Ka Pai Kiwis - Europe 25

 We had a lovely evening with my cousin Patrick and his wife Paula. Patrick cooked us a lovely meal and we spent the night chatting and catching up with family news.  So today was a short blast down the A12 to our starting point, Chelmsford.  After unloading at Chris’ we headed off in search of a carwash. After a bit of a search we found one and fed a few coins into the machine. 10 minutes later the bike was transformed.  The bike has been great. I bought it sight unseen and you’re never quite sure but is has performed flawlessly. We have covered nearly 7000km on this trip and it been a breeze.  I was still feeling pretty average from my stomach upset so put myself to bed for the rest of the afternoon.  It was nice to be reunited with Chris, Karen and the boys when they got home from work/school. Next morning I was feeling quite a bit better. So sorting up out gear and deciding what stays and what goes. Trial packing of bags. Much easier than on the way her...

 A big day on the road today so an early (for us) start. We said goodbye to this charming town. As we were packing the sun coming up shone red and made for a lovely scene with the canal and Roman bridge in the foreground.  Then it was a quick breakfast. We are on the fast roads today so although it is a bit colder we can put in the miles.  On the way out of town we saw the horses and carts heading to the town square for their day of work showing tourists around. They even knew to stop for the red light.  Our first stop was Dunkirk and we headed out the beach and checked out the Allies memorial there. I have always wanted to see the beach where such a mammoth evacuation happened. It was blowing a gale and bloody freezing so we didn’t hang around.  After a short detour for gas we hit the motorway for the short trip to the Euro tunnel terminal. This is such a simple process. You rock up to one of several barriers, punch your ticket code into a machine, it spits out...

 We have spent the day wandering about this fabulous old port town. Absolutely brimming with history and full of tourists too.  First up we wandered off to find a laundromat. After this chore we spied a handmade shoe shop across the road. A little bit poorer we came away and wondered at the wisdom of these rash purchases, mainly because we have nowhere to put them. Still we reasoned the weather is cooler now so we will be wearing more clothes so more room in the bags. We’ll see.  Another little issue is my cellphone has decided to go on the blink. It’s not really charging. We found a repair shop after a long walk but they couldn’t look at it today and they reckon it’s pretty sick.  Robyn got stuck in a lift yesterday in the hotel in Antwerpen ( her worst nightmare) so we are wondering if the holiday gods are telling us it’s time to head south.  Anyway we have had a lovely day taking in the sights. Stopped for a wee treat at this bakery. Back to lettuce leaves ne...

 Our hotel offered a 12pm checkout so we had a lazy 9am breakfast.  View of the train station from where we had breakfast.  We then walked to the Huis Rubens. This is the house that the painter Rubens built. It is now a museum complete with an interactive display in the basement area and a superb garden area which is a real rarity in the middle of such a large city. The display was very good and helped us understand a little more about the man. His house unfortunately is closed due an extensive renovation. He was clearly very wealthy and successful in his own lifetime which seems to be a rarity for artists of his time.  Then it was back to the hotel but we couldn’t resist a couple of side excursions. There are many many jewellery stores here. 87% of all the world’s diamonds are traded here. Bling bling bling.  We then wandered into the very impressive railway station. Multi level and and architectural wonder.  We packed up and headed to the underground carp...

 An interesting day today. We checked out late and after breakfast we packed up under light showers. It was also quite chilly so we rugged up for what we thought would be an easy 160km. I took the lead but after just a few km Tomtom told me we had 185km still to go. So I pull over and Reijo took over. All was going well until we came upon several road closures. Navigation became a bit of a guessing game for quite a while and both of us led different sections until our satnavs gave up. We had read of anti immigration riots in The Hague so may have accounted for the road closures  It was quite an interesting drive all the same we passed the massive industrial port of Rotterdam with it’s huge oil refinery.  Big wind farms powering the refinery.  We also passed an absolutely massive greenhouse complex, acres and acres of glass to grow Dahlias in. Amongst all the industry there was also farmland including the old traditional windmills and of course wind turbines which are...

 We have had another excellent day today. We allowed ourselves a bit of a lie in and met for breakfast at 9:30. Last night we decided that as it was only a short drive to our next destination we would visit another museum in Amsterdam.  Instead of walking like yesterday we went by motorcycle. We decided to visit the MOCO museum. The museum of modern art.  Such a fantastic museum. We were both blown away and I was unsure whether to be optimistic or depressed about the future of mankind after a couple of hours in this place. There was the most amazing display of Banksy street art  and his comment was it is the only place where public money was used to display his works instead of to remove them.  Liked this quote a lot. (R)  There were several other notable artists on display like Warhol. All of which caused us to pause for thought even after all these years. We need more artists to highlight the political scene. Of course there were some artists I hadn’t hea...