Duinrell – Delft

This morning we were up reasonably early, breakfasted, packed up and fed (also the geese were fed by Helen who had insisted on saving all bread crusts to feed them with!) and ready for a day of fun! And it was sunshining!

First up – the amusement park (had to let our breakfast digest before swimming!).

This was good fun – although not the biggest place in the world, it was free and they have a couple of good rides. The first thing we went on was a watery ride (the theme is generally water related) where you sat on a sort of sledge and slid down a water slide – very exciting!

Next was the roller coaster – possibly the most uncomfortable ride ever, especially for tall people as you knees bang on the front of the carriage and your back on the back of the chair. Still fun though :)

After that we had a bit of a walk around - admiring the many displays and things that were around – mostly for the benefit of kids, but still quite nice – and then a couple more rides. The best one was this water ride where you could decide whether you wanted to go on a closed or open boat – interesting.

The boats were five rows of 4 seats – we naturally chose the open boat – and each row had a kind of plastic mac for 4 people – 4 holes for 4 heads – try and imagine it if you can! So. We knew we were going to get wet! And we did. This thing was amazing, you were winched up this slope, round a bend and then DOWN INTO SOME VERY DEEP WATER!!! You should have seen the tidal wave that coming down generated (picture shows it from the side after the event) it was incredible – and we were drenched!! It wasn't so much the depth of the water that was the thing, we discovered afterwards, it was that the boat was on rails all the way through the water – so it didn't just skim across the surface but really plunged straight in!

We went up to the viewing platform afterwards – there was a plastic screen that you could stand behind if you didn't want to get drenched, because you really would – even just doing that was pretty cool – but the ride was tops!!

After that, and a trip on the toboggan ride (not so impressive) and the bumper cars (bumping allowed) we went back to the van to get our swimming stuff and on to the water park.

This place is cool – 8 slides (count 'em) and all indoors – none of this freezing to death trying to enjoy yourself when it just isn't sunny enough really! Anyway, we were in there for the maximum 2 hours – I went on every slide, and was the only one of us to do so – and they were easily as good as I remember from when I was a kid. Brilliant. A real mixture of super quick scary slides and more fun ones – like the 2 that were in the dark and you went on in pairs sat in a double rubber ring!! Excellent.

After all that enjoyment we went back to the van for some lunch and then had a discussion about where to go. Andrew had really wanted to go to Arnhem – and that had been broadly in the plans, but we decided that it wasn't really the best option – if we had done that we wouldn't have really had the time to see things properly because we would need to have done quite a bit of driving. As an alternative we decided to head to Delft and then explore around there.

It was a good choice.

The campsite in Delft is really nice (Delftse Hout), although your approach is straight off the motorway and through an industrial estate, so it looks a bit ropey, it's actually in a bit of a park, nicely laid out, cheap, good facilities and only a 15 minute walk into town – which was a good thing as going out drinking was high on the agenda tonight!

We got pitched up, changed and we were on our way into town with our road beers.

Once in town we had a bit of a walk about, appreciating how nice Delft is (very pretty), then we stopped in a bar for a small beer, then went looking for a bar that was mentioned in the guide book (there's always one!) which we did find eventually – it was OK, but nothing really worth talking about – and then we went for dinner.

That was great.

It was in a really nice building, an old warehouse by the look of it – next to a canal, high ceilings, amazing wood beams – also, great food (I had the biggest pot of mussels ever). So it was fab. After that we went to another bar and then onto our final bar of the evening. When we went in there – at about 11pm – it looked like it was closing for the evening, but by 12am it was absolutely packed!! We seemed to have picked a very popular drinking spot.

We had a few beers, and also something of a local 'speciality' – beer with a Dutch Gin chaser. Apparently it “hits you like a sledghammer”, or so a guy at the bar told Jon while he was getting the round in – and I have to say that I agree. About 30 minutes after drinking it I was ready for my bed!!

It didn't taste so good either – as the expression on Helen's face here probably tells you :)

We did have one game to play – trying to get a piece of paper out from underneath a 50pence piece balanced on the side of a glass, without knocking the coin into the glass. Andrew was a pro at this game, but I managed to do it eventually – getting better as the gin took effect – and then getting worse as the sledgehammer hit home!!

Was fun though – and we left at last orders to walk home.

On the way Jon & Andrew stopped off at a kebab style place to get a pizza. I wasn't in with them while they were ordering but it sounds like an amusing time – almost as amusing as the 'pizza' they got. It was a 'Turkish Pizza' which seemed to comprise a very doughy piece of dough, some filling, and then it was all rolled up, superheated, and served! They weren't impressed, but it didn't stop them polishing the lot off! Boys eh?

By the time we got home it was nearly 3am – and time for bed – I'm too old for these late nights you know :)