On the Wallaby 2022

  Firstly for those thinking maybe?? some friends of Dutch/Australian heritage have decided to take on Wallaby for next year. This blog post  finds us initially on the way to Arnhem, the furthest south we have explored. The River Lek was wide and meandering with too many jet skis. From our mooring at the Rowing Club Jason in Arnhem we rode 20 km to the Kroller Muller Art museum.  The Kroller-Muller Museum is situated inside a deciduous woods and heathlands vegetated National Park, the Hoge Veluwe near Arnhem. All established by art enthusiast Mrs Kroller-Muller who's husband inherited the park as an estate. At the southern entrance there were 100s of free to use bikes with a network of cycle trails and walking paths. All but 6 are free use bikes. A small entrance fee was charged. Wolves, deer and wild boar are found in the Park. In the Hoge Veluwe NP on the way to the museum  No wolves seen!! Looking carefully at this sculpture we found not one metal rod touches the ...

Rather than a three week yacht charter we bought Wallaby (previously  Vaarwater) a steel Sneekermeer 800 from the 1980s for a holiday in our favourite canal boating country. Come mid September we will have had our "fix" and hope someone will take her on (we actually mean buy her) and next year they can enjoy the Dutch canals. We bought "Vaarwater" on Marktplatts (the Dutch version of Gumtree) and it was a leap of faith. A few photos, a couple of brief emails and the deal was done. For instance we didn't know until the day we arrived if there was a galley, the water tank we were told wasn't serviceable and we just assumed the motor would be up to scratch. Our faith was rewarded. The little diesel engine starts and runs well. It is fairly quiet and at a litre an hour at an easy 8 kmh. A 30 litre diesel tank and 10 litre Jerry means only needing to find fuel every 2 weeks or so. The galley is just fine and we are using a simple cartridge gas stove (60 Euro cent...

Edam Museum, amazing 400yo chimney An amazing museum well worth visiting  We have had an amazing time exploring North Holland and especially Low Holland (Laag Holland) not that  we could get much lower without quite soggy feet.  The history, which is so apparent around every corner and in every town, has us both captivated. Pumerend, Edam, Amersterdam, Muiden, Naarden, The Vetch River  with all its extremely Grand Summer houses and then Utrecht. We were reminded of Vesting towns, moats, ramparts and seiges. It's almost a blur of buildings and fortifications from the 16th century onwards. Floating cellars, beds in cupboards where you would sleep sitting up and moats to protect everyone. Of course the moat was used as the receptacle for the human waste from the castles and in the winter, when it froze....they used straw collected it and used it as manure.  Edam Next stop after Laag Holland for us was Amsterdam, in Sixhaven marina just across the river from central...