pics from today, Sunday 11th Sept

We had to laugh at how orderly everything in Belgium is - trees are planted in perfect straight rows, fields meet at perfect right angles, farms are neat and tidy, nothing out of place.
I had never even thought of Belgium as a place to visit, bit it is very pretty although we did find the people a bit dreary = I think they have too much stuff and everything's too perfect!
Next was Holland. We were just passing through the sticky out bit of Holland between Belgium and Germany.

I wonder if anybody of you'all have had a "responsibly fresh" lettuce before, cause we did in Belgium - I think they may have lost something in the translation there. We're finding fruit and veg. extremely cheap here compared with France, Spain and Portugal.

Wednesday night we stayed at a "campsite" in Holland - it was more like somebody just had a very large garden and allowed campers!! There was a little hut with a notice on the door saying that you just needed to put your money in an envelope with your name and address, how many nights you stayed etc.  and put it in the post box under the carport - all in Dutch, which thankfully is not a problem for us to understand - not reading it anyway, it can be a bit challenging when they speak.

View to the house of the campsite owners - we never saw them, seems they don't like to be disturbed thus the "put the money in an envelope and get on with your own life". 

View towards the road. There were no facilities apart from a couple of hoses and somewhere to empty waste water.

The hut with instructions. There was electricity, but we didn't need.

Cute gate sign made with horseshoes.

In the evening when we walked the dogs down the road, we were pretty far down when two very large Ridgebacks came running down the road by themselves - at first we thought they were with a couple on bicycles, but they were on their own. We had a bit of an encounter and had to do some shouting to get them to back off from our dogs - scary stuff as we have a psychotic terrier that will attack anything, no matter how big, and a large labrador who thinks he's the boss. After Spotty being attacked in Portugal, I confess I'm a bit neurotic with big dogs around him!!

Wednesday night we were in Germany and stayed at a lake - and I didn't take any pictures!!

THURSDAY and we arrived at Helen and Robbie - the whole reason for the trip to Germany was to visit dear Helen whom we haven't seen in probably 18 years - we worked with her at PE Golf Club all those years ago!!

Pictures of their lovely place in the woods will be coming up. We're having a fantastic time doing woolly crafts, walking dogs, cycling and just chilling - it is so beautiful here, they might have to kick us out if they ever want their place back to themselves. We're camping in their driveway :-)

The weather is like summer in South Africa, been a long time since we've experienced heat like this!!

Tuesday 6th Spetember 2016

After breakfast and a nice walk on the beach we headed off towards Belgium, just a hop away.
Found a lovely place to camp near a canal outside Brugge and decided after lunch to cycle in to the town as we had all afternoon, rather than leave it for tomorrow when the weather was supposed to be even hotter!! It was nice and shady under the trees so we were happy enough to leave the dogs.
Belgium is great for cycling - FLAT, with cycle paths and right of way everywhere, and did I mention FLAT!! Even I could get used to cycling here!!
The town centre was just a bunch of old buildings -  seen one, seen them all really. We bought some stickers for the truck (only reason to enter any kind of civilization) and had coffee in a little coffee shop. We toyed with the idea of sharing a waffle, but neither of us was hungry - on the way back we will definitely have to have an official Belgium waffle! The lane where we camped was quiet but for a gazillion cyclists coming past!! Most people seem to be over the age of 60 and most look miserable - like they been sucking lemons for lunch. There were a few friendly people who shouted hello, but most just looked us up and down with their sour faces so I said to Chris I wondered if we were doing something wrong when we were cycling on the path into town!!

 Brugge town centre

 Along the canal

 Camping spot

Part 3...... Sorry there wasn't a part 2 from our first trip to Europe, but here is part 3, second trip to Europe: We spent 2 nights with Barry and Jess in Woking, Surrey, Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th of September. On Monday morning shortly after we got up, Jess came and told us there was fun and games in Calais with protests by farmers and truck drivers to do with the Jungle refugee camp in Calais. Chris checked the ferry website and rang the automated update line and all was running as usual, so we decided to go ahead and leave when we were ready and see if we could get an earlier sailing rather than our booked 21.20pm - we thought it would be better to arrive in the light. There seemed to be a diversion in place out of Calais anyway. We arrived in Dover in thick fog, but it was a bit clearer at the ferry port. They let us straight through and onto a ferry that was leaving in 20 minutes!! So, instead of arriving in the dark, we left at 15.40 and arrived with plenty of daylight to get away from the trouble zone :-) Apart from a very obvious police presence, all was quiet - as Chris said, probably a lot of media hype and not much really going on, always best not to check the news too often. It seems a lot of people must have decided not to go to France via Calais because the ferry was pretty empty and there was nothing doing at the ferry port in Calais (or Dover for that matter). I reckon whoever manufactures those fences they've got up along all the roads around the ferry port must be very wealthy by now!! We headed straight for Dunkerque and a camping car aire - which was chok-a-block full when we got there; some of those people looked like they'd been ensconced there all summer. We went around the corner to a play park and fed and walked the dogs then headed for another camping area, right on the seafront. It was much better, with only 1 German camping car and a hippie bus with 3 English girls who are volunteering at a nearby refugee camp. Apart from lights on all night, it was a good place to camp. The doggies are always glad for a beach to play on - there were a lot of cyclists and runners though - never a good combination with our dogs who chase anything that move!!

Pics: 1) Saying goodbye to Aunty Cheryll and Adam

2) On the beach in Dunkerque

3) Some bunker things on the beach

4) Spot the camper

I didn't quite get to the impressions in the last update, so here goes....... my overall impressions of France...... Well, I LOVED it even though I wasn't feeling great most of the time!! The people are friendly and so polite - everybody greets you and they are so helpful. Even waiting in the doctors office, a young woman walked in and greeted everybody although we were complete strangers. The doctor saw each of his patients out of the door and called each one personally (no receptionist). The food is great - we didn't eat out, but the quality of the fruit and veg in the supermarket was excellent - it appears they get the far better stuff like cucumbers from Spain than we do in the UK, because even the non-organic are tasty. You could buy a whole pigs head at E.Leclerc if you like (just an ordinary supermarket like Sainsbury's). Far more variety and far more seasonal than in the UK. The roads are excellent - charging tolls really does keep the roads in good condition and even the more minor roads are a pleasure to drive on. Bins, bins everywhere - and some of them even separated for recycling, no problems getting rid of your rubbish. And, of course free or cheap places to fill up and empty out your camping-car and even some of them with places to stay for the night - usually a carpark, often in town, but you can always find somewhere to stop for the night. The only thing I didn't like about France was all the graffiti (in the same category as tatoos - tacky) and it's everywhere, every bridge, abandoned building, farm building in a remote field, just everywhere - really spoils the scenery!! I think we would both like to spend more time in France, in the summer!!

Update and impressions of France

So, on Tuesday morning once we were up and had breakfast and took the dogs out we had a look around the supermarket (bags of snails and pigs trotters were among the delights), then we drove to Chateau De Frere somewhere near Laon. There were just some workmen about to leave and then we had the place to ourselves. It seemed like an old fort (with a moat, which was empty - the workmen were working on this old part)and then the chateau behind it looked occupied. There was a wooded area where we could walk the dogs. The plan was to get to Riems, but we didn't quite get there - we are discovering just how huge a country France is!! Wednesday we got as far as a place called Pucey - which consisted of about 6 farms, not even a bolangerie (sp?) or a patisserie (sp/)!!That's where we camped for the night, next to a large pond. Thursday we decided to take the motorways and make a push for Annecy - that cost us over 100 euros in tolls!!! It would have been cheaper in fuel to take the back roads, but it would have taken 2 days!! We got to Annecy when it was already dark and although the place is riddled with campsites they were all closed until March/April. Not knowing this, we drove up and down looking for a campsite and eventually settled on the camping-car aire (sp?) which was fine. Our technology has been quite handy finding places to stop for the night or air-de-service for topping up and emptying the camping-car, but the satnavs have caused hysterics and anger in turns as they lead us astray - counting/not counting different exits at roundabouts etc. Friday I ended up going to see a Doctor in Annecy - kidney infection - same as I had in Ireland (bah!!) We went to the tourist information and she rang up the closest Dr. who happened to be able to speak some English, so with my meagre French (understanding more than I can speak) and his English we got along and I got an antibiotic and painkillers. We weren't going to drive today, but the weather was so awful that we pushed on to Grenoble and camped in the uni tennis club carpark - they have so many tennis courts!! That was also quiet, being outside of town and a Friday night, nobody was around either in the evening or in the morning. Chris and Humphrey went for a short run on Saturday morning and then we headed for Montpellier. We sometimes rebel against the satnav and just take a road that sounds about right and usually those end up being good. Today was such a day - we ended up on a backroad through some minor part of the Alps. It had snowed obviously a few days earlier, so there was still a reasonable amount of snow around, and such pretty scenery. We stopped on a deserted road through the pass and let the dogs out to play in the snow which they loved!! We stayed on the outskirts of Montpellier in th carpark of the Abbye St Michel Frigolet. Once the staff left and the bells stopped ringing we had a very peaceful night - it was almost dark when we arrived and the bells rang 9pm I think and then didn't ring again until 7am!! Sunday we reached the Mediterranean - of course we had to get onto a beach as soon as possible (Capao Beach was the name of the beach we found). There were loads of people bundled up in coats walking themselves and their dogs. Chris decided we were far south enough that he should be in shorts and a t-shirt - he did get some stares!! This was another area where all the campsites and everything else was closed for the winter. We did find a campsite that had a telephone number for bank holidays and weekends so Chris rang up and the man came and opened for us - for 10 euros a night it was nice to spread out a bit (that included Spotty getting a haircut) although all the facilities were being renovated. This was at a place called Ferrat Beach - not a place I'd like to be anywhere near in the summer - lots of holiday parks with all kinds of questionable entertainment, but absolutely deserted but for a few dog walkers and one other camping-car which arrived just behind us. On Monday morning Chris and Humphrey went for a run and a swim and I took Spotty on the beach to play ball a bit. We were going to stay another night but decided to go into town and do a couple of loads of laundry. From there we thought we may as well move on as the weather wasn't as good as had been forecast.

The pictures are in the wrong order - we stayed at the chateau (the ruins) first and at the abbaye after that

Catchup

Time for a Catchup What have we been up to since we left Devon on the 1st January........ We left Grindlebrook at about 12.45 after a long goodbye :-) and arrived in the New Forest after dark (this becomes a recurring theme). Setthorns campsite is just like a large gypsy encampment which was full to bursting with full-timers so we gave up trying to find a spot and wild-camped at Wilverly enclosure ready for the Parkrun there on Saturday morning. Nobody will bother you wild-camping in the New Forest in a non-designated area on the 1st of January!! Saturday 2nd January we did a wet Parkrun - at least it wasn't as muddy as Killerton!! Everybody was slim and fast looking!! We then headed for Barry and Jessica in Surrey; arrived about 3pm. They had a brilliant surprise lined up for us - they'd invited the Neil's for Chinese supper - lots of good food and good times, was great to see them after so many years!! Sunday morning I went with Barry and Jess to their meeting; home for a roast beef lunch and a lazy afternoon. Now I must add that our dogs were allowed in the house, and even got to meet the Neil's dog Boris on Saturday night. Humphrey was ridiculously excited at first - he hardly ever goes into a house so he charged around knocking stuff over and grabbing every soft toy within reach!! In the evening we went out to another meeting for the gospel and then back to Steve and Jane's for supper with many from the church. Monday morning we took the doggies for a nice forest walk, did some shopping and finally left dear Barry and Jess at about 1.30. We headed straight for the ferry port in Dover, arriving at 4ish so we were first in the queue. It was a bit of a bumpy crossing - best just to lie down and imagine you're a baby being rocked gently to sleep in a cradle - even I can handle it then!! We arrived in Calais at 7.30 local time. It was pitch dark, pouring with rain and we were trying to find our way, driving on the opposite side of the road!! The airs de service seemed to just be a dumping and filling station at the petrol station next to E.Leclerc, so we just parked in the carpark - the area which turned out to be staff parking we discovered when they started arriving for work at 7am on Tuesday morning!!