After staying at cousin Martins for 6 days, all was ready for our departure. At 10 in the morning we said farewell to Martin, Ewoud and Ria and started our journey. The night before Ewoud’s granddaughters Jana and Nienke presented us with some going away drawings that they had done.

Yes we did have Willie Nelson playing as we drove down the motorway. Our first stop was to drop in at Tonnie’s house [cousin] she lives in the forest of the national park in Holland. We arrived about lunch time and she was home due to the fact that she had lost her voice, so the conversation was a bit one sided. After catching up on the latest news, a coffee and a delicious cake we were again on the road.

Our next stop was Hengelo where Mike [cousin] and Jeannette [auntie] live. We spent the afternoon at Mike’s house that he had just renovated and in the evening we went to the town centre for something to eat. We will be staying in Mike apartment in Denia [Spain] later in our trip and he filled us in on how to get there and what to do when we are there. At around 11.30 we drove to a local plant nursery car park, which we have stayed at several times before and spent a quiet night. This was the first time that we had slept in the van for this trip. It felt like home again.

Friday 8th
We drove to Winterswijk where a large camping shop is located called Obelink, it’s so big that they have a café/restaurant to give you a break from looking through all the halls. After a few hours and a few purchases we headed into Germany to the town of Oelde. Here is where our German friends live that we met on our first trip in 2009.

We drove into the driveway to be greeted with the sight of Leo and Mike drinking beer on their bar stools waiting for us to arrive.
It was a busy weekend:
Leo helped my install a new vent in the “Bunyip”
Jenny went shopping with the girls.
Spent Saturday watching meat in a smoker, cook for 3 hours.[ hard work, much beer drinking.]
Rode on our bikes to the local park for a spring festival with whole family as it was mother’s day (more beer drinking).
Introduced them to the Tim Tam slam. [It’s an Aussie thing!!]
Overall had a very social, busy and tiring time.

Monday 11th
On Monday morning we said our goodbyes and headed off on our adventure. Up till now it felt like we were visiting family and friend and not travelling. We headed north to the city of Bremen doing some shopping on the way at an Aldi, and mid-afternoon we arrived at a motorhome parking area only 1200 meters from the centre. After a late lunch we rode our bike’s to explore the town.
Back at the motorhome park a few hours later I noticed that the motorhome near to us had a kangaroo and an Australian flag on it , sure enough David and Gail a couple from Coffs Harbour came over the say hello. They are on their 2nd trip in there motorhome which they keep in England. After exchanging travel tales it was time to have some tea and a peaceful night in.