Amsterdam to London, via Hoek van Holland and Harwich.

After a pleasant stay at the blue square hotel in Slotermeer, Amsterdam, it was time to head back to the UK. I had been pondering different options to cross back over the North Sea, mainly between taking the Eurostar train from Brussels through the channel tunnel, or taking a ferry back across. Flying wasn't really an option, as despite the budget fare advertisements you see everywhere, the short notice booking is always insanely expensive. Add to that the impending 26 hour plane journey that is coming up all too quickly, I was happy to stay on the ground. Well, under the ground or across the water in effect!

Checking the prices on Thursday, the ferry was approx €60, compared to £108 for the Thalys and Eurostar service from Amsterdam to Brussels to London St Pancras. Had I a firm wish to take the train, I should have booked it there and then, as when I looked the next day, the "cheap" fare had disappeared, and the cheapest option was £222 pounds! So the ferry it was! Having done a night sailing on the way over, I was keen to do a day sailing in return, and the gods of timetables granted my wish. The Saturday sailing departed Holland at 2:30pm, a very civilised time indeed!

This gave plenty of time on Saturday morning to pack, check out of the hotel mosey into town on a tram (purchased a one hour tram ticket from the conductor in the tram for €2.80. The conductors have little booths towards the rear of the tram, which don't take up a lot of space, and seems like a very sensible idea!) to arrive at Amsterdam Central station. The automated ticket machine didn't like my Visa card, though in hindsight I may have been missing the Dutch message to 'enter your pin'. Ticket acquired from the ticket office, I was shortly on one of the Dutch intercity double decker trains. Sadly these trains are not as well equipped for long journeys as those in England, and have neither luggage space nor toilets. I ended up having to block one seat with my big heavy bag, which was unfortunate given the train turned out to be quite busy, as it was an Amsterdam to Rotterdam service via Schiphol airport. Changing at Schiedam for a local train, known as a sprinter but very unlike ours, it was another twenty minutes to the 'haven', the local name for the ferry terminal.

Much better timing this departure, I was able to check in and board the ferry straight away. Acquired another stamp in the passport too! The security officer on the passport desk was far grumpier than his counterpart on my entry into the Netherlands, but there wasn't much he could grump about as I was on my way out. On a day sailing, you can book just a ticket, for €40, and sit in the common areas of the ferry for the six hour crossing, however the cabins are available at 50% of their nightly cost (on a night sailing a cabin booking is compulsory) so I was able to book an outside single cabin for €20. This was worth every cent, as it gave somewhere private and secure to store your luggage, a bed to have a nap on, a shower if so desired, and powerpoints for charging of technological devices. Although I spent quite a bit of time in the lounge area (only spot you could look forward from) and on the outside decks, it was great having a nap and your baggage locked away.

The day sailing was epic, although again I was cursed with good weather and flat seas. I seem to luck out with good weather any time I do take a ferry, which is disappointing as I quite like a heavy swell, with some decent pitching and rolling motion! There's a quote I can't remember the origin of, however it goes along the lines of 'when the gods want to punish us, they give us exactly what we ask for', so perhaps I'm better off without the stormy seas, hard to say.

The good weather did mean some enjoyable scenery as we sailed across the North Sea, and an interesting change in colour of water from the brackish brown of Hoek van Holland, that extended a long way out before gradually changing to a lightish green. There were a lot of ships about in the North Sea, at one point I could see five silhouetted against the horizon to the south. We slowly passed to the north one of the wind farms, a vast forest of wind turbines growing from the waves, in apparently quite deep water. An interesting engineering spectacle. The iPhone takes a very nice photo when pointed directly into the sun, something my point and shoot canon certainly doesn't, however the wide angle and lack of zoom makes it impossible to catch some of the distant sights that could be seen as we sailed across. Not for the first time I found myself wishing I had brought my Pentax dslr, however overall am glad I haven't had the weight of it for the few times it would have been perfect.

The ferry takes both euros and pounds, so was an excellent time to spend the remaining euros I had left, rather than end up with a useless collection when back in the UK. the shop on board however wasn't all that spectacular, with some crummy souvenirs, and a small range of duty free products that weren't inspiring. I'd have quite liked to buy a model of the ferry we were sailing on, but the only one they had was appallingly rubbish.

I could happily have spent all day on the ferry, was quite happy reading my boom and watching the world drift past, but alas a six hour crossing is over too soon. Back into the land of sandwiches and mobile internet! Using my mobile internet (my relief at having it again is perhaps somewhat cause for concern) I was able to tell that the inviting train idling in the platform next to the ferry terminal was not the best option to get back to London, despite being a through service with no changes. Using the national rail app, I found an earlier train departing for a different platform, which ran back to the junction station at Manningtree, from which I could get an earlier London service coming from Norwich, the advantage being the Norwich-London service was a bigger, long distance train with comfiest seats and a kiosk. The kiosk was all important as I bought (yet another) sandwich for a late dinner as I headed back down to London.

The land of sandwiches is not an exaggeration. Sandwiches seem to be ubiquitous here. There are bakery chains like we have fast food restaurants, with promises of freshness, "we never sell you yesterday's sandwiches" "made in store today, sold today", there are multiple chains that compete against each other, the result being you have great choice of sandwiches, and at very reasonable pricing. Buying a packaged sandwich in Australia is a bit of a hit and miss affair. Say from a service station, you would pay $6-7 for something that may have sat there for a couple of days, with a use by of another couple of days and where the bread and fillings would be mediocre at best. In the UK bakery chains you can reliably expect a basic fresh sandwich for £1.50-2.00, or a fancy one from £2.50-3.00. This penchant for sandwiches extends beyond the bakeries too, every single supermarket I have been into will have a sandwich section, from the small express style supermarkets to the big ones. They will often offer a £3 deal including a sandwich and a drink. Likewise, even on the trains with kiosks, one can expect decent sandwiches, if at a slightly higher than supermarket price. Reliable sandwich supply has been quite helpful when traipsing about from one end of the country to the other!

Arriving back into London at 10pm-ish, it was another underground trip across town to Shepherds Bush, where I'd booked a private room in a hostel. The price was quite terrible for a basic room, and as I enter the last week of the trip, I'm thinking about the budget quite a lot more. Mentally converting to Australian dollars, the realisation I'd paid $170 for this basic room was a tad annoying. I'd had a vague inkling that to conserve expenditure, I'd spend the last week in hostels, perhaps doing day trips by train. However London is not the place to stay if counting the pennies, even the hostel dorm rooms are approx $50 Australian per night, and sharing with up to nine others isn't exactly relaxing. So deciding to leave London behind again, I am off to Great Yarmouth in Norfolk for a couple of nights, with a vague inkling that following I might come back south and visit Brighton or Penzance before returning to Heathrow on the 17th for the journey home.