From our last stopover at Phalsbourg, we set ‘Jane’ to take us to Metz, some way north. As she kept trying to put us on to the motorway, which we didn’t want, we had to keep resetting ‘her’ from village to village until we reached a very quiet and scenic road along the side of the Moselle River. The weather was unbelievably hot, and we wondered how much longer it could last as we had already had reports that the weather in Holland was grey and cold. When we finally reached our campsite it seemed as if the whole of Holland and Belgium was there too! In fact over the past two weeks we have had so many Dutch camping companions that I am really beginning to wonder if there was anyone left to keep the businesses going! However, they all started pulling out very early the next morning and by evening both countries would have been re-populated again.
Our route to Oss in Holland was always going to be pretty much due north, and by now we were quite keen to get on and arrive there. However, we made a few detours along the way. The first was to Rodemack, which advertises itself as the ‘Carcassonne of Lorraine’, but it turned out to be a poor imitation. Quite quaint though, as most walled mediaeval towns are, and we had to give the citizens at least a nine out of ten for effort. This little place is way off the tourist route, but they still had lovely flowerboxes, and little plaques to tell visitors about the town. For me, probably the most fascinating part was the old ‘medicinal garden’ just outside the town walls which has been re-established; the herbs identified and their uses listed. The plaques there made very interesting reading.
After a night spent near Luxembourg, we had to set off, putting all our faith in ‘Jane’ as we discovered that we had no maps of either Belgium or Holland. Her first choice of route took us straight on to the motorway so at the first opportunity, we turned off and she willingly re-calculated our route. We were actually aiming for a campsite near Spa in Belgium, and stopped along the way to visit Stavelot. Having found parking near the centre of town we made a bee-line for the Tourist Information Centre to find out what we should see and where everything was. By now the weather had changed from a few days earlier and it was darkly overcast with the occasional spot of rain. Having collected a fistful of leaflets, we were about to leave when I asked one of the ladies why there were so many cars parked along the side of the road leading to the town. She looked at me a bit pityingly and said ‘Oh, don’t you know? It is the Belgian Grand Prix this weekend and people are already starting to arrive’. She also assured us that there was simply no chance of us being able to just arrive at a local campsite and expect to get space in it, and offered to phone around for us. However, we decided not to even try. We gave Stavelot a miss (it was raining by now, anyway) and drove on for another 50 kms and found ourselves a pleasant overnight spot near Maastricht.
The next day’s drive was going to be the last real day ’on the road’, so we decided that it would definitely be a ‘no motorway’ day. However, we were still without maps, and ‘Janes’ first choice of route looked alarmingly direct and was certainly a motorway, so we asked for an alternative route. That looked more interesting, so off we went. Oh dear! Within minutes she had directed us on to a road not much wider than the van, which had a really low bridge over it. The van is three metres high and this bridge was 2.8 metres, so there was no chance. As luck would have it, as soon as we stopped, three cars arrived behind us, but waited patiently while Neels executed a 99-point turn! To make things even more interesting, there was an electric cattle fence right on the edge of the road which he didn’t dare touch, but eventually he got us turned around. Back we went to the road we had turned out of and at the very next intersection ‘Jane’ instructed us to turn right again and once again found ourselves in an impossible road – very narrow and with cars parked on the side. As soon as we could, we turned back to the road we had been on previously and thought that if we just kept going north, she would eventually find a way to get us to Oss. So that is what we did, but in the end she won. She put us on a road that did a massive detour through part of Germany and then on to a motorway, but we didn’t dare to object any more. As our route started to turn westwards into the Dutch lowlands, we could see the countryside flattening out and canals started appearing and by mid-afternoon we were pulling up outside Pieter’s house in Oss.
The next two days were spent clearing out the van and getting it as spick and span as possible. It is difficult to believe that most of what came out of the van arrived in two suitcases five months ago and I really doubt if I will manage to get it all back into two suitcases to return home.
On Sunday Pieter had a surprise for Neels in the form of tickets for the Belgian Grand Prix, but he had only managed to get two of them so I did not go. Instead, I had a lovely day chatting to my cousin from Thailand, who had made time, during his precious annual leave, to come and see us on the way to visiting someone else in Holland. I think I got a good deal. My day was relaxing and quiet, spent indoors out of the cold grey weather while Pieter and Neels’ day was anything but that!
During this next week, we will take the van back to the company we bought it from and sell it back to them and then probably spend the last few days trying to work out how to squash everything back into the suitcases. We arrive back in South Africa in the early hours of Monday 15th September, and can’t wait to see all our friends again. To those of you who have read each week’s episode of our travels, I hope you have enjoyed ‘traveling’ with us as much as I have enjoyed telling you about it all.
Love to you all and looking forward to being able to speak to you all again soon.
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