  They were only looking at the van in between their other jobs which is why it took all day.  The weather turned bad and started to rain so we had to pass the time having soup/beer (guess who had what!!) at the pub all afternoon while waiting.  We have arranged for the van to go back in on Tuesday to have a reversing cable replaced which was what was causing the indicators and dash lights fuse to blow.  A really nice garage and everyone very friendly and only too happy to help us.  Only hope it’s not too expensive, but I guess we can’t do anything about it, it’s a fault that needs repair.  At least they can speak a bit of English and they know what the problem is.

So we have to stay here until Wednesday, but it’s not a problem as there is lots to explore and it’s a really lovely part of the country.

Yesterday we took the bus into Middleburg – the main city centre closest to where we are.  Another lovely town with neat narrow cobbled streets and the typical canal layout around the outside the town centre.  It has the typical market square you see in most towns or cities in Europe.  There was an large automated musical organ playing continuously at the start of the market square and the vendors shake cans of money wanting you to contribute to their cause – which is their own back pocket.  However I would rather have given them money to shut the f*** up as their music just went on and on.  We think the guys were most likely eastern European as they were doing nothing and expecting to get money – happens a lot in Europe.

Today we played musical vans where we had to shuffle our parking area in the camp to satisfy the new arrivals. We feel that the Germans (mainly) are not very flexible and like what they like and if they have stayed in that spot previously then that is where they will be, some have been coming here to the exact spot for 30 years+. Go figure. Strange we don’t see to many English mainly Dutch & German, maybe cos dogs aren’t allowed everywhere like the other places we have been.  Smokers here are the most inconsiderate shitheads possible.  They smoke everywhere – in the showers, toilets, restaurants, anywhere they can and it’s really quite shitty if you are a non-smoker, makes it so unpleasant.

We read for most of the day and Vicki did the laundry as the weather was pretty fowl , finally cleared a bit so walked to the beach club had a few wine & beers played dominos & euchre and then home for tea stuffed chicken with brie & mushrooms with vege stirfry so now relax watch a movie and tomorrow into Domburg as we can bike and have a look around.