Hosted & Roasted

The famous Kinderdijk windmills  

We've been a bit delayed in our going to the UK. Poupe had a hard time getting a Warrant of Fitness last week. We were all packed to go from Klaske's house with the beds all put away and linen washed, when at the last minute we heard from the garage that they couldn't fix the final problem. So Poupe was booked in with a specialist but not till this week Wednesday.
So we found ourselves with another week roasting in Holland up our sleeves which was a nice surprise.

Some photos Klaske took of our time at her place.

We stayed another night with Klaske - which was very kind of her seeing as she was just about to get her house back! And then we went to Rotterdam again - the city Josh grew up in. We biked around the city and met up with Josh's Mum Debbie for a picnic in the big park in the middle of the city - a little version of New York's Central Park. It was Josh's playground as a boy, so was lovely to be there to see where some of his stories took place.

Miniature goats. So tiny!
 At a lake we visited in Rotterdam there was a small animal farm where we enjoyed some cuddles from these gorgeous goats.

We also met up with a school friend of Josh's, who showed us around his neighborhood, walking the streets of downtown Rotterdam. It is such a multi-cultural, and relatively new city after it was thoroughly bombed in WW2. So it felt like we could have been walking down the streets of New York, or any metropolitan city. As we were walking we came across quite a few people Cye knew, and they joined us as we were walking down the road so that in the end we had quite a group cruising down the street! We stopped at his Dad's classic African-American looking barber shop, where he had a bunch of his friends hanging out there for fun. His Dad stopped cutting the hair of his client and came out onto the street to have a casual catch-up with the big group while his client waited patiently for at least 10 minutes without a complaint. It actually felt a bit like the community on a Sesame Street episode, and my girls and I being the minority of the only white people on the street. It was so nice to be a part of Cye's world for a bit and to feel so welcome.

Then we made our way to Hellevoetsluis which is a village in the south-west of Holland to visit some longtime friends of Josh's parents, who hosted us at very short notice with open arms and generous hospitality. They took us on a tour of the local sights of the village which used to be a very important port back in its heyday. We saw the opening of the river where there are giant gates which were designed to shut out the sea in case of a big storm which could flood the Netherlands. We visited a centre that was created on brand new land still being formed by very clever engineering that has been used to claim land from the sea since the 13th century. In 2008 the land we were standing on was still sea! We also visited a seal rehabilitation center for the little 'common' seal who live on the coasts of the Netherlands. We had a very enjoyable and productive day.

Breakfast at Mary and Paul's. Yum!

The humongous gates that will keep the sea out if a storm hits the Netherlands, otherwise a third of the land will be under water.

At 'futureland' - the place most recently claimed by the sea. A massive container ship coming into one of the world's busiest and largest ports - Rotterdam.

Hellesvoetsluis. This was once a very important port too.

A 'common' grey seal at the rehabilitation center.

The following day we drove to Gorinchem where Josh's Oma Nancy lives and we spent some time with her, and also swimming at yet another lake, where we could have a little relief from the heat again. And that night we drove to a nature reserve where we could park overnight next to a beautiful castle and fort. The land there was farmland and was home to hundreds of geese and horses, all a grey-brown colour and kind of wild looking. We so enjoyed watching the horses interact in such a big herd, and found it so cool that we were allowed to park up next to them and could hear them snuffling away during the night accompanied by the honks of the geese. And in all that wild land there was the castle. How marvelous to see the land untouched by other buildings through the centuries. It made us able to picture so literally how the land looked when the castle was in use. Slot Loevestein was used as a military centre and toll collector since the 13th century and right up until WW2. It is in an ideal position as it is at the joining of the main rivers that meet to come to the Netherlands, where it became well known and wealthy by taking river tolls from every boat that used the waterways. It was also the home of that famous story of the political prisoner Hugo de Groot who in 1621 escaped imprisonment by hiding in a book chest that was taken out of the castle to France.

Slot Loevesein - a 13th-century castle.

That same day Daniel joined us for a kayak at another wildlife reserve which is like a delta, with many waterways creating little pockets of land that form islands. A sanctuary for birds and beavers, though sadly we didn't see any of the latter. We did see many humans though. So many people were out on their boats enjoying the sweltering heat. We paddled through the maze of islands till we found a quiet spot and enjoyed a picnic in the shade and a fierce battle in the water with the up-turned kayaks.

And these last few days we have been back at Klaske's house, enjoying a bit of quiet rest and comfort before we hit the road again. This morning our camper is all fixed and back on the road so we'll be off tomorrow morning for France again so we can catch the ferry at Calais to Dover, where we will begin our UK journey. We're all looking forward to it I think, though we're finding ourselves very comfortable here in Holland. I'm pleased we still have one more stop here on our return from England to be able to enjoy the place one more time.

Josh has been putting together a few videos of our journey and has posted them on his Facebook page, so if you're on social media check it out.

Hope this doesn't creep you out but isn't it exquisitely beautiful? On the castle drawbridge, there were so many spiders like this one.

A busy tourist attraction - Kinderdijk
 This area has the most windmills in one spot in the whole world.
They were originally used to drain the land when it was being reclaimed. Families used to live in them (up until the 1950's) to maintain and run them, but now they use electric pumps to keep the water out. The windmills are beautifully kept, with the original outer layer of thatch covering them all.