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Once beyond Antwerp, the nose of our car was pointed at Breda (via A1/A16), we waved bye-bye to Belgium around about the time I saw a sign for Hoogstraten; this reminded me of a certain nasty piece of work by the name of Nicholas van Hoogstraten, who once served time after a being convicted of a grenade attack on a clegyman's home, who at the time owed him money. This fellow should be locked in the same cell as Robert Mugabe, one his ex-associates.
Travelling through, we did spot the odd authentic windmill in Holland, far outnumbered by their modern descendants. Beyond Breda it was time to decide whether to take the high road across the IJsselmeer Dam or the low road South of Amsterdam. The ring road at Utrecht was the departure point for either route, being more scenic we plumped for the high road..mistake!
Getting up to, then navigating the Amsterdam ring road gave us a false sense of security. We had intended to follow the motorway (A7) up to and across the Ijsselmeer, but were soon shunted off by roadworks onto the western side of the peninsular, so had to re-route via Alkmaar. A 'quart into a pint pot' was an accurate description of how the traffic was being directed at this point. Driving through the little village of Winkel pointed us back towards our desired route, then it was sit and wait at the slagbomen prior to crossing the dam.
The dam on a sunny day is well worth stopping on and having a little lunch, this day we kept going. Once across we headed for the university city of Groningen (A7), home to the erudite and indomitable battlecat. Once clear of the Groningen ring road, we knew we had cracked the toughest stretch of the journey, the German border being about 25K down the road. One of the advantages of travelling on the German Autobahn road system is that it links pretty much every town and village to a motorway 'Ausfahrt'.
Once over the border, I mentally was now pronoucing my 'W's as 'V's. Leer and Westerstede appearing on the roadsigns told us we were now travelling in Lower Saxony. We had our first real head scratching session of the trip thus far as we approached the Ausfahrt's for Oldenburg. The turn off we were looking for appeared to no longer exist! Plus we were fast moving past the city. So next Ausfahrt was taken and we pulled over to make a call to my partners brother for directions. We were headed for Kreyenbruck, in the south of Oldenburg, quite close to where the river Hunte flows through the city. Our host to be assured us that we were not too far off track, that there had also been a good deal of road building in the four years since our last visit and put us right for the final approach. On making it to our journey's end for the day, we were warmly greeted and given a first taste of the wonderful hospitality we were to experience throughout our stay. I was invited to table tennis practice the next evening and duly accepted, not knowing what was in store for me..
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