23 June ’05,Thursday
Village of Boppard on the Rhine
This covers from the 19th to 23rd of June…
An additional day was spent in Harlow, but all and all, it wasn’t a bad stay. Now, over to Harwich and catch our ferry, back to the Netherlands. I must say, it was just a little bit nerve racking to hit the road…you know, after having these “little” problems lately, and now listening to every little squeak, bump, grind, and just knowing everything is going to be alright…right? Our drive to Harwich should have only taken us about an hour or less, but we detoured along the coast for more than half a day, and then headed over to the ferry dock. Our plan was to see if we could camp right at the loading pier for the night. After pulling up to the dock and asking if we could stay, there was no problem. We just had to pull over to this out of the way area, and we would be fine for the night. We got there about 5pm and our ferry wasn’t to leave until 10:40am the next morning. Now here we were, sitting in our van, on a black topped parking lot with huge trucks moving around all day and night long, and it was HOT !!! There was a line of cars and campers lining up for the next ferry, but we didn’t know where they were going and we didn’t have tickets anyway. After taking a walk and thinking about this, I went to the gates and asked it this ferry could take us to Holland, and could we use our tickets that we have for the next day? Finding out that it was in fact going to the same port in Holland was encouraging, but there would be a cost… nothing is a wash or free… But, it was reasonable enough, so we drove aboard and headed out a night ahead. There was a small negative, we didn’t get to Holland until midnight, and we didn’t have a campground to go too. That was a small problem and we handled it beautifully…we camped in the city parking lot in Hoek van Holland, and that was within 100 yards of the terminal. A quick nights sleep, and we were under way again by 8am. Out route was to take us due east from Hoek van Holland, to Utrecht, and then on to Winterswijk. Now that we had crossed Netherlands, we pulled into a campground that we had stayed in just over a year ago in Winterswijk. Our next stop was at Obelink, which is a supply house for all camping needs…in other words…”A Candy Store” for the camping crowd…Ok, for me… The next morning we were underway for Germany and heading south. This will be our direction for a while, and ending up in Switzerland by the first of July. After leaving Winterswijk, and heading south, we passed Köln (Cologne), and then followed the Rhein River past Koblenz and ended up for a couple of nights, just outside of Boppard. We are camped right on the banks of the Rhein, the weather is in the range of 80-90 degrees, there is a great swimming pool on the grounds, a wonderful restaurant, enjoyable barge and riverboat traffic to watch and Roy and Jeanette (from West Sussex in GB) whom we are very happy to have met and call friends… We have been here for 2 days and will be back on the road again tomorrow and making our was through the “Romantic Road”…Hell, I thought it was all romantic !!! I guess I had better go back and read that chapter again…
Village of Boppard on the Rhine
This covers from the 19th to 23rd of June…
An additional day was spent in Harlow, but all and all, it wasn’t a bad stay. Now, over to Harwich and catch our ferry, back to the Netherlands. I must say, it was just a little bit nerve racking to hit the road…you know, after having these “little” problems lately, and now listening to every little squeak, bump, grind, and just knowing everything is going to be alright…right? Our drive to Harwich should have only taken us about an hour or less, but we detoured along the coast for more than half a day, and then headed over to the ferry dock. Our plan was to see if we could camp right at the loading pier for the night. After pulling up to the dock and asking if we could stay, there was no problem. We just had to pull over to this out of the way area, and we would be fine for the night. We got there about 5pm and our ferry wasn’t to leave until 10:40am the next morning. Now here we were, sitting in our van, on a black topped parking lot with huge trucks moving around all day and night long, and it was HOT !!! There was a line of cars and campers lining up for the next ferry, but we didn’t know where they were going and we didn’t have tickets anyway. After taking a walk and thinking about this, I went to the gates and asked it this ferry could take us to Holland, and could we use our tickets that we have for the next day? Finding out that it was in fact going to the same port in Holland was encouraging, but there would be a cost… nothing is a wash or free… But, it was reasonable enough, so we drove aboard and headed out a night ahead. There was a small negative, we didn’t get to Holland until midnight, and we didn’t have a campground to go too. That was a small problem and we handled it beautifully…we camped in the city parking lot in Hoek van Holland, and that was within 100 yards of the terminal. A quick nights sleep, and we were under way again by 8am. Out route was to take us due east from Hoek van Holland, to Utrecht, and then on to Winterswijk. Now that we had crossed Netherlands, we pulled into a campground that we had stayed in just over a year ago in Winterswijk. Our next stop was at Obelink, which is a supply house for all camping needs…in other words…”A Candy Store” for the camping crowd…Ok, for me… The next morning we were underway for Germany and heading south. This will be our direction for a while, and ending up in Switzerland by the first of July. After leaving Winterswijk, and heading south, we passed Köln (Cologne), and then followed the Rhein River past Koblenz and ended up for a couple of nights, just outside of Boppard. We are camped right on the banks of the Rhein, the weather is in the range of 80-90 degrees, there is a great swimming pool on the grounds, a wonderful restaurant, enjoyable barge and riverboat traffic to watch and Roy and Jeanette (from West Sussex in GB) whom we are very happy to have met and call friends… We have been here for 2 days and will be back on the road again tomorrow and making our was through the “Romantic Road”…Hell, I thought it was all romantic !!! I guess I had better go back and read that chapter again…
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