First night in the camper

We spent our first night in the camper in a National park near Hoenderloo in the Hoge Veluwe part of the Netherlands. A beautiful Dutch forest perfect for bike-riding and wildlife spotting. After initial problems setting up electricity connections etc. we got our act together and remembered instructions. An early evening bike ride through magical wooded forest or "bossen" revealed one startled deer with huge antlers and many shadow movements that could have been wild boar or eagles or squirrels.

The next morning we also rode through the park to get to the Kroller-Muller museum which includes an excellent Van Gogh collection as well as a beautifully landscaped sculpture garden.

Lovely warm weather and a saturday time slot meant that all of Holland was out riding bikes on the Hoge Veluwe.

Saturday afternoon we made our way to Driebergen where Peet's cousin Marianne and Ria had 2 bikes ready for the kids. Unfortunately the entire roadwork in Holland is being upgraded all at once and every road and small town has yellow road markings, flashing lights and the dreaded "omleidingen" (detours) which take you away from where you want to go and introduce to an entirely new journey. We had to laugh in the end as we drove in a circuitous route through countryside that was quite pretty, lined with vegetable stalls, grassy dykes, canals, farmhouses and big groups of cyclists.

At Driebergen the kids were able to test their bikes and Arkady learned to ride with Anika side-saddled on the luggage rack, just like they do over here.

Marianne and Ria put us up for the evening and we enjoyed a lovely Indonesian dinner, english and dutch conversation sharing travel stories, and a huge breakfast worthy of a 5 star bed and breakfast.