Amsterdam

Arrived in Amsterdam on 30 September, again making things complicated by arriving on different flights as I had to drive back up to Stockport to deliver Grant and Rachel's car back to them and fly out of Manchester instead of Heathrow. A slightly stressful day as I suddenly realised at 11:30 am that my insurance for the car ran out at 12 noon and I still had 3 hours driving to do! So lots of time spent on the phone on hold to the insurance company by both me and Grant and finally after an hour and a half at a roadside stop I was on my way again fully insured. So it turned out to be a fairly rushed handover to Grant and Rachel, no doubt also adding significantly to the stress in their day as well.

However, made it to the plane and successfully to the hotel in Amsterdam where we met with Paul Butler of ADAS (Australian Diver Accreditaiton Scheme. Rob spent the next day with him visiting one of the Dutch commercial diving schools and I caught up with him over the distance learning course we are running for Dive Project Managers. So after a couple of days there, we then picked up our Campervan from BW Campers. It seemed awfully small initially with all our luggage, but once we had unpacked everything, we managed to fit it all in. We left some bags with them and are now ensconced happily in our new home where we will be for the next 3 months. It's very well designed, the beds are comfortable and the only thing lacking are a few hooks in the bathroom to hang towels, wet coats etc, which we can probably fix with a few adhesive hooks.

Have found a campsite with internet access - hence the blog posting. We're near Giethoorn, which is north east of Amsterdam and is a beautiful village I visited 25 years ago with the Martin Family and decided to show to Rob and the kids.

Hope you enjoy the new photos and that the map didn't take too long to download.

Germany next. Hopefully not too long before the next posting!