our trip to Cape Liptrap National Park

we spent some time at this beautiful spot along the Victorian coast appr. 175km. from home. We had some glorious days with a campfire at night. Amrit, Anjali, Kiran, Vicki and I camped here for almost a week.                                    During the day we walked along the beach with Anjali and Kiran. We did quite a few kilometres.

Sometimes we had to climb over rockwalls to get to the next beach. We had such a good time !

As you can see the beach is quite rugged with some nice rockformations.

Our campingspot was very close to the beach. We had to share the area with wombats, wallabies and even koalas. Here the girls are playing a game of snakes and ladders.

From the picnicspot you can see Wilsons Prom

.

Here another picture of  one of our walks along the beach. We will certainly come back for another visit to this beautiful spot.

Summer Festivals - Woerden and Hoorn

At the end of the school holidays ,many towns put on a festival. We were in Woerden when we heard the brass band strike put their tune. Lots of people from the community were involved.

Kids with decorated bikes -dressed up as cartoon characters and as in this case Smurfs made a great show .

This  is a replica of a Roman boat which was dug out of the river which flows through the town . Woerden has a rich history going back all that way.

The local shopping street. Most towns in Holland have strip shopping , with cars completely excluded.

 Hoorn has a cheese market - a re-enactment of how things went in by-gone years - once a week during the summer holidays.

 The dealing is done by the men in suits - and confirmed with the slap of hands.

 The market square is well used  and the beautiful Frisian horses really seem to enjoy being part of the action. Hoorn is a really old town - you might be able to see how the walls of some of the buildings lean into the street.

 The local child minding centre had a very cute way of transporting their charges.

Everyone involved in the market did a little dance at the end.

Annemieke and Patrick took us for a discovery tour of Woerden.They discovered almost as much as we did!

Barendrecht and Houten

As part of the heritage lesson all the kids and grandkids descended on Tromp Straat in Barendrecht - the street where Hank grew up. The lady who lives in their house  now came outside to see what the excitement was about!

The favourite swimming place for the young people in Hank's youth was here - the Ouwe Maas. The river is  really a shipping passage - they used to swim across it.

Everyone had a great time playing in the water and skimming rocks. Huge barges passed  while we were there - you might notice one in the background.

This is the weekly market in Houten.The stalls are set up in the town square of lots of towns on different places most days of the week.- so this is quite a common sight. Hank and our friend Ab are sampling the new herring - delicious!





Ab and Willy took us out for chinese -we were really spoiled!

A really good way to go sight seeing is on the bike.The countryside is flat and there are bike paths everywhere.

Houten is in the province Utrecht  where there are lots of castles.There is a real effort being made to renovate the old buildings and turning them into restaurants etc.

A moat around another castle. Makes a pretty picture I thought.

We stopped for an icecream after riding our bikes  about 50 km.- a real achievement for us! No wonder most dutchies look so fit and slim - it was no big deal for our hosts.

Family time in Holland

Willy and Chris hired these cabins (3 next to each other) for the young families. It was a perfect solution to their accommodation and they had a great time together. Jenna celebrated her birthday in a very special way!

We visited the Zaanse Schans -an open air museum based around windmills.

How many children can  fit in a shoe? Depends on it's size I suppose.

A 2hour ferry ride took us to Terschelling - Willy and Chris' favourite holiday place. Bike hire was included in the price of the ticket ,and bikes were chosen for every one of us.

We all headed off for an 18 km round trip. The bike tracks go along the coast and through the country side. It was easy for some and quite a challenge for someof  us  but we all made it and had a great time. 

The ride through the dunes was really pretty. Trees have been planted years ago ,so the scenery is really varied.

Jenna among the bikes (she was uploaded twice by mistake) Most people travel by bike on the island and there are hundreds of very good bikes available. No helmets - but the speed e travelled at was quite safe!

Kleingeld Family Reunion

Willy and Chris organised a gathering of all the descendants of Hank and Sophie Kleingeld. We had a beautiful afternoon in their garden gettng to know each other.

The cousins had a great time too.Here are Aiden ,Michelle ,Kiran ,Megan and Anjali.

Dave and Sara

Cousins Jenna and Jenna. These girls really got on very well!

Arie-Willem and Christien had composed some special songs for the occasion. Of course the ukelelle had to be tuned and warmed up.

The musical brothers and sisters surprised some of us with their singing , but we soon joined in  .

Jobien and Kevin

Off to Paris

Tim and Amrit ,and Dave and  Sara and their children having a break in Lille on our way to Paris. We fitted into 2 cars and travelled with them .

We stopped again in Antwerppen and met at the market square for lunch. The fountain was a big hit with the little ones and since it was quite busy, we enjoyed people watching and the architecture.

We stayed in a hotel outside the city and caught the bus and train in - then caught a hop on -hop off bus to see the sights. Stop 1 view of Eiffel tower.Here is one of the many hawkers who did their best to sell us stuff.

Hank and Tim and Anjali and Kiran walked up the stairs to the second level of the tower.Amrit ( in the white hat) was trying to see them without success .It is quite a climb and I'm told that the view is fantastic.The girls were very pleased with their achievement -daddy didn't carry them at all !

This is a fairly typical street scene -the buildings are a uniform height and there are lots of cars.

The Arc de Triomphe as seen from the bus. There is a bus from the same company driving next to us -you have a view from up high and they have recorded information on headphones.We spent 2 days hopping on and off while the kids went to Disney land.

We went walking some of the time and just happened to find the Moulin Rouge.Not the place to go to at night judging by the no. of sex shops in the area .

On the way back home we detoured via Fromelles where Australian war veterans were reinterned recently.Some people walked past us while we were having a picnic and told us that the original mass grave was at the bottom of this field.

Someone had left this Aussie flag.

The new cemetary was opened a few days before we got there.

Anniversary weekend

The original reason for us to come to Holland was to celebrate Willy and Chris' 40th wedding  anniversary. We travelled to Limburg for the weekend  and stayed in a guest house with the Kleingeld and van Rietschoten brothers and sisters.

 Everyone went their own way during the day - we spent some time in the nearby city of Maastricht, looking at the cathedral and other old architecture.

Each evening we ate at a restaurant which was run by the guesthouse people. The food was exceptionally good ,and we ate like kings! The world cup final was on ,so we all wore somehing orange to encourage the dutchies to win.As you know it was a fruitless exercise but we had fun anyway.

How sweet! This is the highest point in Holland - at the same altitude as our place in Silvan - almost made us feel at home.

Three land borders meet at this spot.

The country in Limburg is flowing hills -a bit like the Dandenongs only different trees.It's hard to imagine that the country has so many people when you see such wide open spaces - it's all in the strict town planning of course 

These are the hills of Holland - right on the border of Belgium and Germany. Reminded us a bit of Silvan