Summer 2024 : Hoek van Holland in Holland

My phone has been misbehaving - so I took the drastic step of transferring the Interrail passes to my wife's phone. She's now in charge!

I couldn't get it to charge overnight and although it appeared to charge while we were at breakfast I couldn't get the screen to show anything. I tried again mid-afternoon and hey presto! Here we are.

Apart from that we've had a great day!

The hotel stopped serving breakfast at 9.15 so we had to get up and going! They were happy to have our suitcase in their boiler room all day while we were at the beach.

Hook of Holland beach is a great spot - the metro takes you right there. There are bars and shops and so much sand! But it does get a bit breezy straight off the north Sea.

We found a bar that had obviously been closed for the winter months and settled ourselves down on the outdoor benches on the musty smelling cushions and dozed in the sun. We must have been there for over three hours when a very friendly workman appeared and started to do some drilling on the woodwork. He was perfectly happy for us to stay where we were - but when he was joined by a few others - possibly the owners - we decided that discretion was called for.

One thing that the Dutch do extremely well is apple cake - I've commented on this before, and can only say that it's one of the best things to come out of The Netherlands!

Once we'd moved on and had a drink (and used the loo in the bar) we settled on a seat out of the wind. I had a long discussion with a local bloke about his choice of bike (it was a very nice Koga, belt drive and hub gears) - he was very dismissive of battery technology and the Chinese dominance of the battery market.

I left my good lady sitting outside the terminal while I collected the case from the hotel - she'd been watching the entertainment and I joined her for half an hour. This fun was seeing British drivers in their motorhomes or with caravans having their first experience with Dutch traffic lights (combined with a level crossing). One notable driver decided to try to reverse his caravan after misjudging the right turn - great fun was had by all!

We're eating on the boat this evening and we'll be up early - for no good reason other than Stena don't believe in letting you sleep in.

Blighty tomorrow!