Whitby, United Kingdom

Wow! It’s hard to believe it, but we are now in our second last country before heading home! And it is time to catch up with Nick’s relatives in The Netherlands.

First stop was lunch in Ter Apel with Aunty Ann, Marion & Harry. A nice inclusion for the lunch date was Mark, Harry & Marion’s youngest son who is close in age to our son Tyson. We haven’t seen Mark for about 10 years and he’s grown a bit!

We are lucky that they all speak such good English – like most Dutch but Aunty Ann & Marion are fluent in Australian English!! Aunty Ann emigrated to Australia in the 50s as a newlywed, at the same time as her sister (Nick’s mother). Her three children were all born in Australia, hence their fluency in Australian English. After a good afternoon spent drinking lots of yummy Dutch coffee and lots of talking, we set up camp at the local yacht harbour for the night. Despite being about sixty kilometres or so from the open sea, apparently if you have canals, then you can also have a yacht harbour!

And now we are really going to miss our eBikes – the Netherlands was made for cycling!

Our second day in Groningen (the province, not the city) was spent visiting another cousin. Jose is a kindergarten teacher, so she was on school holidays which meant that we had an afternoon of chatting, looking at photos and drinking more Dutch coffee.

Saturday was spent with Karen & Dick, Suzanna & Thomas, and Martijn. Karen’s father & Nick’s father were brothers and every time we come to the Netherlands, we always try to visit Dick & Karen. Just over three years ago, we were present at Suzanna & Thomas’s wedding and we love catching up with this young couple. Dick could be described as being somewhat enthusiastic about Apple computers, so when we visit, we can also get advise on how to use an Apple when you are used to an PC-Laptop. Thanks Dick! Another high point for Nick was getting to eat lots of yummy Dutch goodies – Fricadelle, Croquettes, Frites & Apelmousse!

Dick is also very into Family History and as we were planning a visit to The Hague and Dutch Military Archives, we made sure that we had as much information as we needed. Note to self – when you have sourced background information, TAKE IT WITH YOU when visiting the Archives! But more on that later.

One of the discoveries that we found in Emden was “The Bunkermuseum”. This is an air raid shelter, at Holzsägerstraße and is now a museum. It is well set out and tells the story of the 31 air raid shelters that were built in Emden during WW2. The Bunkers were built during 1940 and utilized forced and foreign workers. The Museum also talks about air raid on 6 September 1944 in which over 400 citizens and labourers were killed and the city center was almost totally destroyed. So we discovered that Emden isn’t just about the Ollifanten!

When you look at a map of Europe, nothing seems to be very far apart – especially compared to Australia! However, when you have set yourself the task to drive from Leer in Northern Germany to Den Haag which is right over near the coast of the North Sea, south of Amsterdam, and it is a warm, sunny day – then the drive seems to be interminable! But we made it and managed to find a spot at the campground in Delft. We had planned on staying at a Stehlplatz-type place in Den Haag, but the availablility of washing machines and internet and proximity to public transport won out!

One of our primary missions whilst in the area was to visit the Dutch Military Archives and see if we could find any information out about Nick’s relation Johannes Hese. There isn’t a lot known about him but speculation is rife! Records indicate that he got a girl pregnant (Maria Hartman), didn’t marry her and then disappeared! There seems to be some confusion over whether he disappeared when Maria Hartman was pregnant or after the birth of the child. But through Court records, we know that he was in the Dutch Army. After much too-ing and fro-ing, they managed to find the right Regiment and so we were admitted into the Inner Sanctum. Then we were given a book to go through which had the name and details of every member of that Regiment for a period of about 20 years – remember we are looking for early 1800s. So we selected some possibilities and then they brought out more books for us to go through. I was waiting for them to make us put on white gloves, these books were about 200 years old!

Whilst it was fascinating and I could have spent hours looking at everybody’s details, we didn’t manage to find our Johannes Hese. I suppose that given the levels of literacy in those days, there could have been errors made in names reported, etc. Oh well, back to the drawing board!

We managed to spend a day at Scheveningen Beach – and not get blown away! It was cold, overcast and very windy so we had no plans of going into the water. Instead, we walked out to the end of the pier, had some nice Dutch coffee and then went for a bit of a walk – more like getting blown along the beach!

When we had lunch with Harry & Marion, we made arrangements to meet up with them for a camping weekend. Harry & Marion knew of a really nice camping location which was on some farmland next to a canal and just a short walk from Giethoorn. Giethoorn’s claim to fame is that it is called “The Venice of the North”. Instead of roads, they have canals and you can hire a boat and meander through the canals, admiring the gorgeous thatched houses. They even have boats to move stock from one field to another one! The village was beautiful but the traffic on the canals was a nightmare! Probably about less than 5% of the people who had hired boats to “drive” through the canals had any idea about how to steer a boat, or any of the basic rules about right of way! However, we finally managed to complete a circuit of the town as well as crossing the lake which is a National Park – all without sinking anyone! Nick managed to keep his level of frustration at a reasonable level. Phew! And, as always, it was great to spend some quality time with Harry & Marion. I know I’ve said it before – we love catching up with people, but sometimes, meeting over a meal or coffee just isn’t long enough! Thank you, Harry & Marion, for a lovely weekend!

Our last couple of days was spent in Amsterdam. We found a Stehlplatz across the Ij River and as a bonus – they run a free ferry from just up the road across the River to behind the Central Train Station. Finally, after many trips to Amsterdam, Nick got to put a tick in a long-empty box – we visited the National Maritime Museum. We explored the replica VOC ship and looked at some amazing old maps, as well as an exhibition of figureheads and ship models.

Our last night before reaching England was spent mid-Channel! Instead of heading down to Dover or Dunkirk, or even Rotterdam, we were booked on a ferry that left from just north of Amsterdam, Ijmuiden and, barring pirates, icebergs or incompetent ferry captains, we would land at Newcastle-upon-Tyne.