Blogging at 22:30 on Saturday 24th August from N 51.99499°, E 04.03314° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:51.99499%2C04.03314
Well, we were both well enough to at least put some proper effort in to the De Potten parkrun this morning, albeit that it completely understandably resulted in times slower than we'd both ordinarily hope for. Emma seemed pretty good at the finish but I was pretty croaky and phlegmy. No complaints, though, that's another country added to our palmarès: our parkrun-country total now runs to 15. De Potten was a great event, too; with a great course, a friendly atmosphere and a very helpful race organiser. Highly recommended.
Lunchtime saw us stopping for a couple of hours on the massively impressive causeway that dams The IJsselmeer lake. We've been over the causeway several times before but that doesn't minimise the awesomeness, it's an extraordinary feat of engineering. From our lunch spot we were able to see plenty of boat and bird action: turnstones being the winner.
Three hours of steady post-lunch driving later, we arrived at the Hook of Holland and headed for a quiet spot we know about two miles from the port. We didn't go straight to the port as we were a couple of hours early for the sailing back to Hull. We'd arrived intentionally early as we had quite a bit of truck-related fettling to do, and we also wanted to come down a bit with a cup of tea and an afternoon snack.
And so that's what we did. We fettled and drank and snacked in a dawdly, coming-down sort of way; before eventually beginning to contemplate a steady meander down to the port.
That was the point that it hit me. We were at The Hook of Holland... our ferry sailed from the port of Rotterdam. The port of Rotterdam is 32 miles from the Hook of Holland and the journey between the ports involves traversing some tricky Dutch infrastructure. This was bad.
Compounding the immediate desperate panic that ensued, a gale whipped up and it started to rain torrentially. A drenched and gusty 'spirited' drive followed that saw us driving for extended periods at well over 50mph: by far the fastest of 3,920 miles of the entire trip to that point.
Upon arrival at our actual port of departure we checked in, cleared immigration and drove straight on to the waiting ship. Phew. Fair to say we were all, including the poor old truck, somewhat shell shocked.
For so may reasons, it's been a very interesting trip...
Sent from my mobile device