Wednesday 7th Jan 2009

Travelled nearly all day, checked out the Zeeland, Delta plan - the massive hydraulic loch system the dutch have developed to counter the storms and king tide effects on their land that is below sea level (most of it!!). Had arvo T with a lovely older couple, Rouen and Marie who we had met 15 years ago, then into Amsterdam, met up with Mark and Tanya Gresswell where we are staying at the moment. Learnt all about steep, long stairs in dutch homes...

Tuesday 6th January 2009
Well our ‘quaint spot’ turned out to be a lovely car park between two roads where the traffic started at 5:30am with the weekly rubbish removal, then the snow plough clearing the roads and by about 7am Lea and I were up and ready to move on – so we did – off to the supermarket, had brekky and the on the road to Waterloo in Belgium where we had a lovely afternoon – the sky had cleared, it was crystal blue and snow everywhere again. “we retraced the battle between napoleon, wellington and blucher, went to the old farm houses where the French set up there observation posts – boys very fascinated re-enacting the battle with glee…! Travelled on to The Nederlands and parked in a nice marina overnight.