NokiaPete

Caravan to Poland Epilogue

2011-08-09T01:47:00.000-07:00

Home again, happy but feeling really knackered.'

One last job, stow the caravan at Barrow

Only one thing I forgot was, to remove the extended mirrors.

Caravan to England Monday

2011-08-08T08:55:00.000-07:00

Stowed scooter and hitched caravan, in torrential rain, the sight of Lisa holding an umbrella, sheltering herself and Angie, whilst Angie wound the caravan legs up, with the pair of them giggling stays with me, wished I had of had the presence of mind to get a photo.

Set off for Hoek van Holland to sail on the Stena line ferry to Harwich. I am now typing this live whilst sailing on the north sea. The ship has satellite technology which enables blogging afloat!

The beautiful ship that bought us back to England

Caravan to Holland Sunday

2011-08-08T08:44:00.000-07:00

Stowed the scooter, hitched up. Paid the bill and hit the autobahn south west with the plan being, to stay at the very nice site I had stayed at in Arnhem, as things turned out we ended up at another camp site, more about that later.

Berlin has the equivalent of London's M25 called the Berlina Ring after a good while on that, we were directed onto the E30, by the faithful Tomtom, christened by Angie, Jeremy.

Caravan in Berlin Saturday

2011-08-08T08:39:00.000-07:00

Went with Angie and Lisa to explore Berlin and especially to see what is left of the Berlin wall.

One of the things that becomes apparent from dividing a city by a vast and terrible wall, is how silly things get, you are not even allowed to photograph the souvenirs.

Quite amazing really, now the wall has become a metaphor for the past, and is used to display metaphors.

It's 50 years ago that the wall was built, Spiegel the German newspaper have done a feature on it. A tunnel builders story.

Caravan in Berlin Friday

2011-08-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

Woke up about half six and of course no internet, which meant no BBC radio 4 :( So at seven I went to reception to buy more Internets and was told I would have to wait 'till eight when the boss came in, back to the caravan for another cup of tea, then tried again this time I met the boss and he sold me two hours of 'Net time but this time, this meant separate slips of paper for two separate hours, ah the penny has dropped.

At last I could listen to radio 4 and catch up with the news, and what news! America's credit rating has dropped!!!! The world has had the same economic system since Breton Woods in 1971 when America ditched the gold standard and instead made the dollar the reserve currency for the world, another name for this is 'the fiat currency', this function used to be performed by the Pound Sterling, but since WWII meant that, the UK was no longer the world economic power it once was, it no longer operated as reserve currency. Muddling along using gold as fiat currency, is a bit cumbersome because gold is rather heavy. So countries started to use the Dollar as a trading currency instead, this worked fine whilst America had a healthy trade balance. The world's commodities are bought and sold in dollars, wheat, oil, etc, etc. If the dollar was devalued, the world's drillers and farmers would be paid less. Which is why America and the rest of world, need a new fiat currency.

Once China became the world's manufacturing giant, and America was in the situation of importing much more than it was exporting, the pressure to devalue the Dollar grew and grows still.

Many people are suggesting a basket of world currencies, could be the reserve currency, this would work fine, except when it comes to people who use the Euro. It was very noticeable how cheap things were in Poland, except when it came to road fuel, road fuel in Germany is cheaper than road fuel in Poland or the UK, this is easily achievable if a currency can be revalued up or down to balance it's economy in terms of exports and imports.

This is the problem with countries within the Euro zone, they cannot revalue their currencies because they all use the same currency.

Using gold as a fiat currency is a guard against inflation, because if you only print the number of bank notes in circulation in relation to the amount of gold a nation holds, you don't risk, adding 0's to denominations, or printing lots more notes to cure economic problems, gold keeps things financially disciplined.

Economic behaviour that causes inflation, such as can be seen in Germany before WW11 causes massive social damage.

Reading about the Weimar Republic and the massive social damage that the hyper inflation caused, explains why the German people elected someone like Hitler.

(end of international economics rant and back to travel blog)

So anyway once the two hours had been used up with my usage, Lisa and Angie's use, I went back to reception to buy more 'Net time, this time I explained to the manager how I had mistakenly bought a ten hour block, not knowing it could not be split and he kindly gave me 4 separate hours to compensate me, and just to make the point - I have created most of this content using them!

So after tea and breakfast we set off for the centre of Berlin to explore, we have taken many photos of Berlin which will be uploaded to this blog later on, then this blog will be given a polish.

Caravan to Berlin Thursday

2011-08-06T08:12:00.000-07:00

Set off for the long stretch north west to Berlin arrived 6ish, dropped the legs - home again!

The site is on an island under the flight path of Berlin airport. It also has a hotel so Lisa and Angie can have some comfort and I do not have sleep in the car.

The internet arrangements of this site seem a bit convoluted, not like the campsite in Dresden which had really fat pipes and a log in system that threw me.

Basically when we arrived, the site attendant told me to get the caravan parked up then come back and he would sort out the WiFi for me. When I returned he told me that the 'Net is one Euro per hour, so thinking about ten hours would be enough connection time we would need for the whole of the two nights we would be staying at the campsite, he gave a bit of a funny look, took my ten Euros then returned bearing a slip of paper, with the login letters and password, then he hit me with it, the time was to be used up all in one go!! As by then it was around seven in the evening and I was dog tired from the long drive up from Krakow when it got to around 11 I was ready for bed and had wasted five Euros.

Sitting there getting the 'Net sorted, I heard a strange sound that made me jump. Opened the door looked around nothing, trapped my thumb in the hinge, ouch. Later on the same odd sound happened again, this time I had a look around, noticed a young lad on a bike were they throwing things at me I thought? Then I looked down and saw loads of acorns on the ground, ah mystery solved, the caravan was parked under an oak tree and the sound was caused by acorns hitting the roof of the caravan.

Caravan in Krakow Wednesday and Thursday

2011-08-05T13:53:00.000-07:00

Up nice and early and off to the centre to indulge in some serious touristing. Fantastic to have my electric scooter, I would make a pretty poor tourist without it.

Had ride around the campsite and got a couple of scenic shots of the river that ran next to it.

One of my wishes was to visit the ghetto portrayed in the film Schindlers list.

Ok we visited the Jewish Quarter of Krakow, but apparently the ghetto was not in that part of Krakow, so instead we paid a visit to the Wawel castle, then we made our way to the very picturesque squares in the centre, that act like a magnet to the world's tourists.

Australian couple who were camped next the caravan in the process of breaking camp.

Lisa and Angie

One of the beautiful church in Krakow.

Angie and me on my wheels

Angie

Lisa

A model of Wawel castle

River Vistula

Lisa

Angie and me

Lisa and me

Angie and Lisa

If any picture has a story this one does, tiny newborn baby and at a guess its grandparents in national costume , so if a Polish person can comment below, I have a question, is this a cultural celebration?

If the baby is not the couples grandchild, then a human baby is being used as a prop, in a bit of street theatre, to help sell trinkets to the tourists. Or perhaps this is what couple in their national costume normally do, and they have been press ganged into doing a bit of babysitting!

Cheers!

End of the day a happy party.

Caravan to Krakow Tuesday

2011-08-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

We awoke around 7 and set about breaking camp. As we went about getting wheels rolling, we noticed some cats, two of them. I'm unclear as to whether they were from the same caravan or two different caravans, but the whole idea of taking a cat on holiday seems somewhat incongruous. Many people take their dogs on holiday, but cats? The big shame of this is, not one of us had the presence of mind, to take a photo of this somewhat odd phenomena.

After a fairly long drive from Wroclaw here we are in Krakow, legs down, all set.

Nice campsite WiFi works !!!!

Angie helping me load the scooter into the car.

After loading the scooter back into the car, we set off to explore the centre of Krakow which we had heard is worth visiting, it certainly lives up to its reputation. Very vibrant, lots of street theatre, a team of break dancers, stilt walkers.

The centre of Krakow has several very nice squares and not a car in sight.
Then we went for a nice meal, for a very reasonable price, meal finished, we went for a wander and bumped into another person who was staying at Camp Clepardia also, named Mike who is touring Europe on his Motorbike with a tent.

Caravan to Poland Monday

2011-08-01T02:25:00.000-07:00

I actually saw the sun today for the first time in three days!

I've found a hole in the wall, so have access to local currency.

Basically all seems to be going ok.

Lisa and Angie arrived safe and sound Wroclaw airport, now having eaten, playing cards.

Caravan in Poland Sunday

2011-07-31T03:33:00.000-07:00

Well here I am in Wroclaw legs down all set.

One of the things I find most enjoyable about my travel blog, is some of the photographs I've managed to take, not so much for their informational content, but purely for the juxtaposition of lines and colour, what follows is an example, taken not far from the Wroclaw campsite.

Site seems ok but no camp wide WiFi, but Roman the campsite attendant seemed to saying you could could pick it up next to reception. Will check that out later. But at least I can get online with my Kindle.

Sitting outside reception with my coat on (it's a bit cold here), but at least I am online with my laptop, the Kindle is ok as a web enabled device in some senses, at least I can get access and read or write emails, but it is not close in terms of ease of use as my laptop.

I was warned about Poland's roads, the motorway getting here was no problem, but some of the roads in Wroclaw are like the Alps.

At least at this campsite there are other people, it felt very weird being the only camper at the Legnicka campsite, all I had for company was an irritating dog that kept trying to bully me, by rushing up to me barking and expecting me to be scared, but seeing that it was shorter than my knees, no problem, there were also lots and lots of slugs. I did not see one bird at the last site whilst there, I've already seen some crow like birds here, one chap reckoned it was a hooded crow.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow as Lisa and Angie are arriving at the airport.

Caravan to Poland Saturday

2011-07-29T23:51:00.000-07:00

A great comfort to me over many years has been BBC radio 4. It really started when I became a truck driver, I like music but not as much as I like thinking learning and the spoken word.

Many campsites have WiFi and if I have WiFi I have Radio 4, not always a good reception if the campsite has bandwidth issues like the last site. What kept happening at Arnhem was I kept losing the feed so had to refresh the page to get it back. Here at Kundenbeleg Dresden, the WiFi is as solid as a rock not had one drop-out yet.

I've just heard a very interesting program about travellers in Essex and them being evicted. My question is why don't they just join the caravan club?

Heard a very funny statement by Jeremy Paxman earlier on, which very much applied to me yesterday around Dortmund "You are not stuck in traffic you *are* traffic", lol.

Its raining a lot here at the moment, makes me glad I'm not in a tent and makes me feel justified in going through all the extra cost and hassle of dragging my caravan all this distance.

Really looking forward to meeting up with Lisa and Angie on Monday.

I'm going to leave here around 11:00 for Poland.

Here are some photos of where I am at this moment.

I have decided to write reviews of the campsites I visit, Kundenbeleg in Dresden was very good, helpful staff, great WiFi in terms of bandwidth, very clean toilets and lots of facilities. If I known how the next site was going to turn out, I would have stayed another night. The only thing that let the site down was the weather, but that was not the campsite's fault.

Coming up to the Polish border.

Well I have reached my dream of many years, I read James Michener's novel Poland, more than a few years ago and ever since wanted to visit.

I'm at a campsite in a small village called Legnica but it does not have WiFi so I'm going to the campsite in Wroclaw tomorrow, hoping they have WiFi, ok I can get on the 'Net via my phone, but that allows Walmart (The company that owns Vodafone) to carry out wallet rape on me.

The other reason I'm moving on is I'm the only person here!

When I left Britain I had about £24 prepay in my Vodafone account, now I have only £11.66 left in my prepay.

Do the Mafia run Walmart who own Vodafone?

The only usage I have given Vodafone is the small amount of text I have posted to this blog.

Some of this text has been written from my Kindle, even though I find adding internet content via my Kindle a somewhat clumsy process.

Caravan to Poland Friday

2011-07-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

Not a lot to report today, spent most of the day driving, left Arnhem 10:00 with lots of help from the other campers, especially a very nice Dutch drainage engineer called Jan.

Massive amounts of traffic around Dortmund, the autobahns are especially complex there. It seems that the area is close to gridlock. Wasted lots of time because I took a wrong turning.

Arrived Dresden just after 8 o'clock in the evening in a fine mist of rain after a very long drive.

One thing sort of puzzled me, I was expecting to see differences in things because I am now in what used to be behind the 'iron curtain'. Before 1992 it was a different country known as Eastern Germany. Western Germany must have spent a great deal of money making the autobahns look just the same.

Looking forward to tomorrow, all being well, I will make my goal and for the first time visit Poland.

Caravan to Poland Thursday

2011-07-28T02:27:00.000-07:00

Up at 6:45 cup of tea, got everything ready, arrived at the ferry terminal 8:00, boarded the Stena Britannia no problem.

Had breakfast and am now in the internet room typing this.

It is quite poignant for me taking this route to the continent, many years ago when I was in the merchant navy, I worked on the British Railway ferries on this route. One of the ships I sailed on was the SS Arnhem, I clearly remember one night during the 1966 world cup, before the final with lots and lots of German supporters and them all singing and hoping for a win.

The next night after the final taking them home they were a lot quieter!

Arrived in the Hook at 3:45 UK time and set off eastward for Arnhem, apart from some pretty heavy rain storms and lots of traffic - uneventful, arrived 7:00 at the Arnhem caravan site.

The name of the campsite, Camping Warnsborn and it's a beautiful site.

Set in the middle of a vast forest, the air is like a fine wine, unlike the air as you come into the Hook of Holland on the ferry, you can smell Rotterdam's petrochemical industries, distinctly insalubrious.

Caravan to Poland

2011-07-27T02:14:00.000-07:00

Ever since I read Poland by James Michener, I have wanted to visit Poland.

Nearly all countries are defined by geography Poland is an exception, it has been overrun by many different cultures yet has still retained its cultural identity, the main purpose of this trip is to learn about that culture.

Parked up for the first night of my trip in the Dovercourt caravan site.

I stayed here before on my Easter in Amsterdam trip, but that time did not uncouple because I was too knackered.

This trip is going to be different, I really enjoy my caravan trips, apart from doing them on my own which means I have no one to share the experience with.

This time from next Monday on, I'm going to be joined by my daughter Lisa and her friend Angie they will fly out to Wroclaw Poland to join me.

So Lisa and Angie could load the caravan up with their holiday luggage, I parked the caravan outside Angie's home and the reason I'm not so tired, is Angie helped me hook up.

Because I have my scooter out of the car, I'm going explore the caravan site.

Not a bad site, plenty of room, electricity works ok, a bit expensive at £24 a night, but cheaper if you are catching the Stena line ferry the next day, at £12, the only thing missing was WiFi.

There were plenty of static caravans, some for sale, some seemed very roomy.

Had a pint in the campsite bar which was full of hyperactive kids. Bought a piece of cod for my tea, rode back to the caravan, stowed the scooter and hitched back up, leaving myself less to do the next day.

Easter in Amsterdam 8

2011-05-03T05:07:00.000-07:00

Arose early had breakfast in the site cafe and made to head for the long road home. As I was decamping I noticed these ducks clucking around me, they had it down to a 't'. They really knew how to work human beings for a bread meal, I had noticed them around the camp before and now it was my turn.

They sort of put on a performance, so in the interest of reinforcing what was quite a delightful little ritual, I went and got a couple of slices of bread.

After they had eaten the bread, then they sort of had a kip in formation, I had noticed this somewhat odd symmetry the other day, but with more ducks, I assume they have evolved this routine. A famous psychologist Skinner used to be able to get pigeons to do all sorts of weird and wonderful things by rewarding the behaviour he wanted.

The last shot of the trip, Camp Zeeburg from the motorway, the bridge seen on the right hand side of the photo, is the bridge I had crossed on my scooter to get into the centre of Amsterdam without going through the tunnel.

Easter in Amsterdam 7

2011-05-01T09:02:00.000-07:00

Well the penultimate day of Amsterdam trip, forgot to put the scooter on charge the previous night, so had to wait for ages for a full charge.

Set off for Lempicka bar.

The 30th of April is the official birthday of the Dutch Monarch, I used to wonder why the British Queen had two birthdays, now I understand. One special day of the year, is set aside as the Monarch's birthday, as I have no recollection of the Brits celebrating the Monarch's birthday, it did not seem to make sense, that was until I saw thousands of Dutch people many of them wearing something orange, that I understood in Holland, the Monarch's birthday is an excuse to get drunk and have a party.

When I finally arrived at the Lempicka bar, the whole atmosphere was different from the day before, for a start it appeared that most of the staff were drunk! More than one glass got dropped and after a while we were told that we would not get waiter service, but would have to go to the bar instead, not that I'm complaining things are just done differently in England, my only complaint was the music, 'drum and base' I think it is called and it sounds as though someone has recorded some drums and base and then just looped it over and over again, whereas the day before they played some very nice tracks.

So I went back to the 'van and had another quiet night in.

Easter in Amsterdam 6

2011-04-29T13:01:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this live in the sense, this blog has caught up with time, I have finally found a nice place to blog from, because I never before found somewhere suitable, East of Eden had a very slow connection, but Westers was very nice, great service, good Internet connection, but a poor perch for my poor nearly fleshless bottom, basically on a wooden chair, I'm sitting on the bones of my pelvis. Today decided to go for the whole hog, scootered all the way to Westers from Zeeburg CS around 7 kilometres took me nearly an hour, but an adventure never the less.

Amsterdam seems a mess, but is a heady mix of canals, bike herds, manic scooters, incredible trams and endless numbers of people trundling wheeled suitcases, it is possible there are more tourists here than inhabitants. But somehow this place seems to work, but you need eyes in the back of your head. Its manic but nice.

I finally arrived at Westers and discovered that all the tables inside had been stowed away and using my laptop outside, is none to easy, because it is hard to read the screen in sunlight.

Westers was being rearranging stuff blocking the street an installing a massive sound system for a street party on the Saturday. The situation was not fit for blogging, so I set off vaguely in the direction of home, tried another bar, would have been perfect, nice atmosphere, there were even two people playing chess with a clock, in the middle of the room, truly home so I asked the waitress did the place have wifi ? "No" she said :( Off I set again, all the while vaguely in the direction of home.

As I was leaving the centre of the 'Dam sort of the area of canals with the word gracht after their name. According to Wikipedia gracht is nearly untranslatable I disagree, ok there is not a exact translatable term in English, but an inner city canal with a road either side of it is very easy to understand. The way the 'Dam is laid out is very nice. The plural to gracht is grachten, this system makes the inner Amsterdam very easy to navigate, just head in the opposite direction to Centraal station, or the Dam square and you will bump into a gracht find one and you have found them all, learn the names Heren, Keizers, Prinzen, Lijnbaans and you will never need a map in inner Amsterdam.

The next place I tried was a coffee shop, but everybody had glassy eyes and the atmosphere was very smoky, so I carried on the homeward trundle.

Found another candidate, everything seemed to checkout, had a cup of tea and tried to get connected and yes I could see the connection on my laptop screen, but alas no password, so probably half the street was leaching the connection. Knowing that one IP can only be shared with 255 users I gave up on that one.

Finally I found a place, that seems fit for purpose, called the 'Lempicka bar', not that far away from where my caravan is sited only 4.3 km away.

Met this Dutch who guy reckoned he could get me on Dutch television, I turned the offer down, perhaps he was serious but I doubt it.

A photograph of my scooter safely parked in the Lempicka bar.

Stayed till around 11 o'clock, then made for the caravan, just about made it the battery was beginning to die though. Now I know roughly what the range of the scooter is 17 km or nearly 10 miles. This knowledge will be important in future.

Easter in Amsterdam 5

2011-04-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

I think the reasons I was getting so tired is because my scooter is very heavy and getting it in and out of the car takes quite a bit of exertion and to explore Amsterdam means I'm loading and unloading it twice, after my nightmare in Edinburgh, I'm scared of going long distances on my scooter, in case it happens again (I ran out of battery about a mile from the caravan, took me around 2 hours to get back). So I decided on a compromise that being, to head for somewhere on the outskirts of Amsterdam. The route I was taking into Amsterdam with the car meant going via a tunnel according to my TomTom and the tunnel had no pedestrian access, so I had to find a way into Amsterdam suitable for my scooter. Consulting the maps I had I found a way via this bridge.

Entering and exiting Zeeburg CS I kept noticing something that looked suspiciously like a commune, but because before I was in the car I never investigated it and made some potential friends, Lars and Peter.

Now because I'm on my scooter here is a few pictures of their 'commune'.

This is a shot of the campsite from the bridge.

The caravans are actually behind the tents.

On these trips, I always manage to forget something I miss, this time it was a warm coat, the reason being the weather was really warm when I left England and I thought I would not need one, discovered I was wrong on Tuesday, a cold wind blew and the night saw thunder and lightning. So I went looking for a coat. Found a street market, very much like the street markets you see in London with stalls on wheels, that are stowed away when the market is done leaving a big empty street when done. And bought a sort of anorak not what I really wanted as it was not very substantial, but at 10 Euros whose complaining? I will leave it in the caravan as an emergency coat.

I really like Zeeburg campsite and feel very at home there, but its 'free internet' service is abysmal, they are trying but don't have a clue. I can get a connection by tethering my phone but it is expensive, Vodafone say in their text they send, they will give me 25 MB for £2 and this should be plenty! 25 MB is roughly 8 medium sized photographs after the 25 MB is used up they will then charge me £1 for per MB, this means if I upload 9 photos to this blog, the ninth one, will cost me around £3, who are these people? What makes it worse if you don't use the whole of the allocated 25 MB it is not added to the next days allocation, the MB counter is reset. So you could be in the situation of downloading your emails in the morning consuming 1 MB and not going online again that day so 1 MB would have cost you £2 these companies do not know the meaning of fairness. The company that owns Vodafone is actually Walmart. I thought the EEC was about harmonising systems, if I use my phone on the internet in England it costs £1 for 24 hours and as far as I can see the access is not capped. I fail to see why the same scheme could not be used in Europe unless of course Walmart are a bunch of scammers.

Found a cafe called 'East of Eden' with wifi but it was slow, still it enabled me to spend a few happy hours writing this blog. The big benefit of using my scooter instead of my car, meant I allowed myself a couple of beers, not that I was over the limit or even near it, but drinking and driving I will not compromise on.

Set off back to the van and got completely lost, after being given directions found my way back. The concept of exploring with the scooter works, arrived back plenty of charge left, so decided to go all the way in the next day and had a quiet night in listening to radio 4 on long wave. I would advise anyone touring Europe to buy a long wave radio, there are a few English speaking stations on medium wave, like the BBC World service and Radio America, but they are not the same as radio 4.

Easter in Amsterdam 4

2011-04-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

When I last visited Amsterdam back in 1973/4 a place I spent a lot of time at, was called the Paradiso it had a very nice basement cafe, that had table tennis, a big fish tank and the sort of atmosphere I felt at home at in, so I decided to visit it to see if it was the same. Drove to where I had seen the disabled parking bays and yes there was a space, but the problem was, there was not enough space behind the car to get the ramps down due to an enormous pile of garbage in plastic bags, oh no I thought, I would have to move loads of them to give me room, oh well at least it would save 20 Euros, then I got lucky. It was actually two bays and the bay in front of me had a car in it, a German guy turned up with his disabled wife and vacated the bay in front thus letting me give myself room behind to extract my scooter.

Set off to track down the Paradiso, finally found it next to the Rijksmuseum

but sadly no cafe any more, so decided to go back to Westers to have one of their excellent salmon sandwiches.

On the way passed, a lesson, on how to do furniture removals in a narrow Amsterdam street.

Revisited Westers, sadly no salmon sandwich, two teas and some savoury things nice, but not a patch on the salmon sandwich.

But got these mad photos of a heron perching first on one car and then another.

The heron perching on cars attracted much photographic attention, I think he/she got upset with the media attention and flew off, now if they had rewarded the Heron with a nice tasty fish, it might have remained on the photo shoot.

Got back to the car no problem, put the scooter in the car then back to Zeeburg campsite. Extracted scooter and decided to have a quiet night in because I felt tired, next day would be different.

Easter in Amsterdam 3

2011-04-28T03:51:00.000-07:00

Left Uitdam Monday morning taking the long way around to Zeeburg, missing out 'the lane of hell with a caravan' arrived around 12:00 all the while worrying whether my booking was recorded properly. Relieved to find my booking was ok, paid my bill for the week and dropped the legs.

Home again! The point being is, with your own caravan, once you get the caravan where you want to be, unhitch and drop the legs and you have a normal car again, with campsites that have electricity all your appliances work.

Took a ride around the campsite, and checked everything out.

Found some pictures of Camp Zeeburg on Flikr

I put my scooter back in the car and revisited the city, I had last visited in 1974, found an underground car park, got the scooter out of car and the first place I headed for, was where my partner and I had stayed - a houseboat more or less opposite the Anne Frank house. On the way 'round I saw this statue of my favourite philosopher Spinoza

Found a small bar called Westers roughly in the area of where the houseboat we had stayed on was and saw this enormously long queue of tourists, all wanting to visit the Anne Frank house, seems quite an industry this.

Had a very nice salmon sandwich in Westers, couple of cups of tea, went online via Westers wifi, and then made my way back to the car via Dam square and saw this amazing fairground ride.

I didn't used to be scared of heights, 'till I broke my neck in Greece, now you would not get me on that thing 'for all the tea in China'. I know I went on the Pepsi Max in Blackpool, but that was all over in around three minutes, I do not know how long the ride is, from start to finish, but would imagine it would be much longer than that to be lifted nigh on 200 feet, whirled around then dropped back down again.

Got back to the underground car park paid, the parking fee 20 Euro for about 2 and a half hours! As I was driving back to Zeeburg I saw a street with plenty of disabled parking spaces on it, next time I will try that.

Got back to Zeeburg and spent a happy evening playing chess with an Italian lad, even though he beat me three times.

Easter in Amsterdam 2

2011-04-27T16:07:00.000-07:00

Arrived at the Hook of Holland late afternoon and discovered I was only just an hour away from Amsterdam, might as well try to book into Zeeburg campsite a day early I thought, so I entered the postcode of the campsite into the mighty TomTom and I set off, arriving at around 6 o'clock, the place was a heaving mass of campers trying to leave and arrive due to the Easter break.

No room, I was informed by reception, I asked if I could park close by, I was informed there was a tiny car park on the periphery of the campsite, so I decided to give that a try. A bit of manoeuvring about and I had car and caravan in such a position as to not be causing an obstruction to anybody, then this Dutch chap came up and politely informed me, you can't park there sir, so I asked him if there was anywhere else I could park, out there he vaguely informed me, then things started to get weird.

Opposite to the sign pointing at the Zeeburg campsite, there was a sign pointing at another campsite, so I decided to give that a try. Going down this narrow and bumpy country lane, I started to get feelings of deja-vu, the first time I had camped at Zeeburg, I had found it by accident and as luck would have it, there was room to park up.

When I had set off on my Swedish trip last year, my plan was to break the journey at Amsterdam and camp again at Zeeburg, no such luck, it was full up, so they rang around for me in the Zeeburg reception and gave me a printed map of the route to the nearest campsite, so I drove there and was informed the site was campervan only and there was not enough space for caravans but if I carried on down the very narrow lane I would arrive at another campsite called 'Uitdam' which I did.

It was not until I got to the first campsite signposted that I realised it was the same campsite that I had visited last summer, the person at that campsite assured me, there was a campsite 10 minutes up the road, just past the next village, half an hour later, I arrived at Uitdam, paid my 24 Euros and set off for the area where I had parked last summer, the weird thing was, there was only one practical place for me to drop the legs, exactly the same place as I had dropped the legs last summer, is this a conspiracy?

Events conspire, do not mention such things as free will - they are meaningless.

Easter in Amsterdam

2011-04-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

Strapped wrapped and ready to roll Saturday lunch

Down the A14 to Harwich ready to catch the Stena line ferry, 10:30 Sunday morning. Drove down to Parkeston Quay to look for somewhere to drop the legs for the night, nowhere friendly, so decided to try the postcode of the caravan site in the Caravan Club hand book. Found it ok the Dovercourt caravan site £12 for the night.

Quite poignant - feller around my age at the booking hut, had sailed on the Arnhem, the British Railways night ferry that I had worked on back in the sixties. One of the reasons I wanted to take the Harwich Hoek route was, I wanted to see how much I remembered of the time I lived and worked in that 'neck of the woods'.

The caravan site even had electricity, known in the caravanning fraternity as a 'hook up', so all 'mod cons'.

Woke up bright and early 6:00 next morning, cup of tea and down to Parkeston for 8:30, boarded no problem

Ferry was nearly empty only about 200 people aboard, nice breakfast, then found ways to waste the next 6 hours. Had the Internet but very restrictive in terms of which websites you could visit, anything that had high bandwidth like Youtube was a definite 'no no' as the link was satellite based, but managed to download my emails.

The ship had a cinema, so decided to watch the Oscar winning film 'The King's Speech' one review I read, said it was "historically inaccurate" in terms of the way Churchill was portrayed, apparently Churchill did not want King Edward to abdicate, ok a little detail but a very important in terms of understanding what kind of man Churchill was. He was obviously not a moral absolutist, bit more of a pragmatist. I do wish people who make films about British history, did not tell lies about British history, the British state should be able to sue them for misrepresentation.

It only cost £8 million to make and made around £238 million so they could afford a few million paid into the widows an orphans fund for telling lies about my nations history. A particularly annoying example was 'Brave Heart' there were many inaccuracies, a historical film that is accurate is double benefit, entertaining and a lesson in history.

I thought the interplay between Logue and the Duke of York was very convincing and when the Duke became King very moving, but one wonders how historically accurate this bit of the film was?

The problem with our species is, the people in charge of things, care more about money than truth.

Shake down trip

2011-02-01T02:05:00.001-08:00

I have just completed my first trip of the new year, to a caravan site, in the middle of Sherwood forest, called Clumber Park.

My caravan has sat most of the winter, so I thought I ought to have a little trip out, so as to check that every mechanical thing still works okay, also to check that I was still physically capable of caravanning, the plan being to make more continental trips later on this year

When I first bought a caravan I joined the Caravan Club, all in all a quite amazing organisation, one might even think a bit regimented, but standards are standards.

One of the giants of the British industrial revolution, was a man named Joseph Whitworth, he standardised thread size, of nuts and bolts, one of the thing that makes society work is 'The rule of law' many people would think that this is about 'big brother' no - it is what we should all aspire to.

Here is a good example of what I mean, in terms of how amazing the Caravan Club is.

The point is, the electrical connection is actually outside the caravan site, imagine you arrive when the booking office is closed, you need electricity to make life easier, lights and such, the Caravan Club has thought of your welfare, this is an organisation that has an inherent kindness, except when it comes to the internet, £5 for 5 hours is wallet abuse, I think the Caravan Club is being "taken to the cleaners" in terms of who they have employed to set up the Caravan Club internet connection.

If I can get mobile phone reception, I can tether my laptop to my phone and get the 'Net for a pound a day via Vodafone, so not only is it wallet abuse, it is not good business, further more to obtain a connection is far more cumbersome than it needs to be.

The rigmarole is, you go to the booking office.

And buy a plastic card, on the card is printed a password, the next step is, you boot up your laptop browser, click on home and a Caravan Club web page appears, type the password into the appropriate box and you are good to go.

I should imagine the person who set the system up is a 'Climate Change Denier' because after 5 hours use, you throw the plastic card and the daft leaflet away, presumably to be buried in a big hole in the ground.

The logical way to do this is, the Caravan Club website, takes you to a secure page, where you can enter your credit card details and membership number to get a discount and buy as many gigabytes as you need, charging by time is nonsensical, it is bandwidth that costs money, not how long you are connected to the 'Net, so not only is the person who set the system up, a wallet abuser, they also do not understand the 'Net.

Now a few photos, this is Lime avenue, so I guess the trees you can see are lime trees.

The crossroads where you leave Lime Avenue, for the caravan site.

This looks a bit more untouched by human hand

In Victorian Britain the idea was, that human beings existed, to tidy up the planet, they had characters like Capability Brown tidying things up, this was before Charles Darwin, managed to convince the majority of the Brits that we were actually animals, people think that Charles was responsible for the theory of evolution, but actually his grandfather Erasmus Darwin had the same idea as did many other thinkers.

Once one learns the theory of evolution it seems obvious, the only surprise being, how many people still disagree with evolution, all I can think is they must go around with their eyes closed. The majority of Americans still disagree with evolution.

Evidence of human beings tidying things up.

Look at how untidy these trees are!

The dawn of morning that I finished my shake down trip.

My next trip, I'm planning to go to Amsterdam around the Spring Equinox and I'm planning to add video content to this blog, bye till later!

One night in Blackpool

2010-09-18T14:39:00.000-07:00

In a hotel in Blackpool right next to one of the biggest roller coasters in the world, this is the view from my hotel window.

Under pressure from someone who's opinion I really care about, I was urged to go on the bloody thing.

Ok I texted back, after I have had a can of strong Danish lager as a source of 'dutch courage'. Duly opened can of 'yes juice', I was prepared to take a ride on by the time I had poured the can of 'go' juice down my gullet and I suddenly realized the near constant noise of this behemoth contraption, had ceased. I enquired of one of the hotel staff, what had changed?

"the ride has closed" I was informed, the sense of relief was palpable.

Got up this morning thinking I had escaped, was startled to hear during breakfast about half nine, the damned contraption start up again.

I had been told by the hotel staff that the ride started at 10:30 in the morning, suits me I thought, not enough time, I escape I thought, with a more relaxed mental state, like the hotel threw you out at 11 not enough time for the flying torture chamber.

But when I heard the thing kick off again, I fell into a moral dilemma the ride was open again (or so I thought), there was no way out, I would have to admit to being a coward or enter a living nightmare.

So I extracted my scooter from the hotel, and set off in the seeking of hell on wheels.

When I arrived at the start of the ride I was horrified to discover a queue, not only was I about to be tortured, but I would have to wait in line for other people to be tortured in front of me.

What had happened was the devils had started the thing up early just to drum up business.

After a three minute violent turmoil of three dimensional objectification, which led to me feeling slightly abused, I dreamed passionately, of this violent bodily throwing about, to come to an end, to be no longer at the whim of some manic engineer, that considered me, a way for him to empty his testicles and fill his wallet.

The ride lasted for around 3 minutes, not the nicest 3 minutes I have ever spent, but certainly memorable for the worst reasons imaginable.

Imagine how a ragdoll feels and you will understand what one of the biggest roller coasters in the world does to you.

When you innocently in ignorance, throw a little child in the air then catch it, why does it giggle?

I had originally planned to video the ride myself, but when I got to the top the height made me put my camera away and hang on for grim death.

So I will let this brave soul take you around, what I cannot understand is why he is grinning at the end.

6 'u' turns and a flat battery

2010-08-31T07:08:00.000-07:00

Set off around 10:00 heading north up the M1 M18 A1M arrived Rothbury Northumberland, after many u turns finally tracked down Nunnykirk caravan site, problem was the - Booking Conformation which I printed out had no post code, so I just typed Rothbury in my satnav like an idiot, thinking 'how easy can it be to hide a caravan site'?

Very easy as it turned out, drove into Rothbury saw a sign with a symbol for a caravan and thought 'yeah a piece of cake' but then saw a sign saying 'Riverside campsite' and with a sinking feeling suspected I had not not found Eldorado.

Went into the Riverside estate office and showed the man my Booking Conformation, "you are in the wrong place mate" he said. "Go out of the gate, turn left on the main road, go past the school, keep going and its on your left, you can't miss it" - yeah, I did go past a school and I kept going and going and going and going, after about 5 miles, started to get gripes of anguish, the countryside was turning into moorland, with nothing that resembled the sort of environment that caravans live in, what I recall of my many years on the road is, if you are going in the wrong direction, the longer you leave it, before a 'u' turn the worse it gets.

Then the thought hit me, perhaps he meant the main road - like the main road that runs through the middle of Rothbury so I did my second u turn, the first being in the Riverside campsite. Drove about 5 miles back to the main road, turned left and after about 2 miles and coming to a place with a different name, realized there was another 'u' turn was coming up, asked a local where the Nunnykirk site was, he said you have to go back to Rothbury and turn right, yeah I thought, that is where I have just come from, back I went, I saw a sign pointing in the opposite direction to the Riverside campsite to a campsite with a different name, headed off in that direction, yeah you guessed it, yet another another 'u' turn.

But a local seemed to really know where the Nunnykirk was, "you have to go past the Riverside site, pass a pub on the left and it is the next on the left" he said with a knowing air.

Away I went, past the pub, but also went past something that looked suspiciously like a caravan site, but thought there was one caravan that looked very derelict, not the sort of thing you would normally see at a Caravan Club site, so carried on. still no sign of anything that looked remotely like a caravan site, carried out yet another 'u' turn and went back to where there was caravans parked, plus the derelict caravan, not a soul in sight I sat and pondered my fate as a caravaneer.

Then I did something I should have done in the beginning, looked up the postcode, the address on the Booking Conformation was a pile of 'do do'. I had a Caravan Club site book in my caravan, would that have the post code of Nunnykirk in it?

Bingo NE61 4PZ I let my trusty Tomtom take over and arrived at Nunnykirk after a grand total of 6 'u' turns parked up and typed this, no internet in Nunnykirk, so all being well, you will read this when I get to Edinburgh.

A few shots of Nunnykirk it was not just the middle of nowhere, it was in the middle of the middle of nowhere, still having said that, very lush, green and peaceful. Had a couple of beers, watched TV on BBC 4, all about Blackpool and hit the sack.

Broke camp and headed north for 'Auld Reekie' (the Scots nickname for Edinburgh).

Not many people live in in Northumberland

Goodbye England.

Hello Scotland.

Many years ago over thirty years at least, in my days as a truck driver, I worked for a company called Edward Allsop and sons.

I can't for the life of me, remember what the load was, that I set out from Leicester with, or where I took it, but I do remember the load home, it was 20 tons of potatoes, because I had run out of driving hours, I had to find somewhere to park up for the night, in the days of yore, there were no such thing as sleeper cabs for a trucker, so the form was, you found digs.

I ended up with bed and breakfast in a pub, in a small border town called Jedburgh the thing that stuck in my memory, was how scenic this small town was.

I parked car and van, in the same carpark, that I had parked at with truck and potatoes, with this amazing sight of the wall of a ruined abbey.

Getting close to Edinburgh, which lies behind the hill, just visible on the horizon.

Getting closer, the hill mentioned in the last comment, is now on the right-hand side of the picture.

Edinburgh at last, seems like there are lots of churches here, religion in the past must play the same role as advertising does today, like give your dog Twested and you will go to heaven.

Just turning right onto Princes street then immediately left you could see more of this famous Edinburgh street, if I did not have lots of mirrors.

The lovely thing about caravanning, is once you get through the trials and tribulations of getting there, you uncouple, drop the legs and you are home. Here I am at Edinburgh Caravan Club Campsite.

The reason I had bought my scooter is, so I can go and explore Edinburgh, have a couple of pints and not worry about being breathalysed.

The law is, as regards invalidity scooters and alcohol, keep below 4 MPH stay on the pavement and you are considered a pedestrian.

Found this cycle path, that took me from the outskirts of northern Edinburgh into the centre.

The Telford path

Arrived at the centre and went for pint, sausages and mash and got this shot from Princes street of the old town.

I went to Edinburgh kind of on the spur of the moment, I tried to book the caravan site for the Saturday and Sunday but they were fully booked so only managed to get Monday bank holiday and the Tuesday, so did not really get to see any of the Fringe, saw one very long queue for something but it was fully booked, there was Fringe stuff here,

But it was all a bit late, next year I hope to plan everything and explore Edinburgh and the Fringe more.

It was getting a bit late so decided to make my way back to the caravan, about three quarters of the way back, my mini nightmare began to start, my scooter began to go slower and slower and slower, oh no, not enough battery to get me home.

Thing is with my disabilities (COPD + minor stroke) I can walk distances, but with great discomfort and lots of stops to get my breath back, I don't so much get out of breath, but start to fight for breath.

It was about 5 miles from Princes St to my caravan and I estimate I was able to get about 4 miles before the amount of electric in the battery was no longer able to transport me, but there was enough to move the scooter with me walking along side of it, walk a bit, sit down get breath back, walk a bit more, became the routine. I was so glad the last bit was down hill. I finally got back to the caravan at 1 am and estimate that the last mile must have taken me around 2 hours and I arrived totally exhausted, I shall organise things a bit better next year.

Did not go far Tuesday night just a ride down to the Firth of the Forth which was next to the caravan site.

Got this shot of the Forth rail bridge poking above the trees at sunset.

Wednesday morning strapped wrapped and ready to roll south, homeward bound.

One of the ways I used amuse myself when I was a trucker, was to count the cars on car transporters, going the other way on the motorway, the point being is, because they were passing at a joint speed of over 100 MPH, usually there was not time to count the cars individually, but to take a mental snap shot as I went past and try to concentrate on the mental image and count them that way. On my way up to Scotland, I saw some enormous transporters and could not make up my mind whether they were carrying 10 cars or 11.

As luck would have it one of these enormous wheeled car parks, overtook me.

Having a careful look it seem like this behemoth is carrying 11 cars.

Finally walk into my front door 8 oclock Wednesday evening.

So that is all folks till I make my next trip, either Amsterdam for a week, or Berlin and Poland, hopefully two separate trips to both.

Any constructive criticism about this blog gratefully received.

Sitting in a pub in Edinburgh

2010-08-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

Well I'm here and having a pint, heading towards the centre on my scooter, lots to write and lots of pics, but I've not got my laptop with me

Blogging the Fringe

2010-08-28T10:19:00.000-07:00

I have written before about the joys of taking my scooter in my car on my travels.

When I had bought my ramps I had a try going somewhere with it, a nightmare getting the scooter in and out of the car because it was so heavy. Then I discovered how to take the scooter seat off, suddenly things were far more doable.

Ramps ready, tiller dropped, seat removed and I'm ready to put the wheels in my wagon.

Scooter in car ready to roll for northern parts

At the moment parked up beside the A6 about 3 miles south of Loughborough at Procters caravansite and I will go out at 18:10 and get a shot of the A6.

The biggest problem with this site is the noise from the A6, as the vehicles stream past, with an occasional loud roar as some young nutter flits past at about 150 miles an hour, on their two wheeled crotch-rocket.

Well I did start out ok, the laptop now seems to not want to connect to the internet via my n900, so I am typing this directly on the n900, a somewhat long winded process.

To all those expecting more from me today, I appologise.

Nite all

True mobile blogging

2010-08-23T01:45:00.000-07:00

Here I sit, typing this live at a local beauty spot called Shady Lane having managed to tether my laptop to the n900.

Many people come here to walk their dogs.

I have taken some photos, but will upload them at home because of bandwidth issues.

Driving along Shady lane

I have booked my caravan onto a site in Edinburgh for the 30/8/10 and 31/8/10, so I will catch the last night of the fringe and of course blog about it.

Leicester to Sweden and back

2010-08-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

One of the things that has been with me since I was a child is an interest in civil engineering.

I watched this TV program about a road link between Denmark and Sweden called the O r e s u nd Bridge so decided that I was going to cross this link because it was there.

To drive from the Leicester to Malmo via Dover is far too much in one go, so I decided to stay at Amsterdam to split the journey.

I left Leicester towing my caravan on Wednesday 4/8/10 in the early afternoon, my ferry was actually booked for 8 the next morning, so I decided to park-up close to the terminal and found a very pleasant campsite at Folkestone.

Boarded the ferry no problems, made friends with a lady from Essex who was going camping for a month with her two young sons, who knows? I gave her my email address - if she writes I most certainly will write back.

My original plan was to park-up at Zeeburg having had a very pleasant stay there once before, but when I got there it was full, serves me right I should have booked :(

So after a degree of rigmarole, I ended up on a campsite in the middle of nowhere, at a place called Uitdam, around 12 km from Amsterdam which turned out to be ok and very peaceful and beautiful 'coz at night you could clearly see the stars in the sky, unlike in most cities 'coz of light pollution.

I was involved in the complicated process of extracting my invalidity scooter from my car and this Polish girl turned up with her German boyfriend an offered to help, which was gratefully received, they said after helping me, "that they would be on the beach drinking wine later on" this I took note of (not literally).

Went for a lonely meal of spaghetti bollock naked, where the waitress did not have a clue, I ask you? She expected me to eat my spaghetti bolognese with a knife and fork! She did not know that one eats spaghetti bolognese with a spoon and fork.

Having filled my belly with enough spaghetti bolognese as it could comfortably accommodate, I set off for the beach.

At this point, I can sense the disappointment at no photos of my adventure, well here is my first of this trip.

Some explanation is obviously in order, the dog, a very big poodle did not want to enter the water 'coz it was cold, this is very funny 'coz poodles are bred to be water dogs, the kid in the water was teasing the dog, if I had really known what I was doing I would have videoed it.

The dog kept barking but would not enter the water 'coz he knew it was cold, the kid knew this, so worked the point and demonstrated to the dog he was more of a man, than the dog was (don't you just love mixed metaphors?).

Had a drink and an interesting conversation with the couple who had helped me extract the scooter from my car then went to bed.

My original plan for the next day was to ride into Amsterdam on my scooter and visit some of my old haunts last visited in 1973 (I lived in the 'Dam for six months then) but because I could not park the caravan at Zeeburg but felt 12 km was a bit of a push on an invalidity scooter, I went into the Uitdam caravan site office, to find out what was around to visit, the very nice lady, suggested I visit Volendam via Marken, the easy route from Marken to Volendam is via a small passenger ferry.

I did not take any photos on the journey between the campsite and Marken ,because in some ways it was not visually interesting. I'm new at travel journalism so perhaps total narrative type photos might work okay, comments would be nice.

An example of a narrative photograph. (queuing for the ferry at Marken bound for Volendam)

Marken disappearing into the background, (no I don't know who she was, she just crept into shot somehow)

Had a ride around Volendam looking for a mobile phone shop, my idea being to buy a Dutch Vodafone sim card, thinking it would work the same as a Brit Vodafone sim card ie 50 pence for 24 hours surfing the 'net flat fee, apparently Dutch Vodafone don't work the same as Brit Vodafone, so still a problem accessing the 'net without going to an internet cafe.

A sight you would probably not see in an English town a heron sitting beside a canal.

Went for a beer on the waterfront till about 6:30 and decided to catch the ferry back to Marken as I had bought a return ticket, alas I had missed the last ferry, if you look at the map here you can see the road distance I had to travel to return to Uitdam.

Another narrative photo - the road out of Volendam.

I was a bit concerned with whether there were enough charge in the scooter's battery to take it that distance - no problem, it still had loads of charge left when I got back to Uitdam after about one and a half hours trundling through the Dutch country side, quite pleasant really.

Left Uitdam Saturday morning and headed north bound for Copenhagen.

There are hills in Holland here is proof.

There are lots of windmills in Germany.

This bridge crosses this channel

I reach Puttgarden the little ferry port that is the border between Germany and Denmark and sit patently waiting to board the ferry. Got chatting with the guy in front of me, queuing for the ferry , he was driving all the way to Oslo.

He was from Switzerland and was a retired truck driver like me (to those that do not know me I'm in the red C4.)

Boarded the Scandlines ferry which crosses the 18 km strait, to the Danish island of Lolland.

I used ferry crossings from the UK to the continent for many years when I was a truck driver and one enormous difference looms between Scandlines and the four ferry companies that operate out of Dover with Scandlines you do not need to book, you just turn up and join the queue.

All they would need at Dover, is four electronic boards displayed at the entrance, one for each ferry company operating out of Dover, on the board would be displayed the length of the queue and the cost of the crossing.

The ferry I boarded was also a train ferry and it was a somewhat peculiar sight, to see the train leaving the ferry at the same time as I was.

Spent my first night in Denmark on Saturday 7/8 in this layby.

Arriving in Copenhagen.

Found the campsite using my trusty Tomtom, it turned out to be a disused fort to protect the port of Copenhagen called Charlottenlund.

My caravan is in the middle of the shot, at the front.

One of the reasons I wanted to visit Copenhagen is to visit Christiania
bit of a disaster really due to the weather, it rained heavily for the whole time I was in Copenhagen, so there was no exploring on my scooter. Perhaps I will revisit one day.

Saw this church which had an interesting spire.

Had a look round Christiania, looked a bit grim probably due to the rain.

Made some friends can't remember the ladies name, but his name was 'John the pom' from Australia he had started work as a Truck driver then became a dentist! presumably because it paid a bit better.

Going into

Entering the tunnel, between Denmark and Sweden.

Out of the tunnel now over the bridge!

Found the campsite at Malmo parked the caravan, extracted the scooter.

Took a photo of the bridge from the Swedish side.

Met a German one man band named Bernd, interesting guy, a true troubadour at 66 years old, he actually lived in Italy, but when I asked him how much of the time he was there, he said he was only in Italy for two months of the year, the rest of the time he toured Europe on his motorbike, with his tent, base drum and guitar, strapped to the back of his motorcycle.

Here he is on youtube

Got a shot of the Oresund link at sunset.

Last photo of the trip, parked up for the night in a service station near Munster.

My original plan was to spend Tuesday night in Amsterdam, but Malmo to Amsterdam is a long way, which would have put me in the 'Dam early evening, by the time I had set up everything going into the centre, would have hardly been worth it seeing as I would be leaving the next morning for the ferry at Dunkirk.

Reached Dunkirk early Wednesday evening, my ferry was actually booked for Thursday morning, but because of having to book in (unlike the Scandline ferry and Oresund link) They made me pay an extra £17 to get an earlier ferry, which was a scam, because there was lots of space to spare on the ferry, which meant they had to leave nothing off, to give me space, in other words it cost them virtually nothing more, to get me on board and bound for home.

Finally arrived home at around 3:00 Thursday morning, tired - but with a sense of accomplishment.

Hello from Breda

2010-04-14T09:38:00.000-07:00

This is my second time on the road with my Nokia n900 the first time did'nt really count, being that I travelled not long after the n900 arrived and was not really clued in on its ,operation.

This time it surpassed itself got me from Calais to Breda no problem.

Most people who visit Holland go to Amsterdam, Breda is better, more laid back.

At the moment sitting in a cafe drinking in the atmosphere lol.

Some pictures of Breda.

Taken out the window of the Rooms Hotel, on the wall opposite. I kid you not it was called that by the locals. No tea making facilities and no bar, but was clean and at the time I was relieved to find it.

The thing is, because I have a stubborn streak I usually learn the hard way, I naively thought I could just turn up at places pay money and doors would open. My idea was to go to Holland via the tunnel and come home via the ferry, so I turned up at the tunnel prepared to pay around £50 to cross, the voice at the automatic barrier thingy informed that I would have to fork out £147 to take my car on the next available train, having known the real value of money by spending 20 years driving a truck all over the place delivering anything anywhere, I ended up driving to Dover and crossing via Sea France for £51 pounds bought just outside the Dover port gate.

This is economic and environmental madness.

There are three ferry companies sailing out of Dover. P and O, Sea France and Norfolk Ferries.

The question is - how many people does it take to change a light bulb?

Have the people who make the profit from the sea ferries got people on the board of the people who decide what the tunnel charge will be? The wage costs of running the tunnel are astronomically lower than running the ferries back and forth on an average of every two hours virtually 24/7 .

OK the capital costs of building the tunnel need to be recovered, but I bet you any money you like, the designers and builders of the tunnel have been paid, that just leaves the fat cats, the daft part of the equation is, there would be more profit with increasing the through put of the tunnel by price structure, even more environmental benefit could be gained by putting the car on the train, from say London to Paris.

Pete.

Update

2009-12-06T10:36:00.000-08:00

Hello from my new Nokia, this my first post to Nokiapete. My plan is to travel, this why I bought the phone. On Wednesday I'm going to visit a big chess tournament, some of the greatest chess players in the world will be there. I am especially looking forwards to watching Magnus Carlsen play live. Carlsen is the highest rated player in the world and most likely a future world champion.