The Sketch
Day 1 (or maybe Day 2) of my trip to The Netherlands. I began the day in Ashford, in Kent, with a target of reaching my old home at Brielle. My plan, such as it was, involved the Channel Tunnel and a fair amount of driving. It was maybe Day 2 purely on the basis that I’d driven down to Ashford the night before. It was a quiet night because it was Easter Sunday. Whilst I’d done a few caches in Ashford they were neither remarkable enough nor plentiful enough to warrant a post.
An Early Start
I was booked on a train through the tunnel at about 9:30. That meant arriving at the terminal for 8:30. But being a holiday I was “well excited” and was awake really early. I grabbed a quick Premier Inn breakfast and jumped in the car. I set off at about 7:45 I think, and that meant I was in the terminal at 8am. It was clearly a quiet morning because I was offered a train at 8:24, over an hour before my scheduled one. That’ll do me guv. It meant, of course, that I didn’t stop at the Folkestone terminal at all. I just drove around and straight into the passport control and onto a train. Excellent. I like it when that happens.
So chuggetty-chug, and I was in France by 10am local time. I hadn’t really decided which way to drive up. A part of me fancied going coastal rather than just driving round the motorways. So while I was picking my way across the end of Belgium I decided that’s what I’d do.
On the way I stopped at the small services at Mannekensvere to fill up with fuel and buy a couple of snacks. It was a surprisingly warm morning, so I grabbed coffee and pastries and a cold drink for the journey.
Along the Coast
My choice of route meant that Dr Google dragged me off the motorways near Bruges and took me around the top and into Holland at the nearest point. I’d put a route into the Sat Nav to go through the Western Scheldt Tunnel, and had struggled for a while because I was trying to direct the car to Ternuizen, which doesn’t exist. At least, it doesn’t exist here. The place that does exist is Terneuzen. Notice the different spelling.
While I was parked for petrol I’d checked that the tunnel here is free, and it was so. It’s not that I’m a cheapskate, by the way. It’s just that I was alone, so if there was a toll it might be tricky to pay it because I’d be on the wrong side of the car. Anyway, a quick google confirmed it’s free for cars. And for those who do have to pay, it’s all gone “ANPR” anyway, like most places.
So that got me into Zeeland. Technically Terneuzen (and the bit of the Netherlands south of the Scheldt) are also in Zeeland, but you might not notice, because there’s so little change from Belgium.
Across Zeeland
Back at the plot, Zeeland is the most westerley and the least populous of the Dutch Provinces. It’s basically a bunch of (very) low lying islands connected by bridges and protected by the massive Delta Works projects that were built after the catastrophic flooding in 1953. I’d been there before, but it’s still impressive and I was happy to drive that route again. From the tunnel the route took me out towards the coast across the islands of Zuid-Beveland, Walcheren and Noord-Beveland to the magnificent Oosterscheldekering – the largest single project in the Delta Works. That took me onto Schouwen-Duiveland and across the Brouwersdam into South Holland and onto the island with the best name ever – Goeree-Overflakkee. One final bit of Delta Works took me over the Haringvliet and on to Voorne.
The land around here is a mess of channels where all the water from the Scheldt, Meuse (or Maas) and Rhine rivers join and then spread about all over the place. There have been several documented floods that have changed the layout, including ones in 1216 and 1421 that resulted in the formation of the Haringvliet as an extra channel for the Rhine/Meuse waters to escape to the North Sea. Officially now the Rhine empties through the artificial channel of the Nieuwe Waterweg a little further north, but because all of the dams here have sluices and there’s such a complex mass of channels, some of the river water is directed through into the Haringvliet. You can’t really sail out to the sea though, except in quite small vessels.
Hellevoetsluis
Enough of the geography though. It was time for a bit of geocaching.
I arrived on Voorne at around 2pm, which meant I had plenty of time. So first stop was to drive into Hellevoetsluis. I parked up in the old town and walked a quick loop around, mainly finding adventure lab stages. In fact I actually only found one physical cache there. I’d done a few several years back but also I struggled with the ones I did attempt. But anyway, it was a good walk around after lots of driving. I stretched my legs and renewed my acquiantance. I managed to find 22 lab stages and one puzzle (a bonus for one of those labs). Those were all in the central area.
Brielle
And so on to Brielle, my former home. Again, we came here a few years ago but there weren’t many caches at the time. Anyway, that was a family day out not a caching day.
So first up I found my hotel and negotiated my new car very carefully into their small (but perfectly formed) car park. The check in was good and I was presented with a room that was nicely sized. A bit dated and a bit of a long walk from reception, but it was only one night, so I’d cope.
No time like the present though. I wanted to walk around the town grabbing as many caches as possible. I could theoretically stay a while in the morning to do more, but I preferred the idea of getting them done in the evening.
Off we go
The caching started right next to the hotel. I initially walked the inner circle to the southern gate and then hit a few caches outside the old town. From here my walk took me in an anti-clockwise loop pretty much all the way around the outer walls / fortifications. Brielle is one of those 15th/16th century fortified towns that’s all knobbly bits (bastions, I think they are called). It gives the impression of a big star shape, anyway. And I was walking all the way around the sticky-outy ends.
At the northern end I was dragged back inside the walls and around a few canals to get out to Bastion IX, which has various memorials and a big (and new) wooden tower. There were two sets of labs, a trad and two virtuals just on that bit.
Continuing around the western side I didn’t quite make a full loop back to the south gate. Instead I headed into the centre to do more labs in the lovely Asylplein before deciding I’d had enough. By this time I’d done 3 virtuals, a multi, 4 puzzles, a wherigo, 3 trads and 25 lab stages. That took my total for the day to 60, so I figured that was good enough. And anyway, doing more would mean getting in the car or walking a distance mmy legs wouldn’t sustain. So no more of that.
Dinner Time
As chance would have it, I finished my walk not a hundred yards from my old drinking haunt, the excellent t’Kont van Het Paard (“The Horse’s Arse”). Be careful with that link, because my malware checker thinks the site is compromised. I’m not sure why though. Back at the plot, it used to be just a drinking establishment back in the day, but it has since upscaled into an “Eetcafe” which did some very good food to accompany the monstrously strong beers they persuaded me to have.
I didn’t stay too late. Instead I made my way back to the hotel and sat in their bar with my laptop typing up caching logs and drinking a couple more beers.
And that was that for the day. Many miles covered. More to do tomorrow, and much beer consumed.
Tomorrow
We can’t be having a post with no pictures, and I didn’t take any pictures at all on the following day. I made my way from Brielle through Rotterdam and up to the Afsluitdijk. That’s a massive barrier built in the 1930’s which separated inland Holland from the North Sea and turned the smaller Zuider Zee (South Sea) into the fully enclosed IJsselmeer. The name means “Shut-Off Dijk” literally. That gave safety to inland Holland and allowed the building of two massive new pieces of land – Flevoland and the Noordoostpolder.
I had planned to stop on the Afsluitdijk, but a major heightening project started in 2019 meant that the viewing points halfway across weren’t accessible to traffic.
Anyway, the caching highlight, if you can call it that, was to hit the massive lab series at Nieuw Vennep, next to Schiphol Airport. It’s relatively lightweight by current lab pool standards (only about 125 sets of five), but it passed a couple of hours.
Back at the plot, and across the Afsluitdijk, the drive across the top into Assen was surprisingly long. It was made much slower by being limited to under 100km/hr the whole way.
Anyway, the hotel was where I expected it to be, and after wondering what was going on initially, I found my way to the “nice” restaurant that’s used by people who aren’t on the all-inclusive deal. They made me a very nice pizza. Not the pizza I ordered, but a very nice one nonetheless.
