Ameland 06.07.15

Today we leave early in the morning at 9am. Yvonne & Simon pick us up to take us to their home in Friesland, island of Ameland, village of Hollum. This is in the north of Holland and the furthest north we would go, all the way from the southern hemisphere. It is a 4 hour journey by car & ferry. On the way we drive over a 40km long dike that was constructed & finished in the 1930's that enclosed part of the Zuiderzee into the Iseljmeer.

We stayed in the village of Hollum on Ameland. It is a very old village with homes dating from the 1600's and the houses have been renovated down the centuries. These homes were built when Australia only belonged to aborigines and it had yet to be discovered by white men.

Yvonne & Simon live in a house that was built in the 1700's. Simon is also an avid breeder of racing pidgeons & was very happy today to find out that his pidgeon came second in the race from Barcelona to Holland.

Apart from exploring another region of Holland, Mariska also wanted to catch up with Yvonne 's parents - Piet & An. Piet was a paratrooper commando who was close friends with Mariska's father - Frans. Piet was playing billiards and Frans was playing table tennis. They spotted 2 girls, and Piet told Frans that he would take the blonde one and Frans was to take the dark one, that's how Frans and Marriane met. The bloiee one was Marriane's friend Heiey Verwoerd. Piet did come out to Australia to visit Frans and Marianne when he was in his 20's, contact was then lost for the next 2 decades. They only found each oter again aout 10 years ago when Yvonne found Frank Rath's name.

There was lots of reminiscing btw Mariska & Piet & An. I was happy to be able to watch the 3rd stage of the tour de France on TV at a civilised time in the afternoon rather than 2 am in the morning in Australia.

The girls had fun cycling round on a tandem bike.

This was quiet village living in the far north of Holland.

For dinner, the whole family went to a beachside restaurant among the dunes & watched the sun gradually set.

We slept so well in a quiet part of the world. Mariska was happy as I did not snore since I had no Freisengeist to knock me out.