With a race against the seasons (beating a Russian winter), we aimed to drive rather hastily through Europe. A bit of a shame as I feel we may have been able to see more had time permitted. However, driving through towns where no one speaks English, or those that do marvel at what we are trying to do and wish us well with a smile and a nod, gives me a feeling of travelling where not many like me have done so before.
Holland is more than tulips, windmills and clogs. There is a shitload of corn. And more corn. As far as the eye can see (which is a long way in very flat country) there is corn. And it smells like poo. Not the corn, the farms. However, farmers make for friendly people and they all seem to have an interest in Land Rovers. None more so than an old guy camping next to us in the most beautiful vintage gypsy style caravan towed by his even more vintage tractor. It turns out we just missed the tractor festival in Holland and the old boy travels for 45km (on his 16km/hour vintage tractor towing a vintage caravan) with his missus and stays for three weeks for their annual holiday. I don’t know who was more impressed with whose vehicle…Hayden or tractor guy.
Germany’s Autobahn was impressive. It certainly wasn’t Maggie’s style, but I have never heard a vehicle overtake and continue to speed away at, what I can guess, 160+km/hour! We found a secluded campground with a restaurant and ended up eating literally twice as much as planned as my order of three dishes to share came out as three dishes each! Fortunately they were super cheap and not that large. Two driving days in Germany is not enough to fully experience German culture, but it is enough to find a Dutch guy in a supermarket car park who practically lives in his old Land Rover ambulance come camper. He spends three months of the year in Morocco and has equipped his vehicle with all sorts of weird and wonderful inventions… an engine from a tractor, power steering, cruise control, solar heated shower and a pin code lock on his back door! It is also enough for us to stumble upon a German agricultural museum. Tractors and farm equipment are not my thing, but I couldn’t help but be amazed at the sheer number of them! Hayden was busy explaining how they all worked and what they would have been used for, whilst I began to daydream that one day I might like to live in a windmill.
Whizzing through Holland and Germany
