Oud Limburgs Schuttersfeest is a massive festival for the province of Limburg. This year it was held in Melick which happens to be where Oma and Opa live. Very handy. Lots of traditional music and costume, and the Schutterij (civic guard) competition. They have these really long heavy looking muskets and need to shoot (in order?) tiny little targets mounted really high on a pole. It’s a big event and definitely takes a lot of skill to win it.

We had a nice wander around the Kabouter Bos (gnome forest)

Fun way to get over jetlag. Lovely being back in The Netherlands. They have so many yum nibbly things and beers and it’s just generally a great country!

It was time for Anna and I to join Maaike in The Netherlands. Absolutely stunning view of Taranaki as we flew up. You can see the distinct circular boundary of the national park. It’s literally a 6 mile radius from the summit!. Very cool.

Long haul flights are never fun, but, it has become infinitely easier to travel with Anna now that she’s a bit older. She gets unlimited screen time so is perfectly happy ;). Singapore Air are pretty nice for the kids, they get kids-themed headphones, the apps etc. are locked down to them (annoyingly though they didn’t have games – you had to have your own device and I wasn’t going to give that to Anna). The food is also a little on the spicy side, even when you choose kids meal. Still, we got through it fine having a stopover in Singapore.

We had planned on going to the in-airport swimming pool, but, it was only open for an hour after we arrived and I wasn’t quite sure if we needed to completely exit security or not, so, in the end we just footled about for a few hours. It was fine.

So, 20 million hours later we flew into NL and were reunited with Maaike (and her Aunt and Uncle who came to pick us up). Being made to stay up while you get trains & bike home definitely helped with the jetlag. Still took a few days to get over but not too bad all told.

It was Matariki, big thing at Anna’s school (Māori new year) and they had their usual display of florescent creations. Pretty fun.

There was also the fireworks out at New Brighton which we went to. It’s absolutely mental getting in and out of New Brighton when the fireworks are on. The council however put on an excellent bus service so you could park at one of the malls and then there were busses every 5 mins on the way in and out. Absolutely smashed the queues (as you just skip past them all). Zero stress of finding a carpark etc. Would totally recommend.

Maaike had headed over to visit family in The Netherlands a couple of weeks before Anna and I are due to follow. We’re being sent pictures like this (needs login)

Mind you, it’s not all fun and games as Europe is currently in a massive heatwave. Like, 38° or something silly. Very glad we’re not there for that as I melt if it goes over 30°.

I wasn’t quite sure how this one was going to go, being somewhat unfit and with navigation being a little out of practice. Anyway, originally it was going to be a team of three with Malc and Gabby (my climbing partners), but, Malc had to drop out unfortunately. I was really happy with how well it all worked. Our navigation was basically perfect (we opted for a straightforward route, but, we found every control we went for without toooooo much searching). Our timing was also pretty spot on, getting about about 10 minutes early in the 6 hour event.

The weather couldn’t have been kinder. It was beautifully sunny, almost a spring like day (rather than the heights of winter!).

There was one part we probably did get wrong, ending up in a “short” amount of “fight” we needed to get through. It put up a good fight!

The food at the end was hot and very welcome and a perfect end to a really fun day out. Looking forward to doing more events!