We headed to Valkenburg for the day – to visit some caves and have a look around the pretty town. The caves I think would properly be called a quarry? they certainly weren’t natural, having been used to quarry out the marlstone a type of limestone. The caves were really extensive and filled with drawings & carvings.

The cave we visited had been used by the Germans during the war, but, the Dutch resistance also used caves in the area during the war for hiding Jews (and themselves). It’s a really extensive area of caves!

We also went to some outdoor attractions mainly “rodelbaan”, which, I guess you’d call a kind of tobogganing? Super fun for the kids. You can actually get up a fair bit of speed on it. Didn’t see anyone massively crash off. And extremely affordable (just a few euro for a couple of turns)

Valkenburg was one of the places badly hit in the 2021 floods. You could see the level where the waters had got to, and still see the damage in the church. I imagine something we’ll see more of as climate change continues to have its way.

This was a fun “middle-ages” festival we went to. Lots of people dressed up in medieval gear, archery, pagentry, music.

Kids had a great time getting to dress up as knights and hit eachother with sticks. Lots of fun! The guy running the kids part was apparently hilarious, but, my Dutch wasn’t quite up to it.

I did feel a little sorry for both of the falconers. Their birds just… didn’t come back! They thought it was something to do with the fact that the grassy area was in a bit of a hollow and they don’t like that. They took out fancy radar equipment and went off to find them. Hope they did!

I really enjoyed the weaponry & horse riding/jousting demonstration. Those people had serious skills. The lady who smashed off metal heads and obliterated watermelons was especially cool.

Anna noticed that one of the owls they had there was a Rūrū (the native New Zealand owl). Good spotting.

And then it was on to the last day of the biking trip. Anna had her first prince biscuit (these were a staple when I was a kid and we went touring on the continent).

We stopped for a coffee (and ice-cream) en route and there was a curious lack of wasps. They had these things hanging up around the place (usually puffed up a bit better)

Curious things – they work by making the same shape as a wasps nest. When the queens are out scouting about for a place to setup a new home in the spring, they see this shape and just go “well, I guess I’ll find another place” and scoot off. Seemed to work really really well!. It’s called the waspinator if you’re interested.

We headed on past a nice old city called Kessel. Has a massive old castle which overlooks the Maas. Turned into a restaurant but I think maybe it’s not in use at the moment? Probably will get taken up by the state.

Finally we arrived at the campsite. Kids were knackered. Parents were knackered. The pool was welcome.

And then a short hop for Maaike, Anna & I back to Oma en Opa. It was a wonderful trip, would happily do another. It’s such a nice thing to do with the kids, everyone gets exercise, get to look about a bit, the cycleways are excellent. Just fantastic.

I know I’ve recommended it before, but, I cannot recommend highly enough the use of openstreetmap data when travelling (esp by bike/hiking). It’s way better than Google Maps. On Android I use the OSMAND+ app, on iPhone I think it’s maps.me.

Leaving the campsite we headed further south towards Baarlo

We had a river crossing (the Maas) which was very novel – at least for Anna. They have these pontoons which are basically fixed in place and pivot (on chains) around a fixed point. Works very well.

We had our first (and only) puncture of the trip. Sjoerd managed to lose the valve in the long grass. Maaike, Sjoerd and I searched for about 10 minutes, called Ande over and she found it in about 5 seconds. Amazing.

We met up with Maaike’s Aunt & cousins in Venlo and had delicious ice-creams at Ijsco Fantastico. Well named. My only issue with this is that we only let the kids have single scoops, which means I also only get a single scoop. Disaster, but, probably better for my blood-sugar levels. Hey ho.

We stayed at a nice old B&B. They also brought out ice-creams for the kids. Amazing. And dug out an old pool and filled it up – very kind (it’s been super hot in Europe)

We were given a delicious breakfast before leaving. Very welcome. We also visited the chickens. I dunno whether it was just old or what, but, this chicken sounded like it was being slowly strangled to death every time it crowed. Maybe it was a rooster. I dunno, I’m a city-boy ;) either which way it was the oddest sounding chicken/rooster I’ve ever heard.

Then it was down the road to Leukemeer where we didn’t go to the resort but did have a nice time at the beach. Swimming was done – which was great as it was a pretty warm day.

After lunch we headed on down to camping at Arcen.

It was a basic campsite (Maaike had done well to find one at all in the area). It was a hot day though, and the cabins had zero A/C so it was a pretty warm night. Sprinkler was setup again for cooling down.