June 20 - 25: Dover to Amsterdam

Leaving Dover it was easy to see why the wartime song, 'The White Cliffs of Dover' was so popular - it is certainly a spectacular last / first sight of England.

Better still - the beer on the ferry  to Calais was cold! Yay!  Something we took for granted as kiwis, so it was a shock to find that in the English pubs the beer was served at room temperature with a huge head on it. Yuk. So while in England we drank lager as that sometimes came cold.  It was our first experience of being foreigners, as the bar staff were all French. We did not, however, shout loudly at them so that they would understand us, as did some English travellers. We shuddered with embarrassment! When spoken to politely, with a smile and a small attempt to say please in French, the French everywhere could speak pretty good English - they just didn't choose to unless we made an effort first.

 Our first night in Europe was spent in a camping ground in Belgium, and although we had forgotten to change any money, they accepted our British pounds (not Christine's American dollars though.) These days in must be much easier travelling around Europe using Euros, though not as interesting.

 Hayricks! I wonder if they still have them? Seems unlikely, but we didn't expect them in 1975 either.

Then off across the flat lands to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Crossing the borders was interesting: coming into France via the ferry, our passports were examined. At the border between France and Belgium they just waved us through. But the border between Belgium and the Netherlands was, well, we didn't see one at all!

The roads in the Netherlands were interesting: in some places the roads were made of bricks, with the road markings laid in different coloured bricks. There were cycle lanes everywhere usually separate from the road, and often with their own traffic lights.

We had planned to make it to Amsterdam but Mac was tired of driving, I wasn't willing to have a go at driving on the 'wrong' side of the road at that point. After a bite to eat around 3pm, we set off to see the town. It was a very attractive city. It seemed to be all apartment buildings, but unlike the hideous housing estates in London, these looked like homes, with brightly coloured awnings and window boxes full of flowers. The streets were very wide, so the claustrophobic sensations that come with tall buildings and narrow streets just weren't present. There were also lots of houseboats on the canals: very pretty boats with gardens on the banks next to their moorings.

After a while of just walking around looking at this we ended up spending the evening in the Double Diamond pub, where the company was pretty different from home. Back then, in New Zealand, we came across very few people of different nationalities and even ethnicities: Maori, pakeha of British, Dalmatian, Bohemian, Dutch descent, Indian and Chinese New Zealanders. Immigrants were still mainly British. And there we were, two Kiwis and an American sitting, drinking and talking to an Irishman, a German, three Dutchmen, some Moroccans and Yugoslavs (no such thing as Yugoslavs now!)

June 23. Amsterdam. Huge camping ground, complete with shops and a coffee bar. People of all nationalities. So strange for us colonial country people! We caught a tram into the city centre

which was full of very tourist orientated shops, and then headed off on a canal boat tourist trip, a lovely way to see around on such a sunny day. The trip took us past: the smallest house in Amsterdam; Anne Frank's house; Rembrandt's house; the port including the biggest port in the world (well, it was then) and the magnificent Western Church and Tower topped by the enormous gold keizerskroon (Emperor's Crown), which has been there since 1489.

Cally, waiting for the canal trip

 Tower topped by the enormous gold keizerskroon

On the way back to the camping ground we stopped at a market and bought cabbage, tomatoes, potatoes and cucumber for our dinner,, plus a piece of delicious pickled cucumber to eat on the spot. Spent the evening chatting with four English guys and a couple of US army guys.

 Cally in the market

 On June 24, after sleeping late again - all this pub life didn't fit with early rising - we headed off to 'get a bit of culture': to the Van Gogh museum. I found that I still didn't appreciate Van Gogh's painting, despite them being the real thing, though I did like his drawings and sketches. From there we found a little back street non-touristy restaurant for dinner.

We wandered though the city to the area where selling / buying / smoking dope was legal but although we were offered hash by every second person we didn't stay - everything looked very dirty and sleazy.

Back at camp we headed for the nearest pub which was very nice until a bus load of Kiwis and Aussies burst in and embarrassed us greatly with their loud, uncouth behaviour. Still, when one asked him, "do you speaka ze englishe?" the barman (who had been doing so perfectly to us) pretended not to understand and then charged them considerably more for their drinks that we had paid.

Tuesday 25th we got up late, then took Christine to the train station where she left to travel Europe by train at a faster rate than our casual meandering. It was sad to say goodbye - we still haven't managed to catch up in real life again. Then we took to the motorways and headed for Germany.