Cruising to Newcastle

Martijn and I hopped on a boat and sailed to England last weekend.

In keeping with our history of weird sleeping arrangements, our cabin had bunk beds. Which was okay since a real bed wouldn't have actually fit in there.

We boarded this ship in IJmuiden on Sunday evening. On Monday morning we arrived in the port in England and hopped a bus to Newcastle.

Our first stop was the Discovery Museum. There were some interesting exhibits on the history of Newcastle and quite a bit on maritime history. I was a little disappointed because a ton of the exhibits were being refurbished for their anniversary celebration in July, but the admission was free so I can't complain too much.

After we were done with the museum, we walked over to the Grainger Market. This market opened in 1835 and is one of the biggest indoor markets in the country. They had lots of food stalls with tempting looking treats, and a book stall with some dirt cheap paperback books. I got a couple to read on the boat. I hate how expensive books are in The Netherlands. It's not even just that English books cost a fortune, the Dutch books are just as expensive!

Most of the geocaches in Newcastle were micros (usually just a logbook in a film cannister) but we decided we ought to do one there just to say we did! We ended up walking down a very steep hill and then back up approximately 7283 stairs. I was rather thankful they weren't Dutch stairs, because I probably would've died right then and there!

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering about, finding a bite to eat, and enjoying ourselves.

The bus picked us up and took us back to the port on Monday night where we set sail to come back home! It was a quick little trip, but I really enjoyed myself and I hope we do something similar again.

Also, I now FINALLY can say that I've been to England! I don't really count the time I sprinted through Heathrow to catch my connection.

Mr Jummy is trying to replace me!

Since I got Mr. Jummy a few weeks ago we have been having some fun adventures.

He's come geocaching with us.

And he sneaks in and and steals my place in bed on a pretty regular basis.

But last night was the last straw!

He stole my place in bed, AND my Gameboy! The worst part was, I am pretty sure Martijn was in cahoots with him. I think he's looking for a new MarioKart partner.

Texel- A Week in Review

We stayed at Kustpark Texel in their TX4 "detatched chalet with terrace." I had a slightly different vision of a chalet, but this place was comfy and warm so I was happy.

Sticking with the strangeness that is bed situations here, it was 4 single beds, but we successfully slept on two pushed together and used a queen sized sheet with no problems. We decided to save a little money by bringing our own bedding, but what I didn't know is they still provided the pillows and comforters. So instead of taking our two down comforters, pillows, AND sheets, I really only needed to bring the sheets and pillowcases. They also offered an end of stay cleaning service which we opted out of since it was €65 and the only "extra" things they did was clean the stove and inside of the fridge, and mop and vacuum the floor. Since there was a mop and vacuum in the bungalow it seemed silly to pay for them to do it.

The only real complaint we had about the kitchen was that the knives were as dull as hen's teeth and we ended up grabbing a packet of paring knives from the supermarket. Otherwise it was decently equipped for the amount of cooking we did there. Our bungalow didn't have a dishwasher, but I think some of the larger ones at that particular facility may have. The bathroom was a little smelly, so we got some toilet bowl cleaner and solved that problem right quick too.

Before we left, I was having concerns about the availability of groceries and such on the island. My experience with tourist areas in the past is that they tend to jack up the prices to silly levels, so I gathered up almost a weeks worth of food and piled it into the car. As with the comforters and pillows from home, this probably wasn't needed. There was a LIDL in De Koog (the village where our bungalow was located) as well as a Super de Boer. I also spotted an Albert Heijn in Den Burg (one of the main towns on the island). Next time we go I'll pack sandwich stuff (maybe a non moldy avocado and do the rest of the shopping on the island.

While I did enjoy seeing the seals at the Ecomare, it's probably not something I would go do again. The entry fee was €8.50, and I just felt like maybe there should've been more to it! I am not sad that I went though, how else would I have found out about the woolly rhino?

The Schipbreuk- en Juttersmuseum was great though. I'd go back there again for sure. It was so interesting to see all the things that washed up. The only downside was the video explaining the finds was all in Dutch. I caught some of it and Martijn helped fill in the blanks so it was alright in the end. I loved how much weird stuff he had found on the beaches!

I can't leave out the fact that we managed to do TWENTY ONE geocaches while we were there! I'm quite certain we walked at least 7000 miles this past week. My legs are aching, but I think it was worth it.

Don't you like my fabulous hat? It has a fold-down ear covering and is very warm.

The last thing I'll mention is the ferry. There's no road to the island, so you must take the ferry. The round-trip "ticket" was €35 for us and the car. If you go by bike or by foot the charges are different, and can be found on their website. It's a fairly quick ride, only about 20 minutes and they have restrooms and a cafe on board.

We enjoyed ourselves quite a lot. We plan on going back again sometime.

Texel- November 7, 2008

Today we did a few more geocaches. Our total for the week ended at 21. All but two were micros, but those are tricky to find sometimes!

We took the ferry back to the "mainland" and then had a very very long traffic-jam filled drive home.

I'll post a wrap-up of the trip tomorrow, but methinks it's bedtime now.

Texel- November 6, 2008

A few weeks ago Martijn was reading his magazine that we get free from the ANWB (like AAA in the US) and he spotted something interesting that we could do when we came up here – The Schipbreuk en Juttersmusem. Schipbreuk means shipwreck, and jutten means to scavenge beaches. So a jutter is a person who scavenges beaches for interesting things. One such person is the man who founded the museum, Jan Uitgeest. He's been scavenging the beaches for things that have washed ashore for the past 56 years and has amassed quite a collection! The museum has a lot of life preservers, buoys, fisherman gloves, and other “normal” boat things that you might expect. But the interesting things are the unexpected ones: four thousand cans of powdered milk, televisions, hard hats (apparently lots of people lose their hard hats at sea), suitcases, and tennis balls.

We headed over to the museum and realized once we got there that we had no cash on us. Well, that's not completely true. I had two 50 cent coins in my pocket and Martijn had at least four 5 cent coins, so we weren't quite destitute, but it wasn't enough to pay the entry fee. So we said we'd be back and Meneer Uitgeest told us to go inside and after we were done to come back and pay later! I thought that was quite generous and we really enjoyed the time we spent there. The video of him explaining some of his funny adventures was all in Dutch but I was able to piece together some of it, and Martijn helped me by explaining a lot of it afterward. After we left and did a couple of geocaches we finally found an ATM so we could pull out some money and go pay the man! He laughed and said thanks for coming back to pay since he'd completely forgotten. We even got an autographed brochure.

The caches we went after were in the dunes known as De Muy. The first one was a rather quick find, but the second one involved some walking and climbing of lots and lots of stairs. I shouldn't complain though, at least I wasn't trying to walk my way up a huge pile of sand. There was a really lovely view from the top.

That's the sea way off in the distance, shrouded in the FOG!

Texel- November 5, 2008

Today found us making an emergency trip to the pharmacy (Dutch: apotheek) because I didn't eat the required 50 cups of yogurt per minute needed to combat the bad effects of the antibiotics. The plus side was, we did get to explore the town of Den Burg a little bit. All 50 houses of it – including one supermarket selling moldy avocados (more on that travesty later).


Since it was windy and cold we decided that we'd had enough outdoor explorations and headed to the Ecomare. It's a museum and wildlife rehabilitation center for seals and birds on the island and in the surrounding areas. They have a lot of neat information on how the island of Texel was formed and over industries in the North Sea. The best part was, of course, the seals. I did like the little teeny crabs that we saw in the aquarium they have in the basement. Also, did you know that there were woolly rhinoceroses in the ice age? Cause I sure didn't.

This little guy was trying to escape into the pool next door, unsuccessfully, I might add.


Strangely enough, they used sheep's wool to make this woolly rhino's coat.

After the Ecomare, we headed back to number 123 to have some lunch. We decided to take the rest of the day off and just have a quiet afternoon since Martijn wasn't feeling that great. It was fine by me too – I got to steal the cute little new toy and play with it for awhile. By the way, his new name is Ned.

Martijn cooked us tacos for dinner, but when he went to cut up the avocado we discovered it should've gone to the grave far before we bought it cause it was moldy and rather unpleasant inside. Annoying, since we JUST BOUGHT IT TODAY!

Now we are just arguing if “should've” is actually a word. I say yes, Ned says no, and my wicked husband agrees with the computer. Such loyalty. It's a word I say! A contraction, but that counts as a word, right???

Texel- November 4, 2008

Yesterday we left Eindhoven around noon to drive to Den Helder, where we boarded the ferry that brought us to Texel.

We arrived at the bungalow park a little after 3 (good timing, since that was the time that we could check in), checked in, and made our way to bungalow number 123. It's a cute little two bedroom place, but of course it's 4 single beds. LUCKILY this time we aren't battling against a chasm of death or bunk beds. The kitchen is workable and even has a gas stove, which we don't even have at home. We spent a little while making ourselves at “home” and then took a 4 km walk around the area. It was our intention to find a nearby geocache, but by the time we got where it was supposed to be, it was getting dark and we couldn't see well enough to poke around and find it.


Last night when we went to bed we decided not to set an alarm since we are on vacation after all. Somehow I think waking up at 7am this morning made that a futile decision. Luckily both of us were able to fall back asleep for a little while.


Today we went to the tippy top of the island to see the lighthouse (Dutch: vuurtoren). The problem with this plan was the insane amount of fog!

See what I mean?


The fog wasn't a deterrent for our caching efforts though. We manged to find six in various places around the island. There were a few we didn't manage to track down, but it still gave us the opportunity to explore around a bit. It would've been nice if the fog wasn't so thick but we did (sorta) see some neat stuff.

One of the places we went to was De Schans fort. It was established by Willem van Oranje in the 16th century to prevent the Spanish from taking back Texel. The fort was used until the middle of the 19th century. In 1931, half of it was demolished in order to place a dike. Napoleon added two smaller forts on either side (which have since been demolished) and it was used by merchant ships as a safe haven when they couldn't get to Amsterdam or to the North Sea.