Goedenavond!

Windermere - London - Harwich - Hoek van Holland - Amsterdam

The last couple of days feel like they've gone at warp speed! One minute I was peacefully enjoying a few days in the Lakes District, and now I'm in a hotel in Slotermeer Amsterdam, having crossed the North Sea by ferry overnight. I've always wanted to sail on the North Sea, however it didn't live up to its reputation of wild weather.

Monday morning dawned grey in Bowness on Windermere, with a heavy rain that was pleasant to sleep to sounds of, pleasant all the way up until it was time to check out of the Dene House bed and breakfast and wander down to the pier to wait for a bus. I'd had showers and drizzle each day in Windermere, but they'd been light and sporadic, and nothing much to worry about.

I bought an umbrella my second day in Windermere from the Booths supermarket next to the railway station (built on the site of the original Windermere railway station train shed, and built in the same style and profile to match the look and nod to the heritage. The site became available when the line was truncated in 1986.) only because I happened to be passing. The umbrella itself, as I'm sure you're eager to know, folds up very small, and rather than opt for a boring black one, I naturally went for one emblazoned with outlines of cats all over it. Still have ambitions for crazy cat lady.

The umbrella didn't get much use that day, and it was the Monday morning as I set off from the b&b for the walk to the bus stop that saw it unfolded into action. Of course, the problem with umbrellas that fold up very small is they tend to be somewhat small even when unfolded. It didn't stand a chance, and neither did I. Foolishly, having been lulled by the soft gentle sun showers of the days previous, I hadn't even put on my raincoat. Within two minutes, I was comprehensively wet. On reaching the bus stop, I was dismayed to realise that bus services in a holiday town like Bowness on Windermere run three times as often on weekends as they do on weekdays. Having enjoyed two weekend days of regular bus services, it was a shock to see the next bus to the station was 50 minutes away (despite still being popular with tourists during the week, the weekday schedule is one bus per hour).

Deciding this was no time to be frugal, I quickly propelled my luggage and I down the narrow footpath, streaming with water, to the ferry pier where I hoped to hail a taxi. Sure enough a taxi pulled in, and disgorged a couple of Japanese tourists undaunted by the weather and heading for the lake cruise ticket office. I gladly took the vacant taxi, and was happy to pay the £6 fare to the station to avoid fifty minutes in the rain!

So far, things were mostly going to plan. The plan, as it was, had been formulated that morning over breakfast when I was pondering places I hadn't been to in the UK but would like to see before I left. Having decided Oxford was one of those places, I booked a hotel room not far from the station, and planned the rail journey that would take me there. The rail journey would require three changes and four trains, and would cost a local £93 if they bought the ticket on the day of travel.

I have been extraordinarily privileged to have a BritRail pass that lets me go anywhere, anytime, on any train company, by any route. Train travel is considerably more expensive in the UK than in Europe or Australia, and buying tickets on the day of travel is the worst possible way to do it - the fare system is much like we are used to with airfares, the longer out you can book it, the better discount you will get. Purchase on the day and you're essentially handing your wallet over, whilst held upside down. I, on the other hand, am whizzing to and fro at a whim, thanks to the 22 day pass that overseas travellers can buy before leaving their home country. It cost a fair whack at $871 Australian dollars, but I have long since saved double what I would have paid buying tickets here.

With the expense however comes great service. 23 different train companies operate in the UK, on a network of track and stations managed by Network Rail. Network Rail is a government authority, though with interesting legal status about ownership, worth a read of Wikipedia if you're interested. Network Rail and the train operating companies coexist on the National Rail network, and it seems to be a system that works well. The system appears to be maintained very well, and the train operating companies, ranging from small to large offer levels of service I have never seen in Australia. There are two "big" train operating companies that compete for north south services, East Coast rail run services from London (Kings Cross) to Scotland on the east coast mainline, while Virgin Trains run London to Scotland services on the west coast mainline (with fancy Pendolino tilting trains). Other smaller operators are found in particular local areas and regions, for example ScotRail in Scotland, Abellio Greater Anglia in the east of England.

Returning to the wet and cold platform at Windermere on a damp Monday morning, my satisfaction with the railways was about to take a sudden down turn. Another thing National Rail do well is their iOS app. Watching on the app, I was able to see service disruption alerts start to cascade, and train cancellations start to spread. Turned out the wet weather had brought down a tree on the overhead electric line between Penrith and Carlisle. Penrith was a little to the north of Windermere and it's junction at Oxenholme, and I was heading south, so initially I naively thought I'd be fine. However the north bound trains couldn't get south, and the flow on effects of having the west coast mainline shut down began to filter into a much wider area. Communication to passengers was pretty woeful, no announcements on the platform, the displays still had the train running as normal to Lancaster when the app said it would terminate at Oxenholme. People arriving at the station having heard radio reports, and geeks like me with the app were better informed than the station staff it seemed. This carried on to the on train staff, when it arrived, as the conductor announced shortly into the trip that he had just been told the train would terminate. The app had said it would half an hour before his announcement!

With the cancellations spreading, like some sort of viral outbreak, I realised the odds of making my hotel booking in Oxford were shrinking. I rang the hotel, and the kind receptionist ignored their stern cancellation policy and cancelled the booking for me. This was a relief as I wouldn't have to pay £85 on a hotel room I probably wouldn't reach. (In the end, I probably could have made it to Oxford, by going to London and then catching a bus, but it was a big relief not to have to stress about it). Stress removed, I decided to just sit back and see what happened.

Once our train arrived in Oxenholme, where we had been told buses would be arranged, I made a fairly mad dash from platform 2 to platform 1 via the pedestrian subway. My aim was the station bathrooms to answer an urgent call of nature that had been pressing for some time! Arriving at the top of the ramp though, I was confronted by a overly helpful railway staffer (there are staff everywhere here) who wanted to know where in was going, as no trains would be leaving from platform 1 for the foreseeable future. He was somewhat taken aback by my intended destination of 'bathroom', before advising that the last south bound train for the day was about to arrive on platform 2. (It had managed to get through the disruption area very slowly, before they shut down the line entirely for overhead repair.) it was the 8:30am service, arriving at 11:30, so only a minor delay. Arrival was expected in any minute. I asked if I had time to visit the bathroom, to be greeted with a rueful shrug, "You decide!" he said...

I abandoned the plan, and zoomed back to platform 2, whizzing big heavy bag down and up the ramps, and wishing its wheels would go straight when it was pointing straight. Sure enough, a Virgin Pendolino pulled slowly in, headed for London Euston. I jumped on, managed to find a spot for big heavy bag, and a seat for me. It was pretty busy, with seats becoming quite rare. If I'd known better, I should have been standing at the front end of the train, as when they get packed, the conductor will 'declassify' the train, meaning standard ticket holders can then find a seat in the first class cars. That must really annoy the first class ticket holders who pay an absolute fortune for their tickets on an already expensive system.

Thinking I'm pretty comfy where I am, may as well take this train through to London. To get to Oxford, I'd have to change at Preston for a service to Wolverhampton, which was still showing as cancelled in the national rail app. More surprises in store however, when we were told, shortly before arriving into Preston, that the train would terminate at Preston. No reason given, though as another passenger who had got on at Oxenholme said, "knew it was too good to be true!" However Preston wasn't too bad, as we were able to cross the platform to another Virgin London Euston train, which had not been cancelled as was departing shortly. This train was packed... I had to push not so politely through two carriages before I found a luggage rack that wasn't chockers, and once BHB was stowed, had to hunt for a seat, in a carriage where people were vainly hoping to retain two seats for themselves by placing belongings on the empty seat next to them. Found a seat when one guy decided he could deign to move his orange juice bottle.

By now I'd pretty much settled on London as a destination, anything else looked too chancy. Arrived into London Euston about three hours after leaving Windermere. Euston is an unlovable station. No charm to it, grimy, windy. Managed to book into the Penn Club again, though they only had a room for one night, were fully booked the following night. That made making plans for moving on a might easier, other wise I'd been pondering another few days in London. Bags shucked, I found I had a lot more energy this time around in London than I did when I first arrived, so decided it was time for a good walk. Left Russell square and made my way via Piccadilly Circus through to Hyde park and following that on into Paddington. Took a good two and a half hours, but Hyde park was excellent and something I'd been wanting to see since reading about the serpentine lake in one of Bill Bryson's novels.

After a comfortable night in the Penn Club, this time on the first floor instead of the fourth, with a huge big window to look out of, I began the process of deciding where next. I kind of took the day before's happenings as a sign Oxford wasn't really worth going to. I decided instead to search the inventory of the brain as to things I thought I might do while I was over here, of which visit Amsterdam in the Netherlands was one, given my paternal family is of Dutch background ( ). My grandparents moved to Australia from the Netherlands after the Second World War, following some time in Indonesia, and my grandfather worked on both the snowy and kiewa hydro electric schemes in Australia.

Combining that with the desire to continue messing about in boats, a ferry was the obvious solution! For £96 I booked a private cabin, with window, on Tuesday night's sailing from Harwich to Hoek van Holland. With a day to kill, I took my time getting to London's Liverpool station, and then took a scenic ride through to Norwich to have a look around. Wandered by one of the canals (or Broads) for a bit, before heading back to the junction at Manningtree and taking a local train to the Harwich International Terminal. Being early to things is a bit of a habit. But arriving five hours early at the ferry terminal was rather a mistake. Ferry terminals I seem to find, are boring places. Acres of linoleum, mega watts of fluorescent lights, faded and unstaffed tourism counters, and a cafe with the shutters down were all that greeted me at Harwich International.

Abandoning the terminal fairly quickly I took the next train to Harwich town. Nothing there. Small, dim, dreary and almost morbid town, the fish and chip shop (First Plaice) showed the only sign of life. Back on the train, this time back past the terminal to the junction town of Manningtree. I walked two kilometres into the town centre, to find not much. Bought a box of tissues from the supermarket (tissues seem to be a rarity in the UK, the tissue boxes are half the size of the ones we buy in Australia, and I paid the equivalent of $7 Australian for a twin pack that would just be coming close to the size of a normal box back home.) and then walked the 2kmback to the station. Not much gained other than a sore shoulder from pushing big heavy bag around so much. All this gallivanting did what it was supposed to though, and killed enough hours so that I was back at the terminal with an hour wait until checkin.

The ferry sails at 23:15, but you can board from 20:30, to either go straight to sleep in your cabin or enjoy what's on offer aboard. I had a dinner of cold poached salmon with pickled cucumber and potatoes in the restaurant, while slowly getting my head around the new currency of euros! I had booked on huge website for Stena line a 'private' cabin, which I took to be just myself. So I was a bit surprised to get one of the five berth cabins with a big window, but it was mine alone for the night, so so much the better! I couldn't really sleep until the ferry began to move, and seeing the blinking channel lights of the North Sea was fantastic. A lot of them have their own names, and blink at different intervals so can be read like street signs of highways for vessels sailing across and through. Alas no big waves, just some gentle roll in the wee hours, no pitching motion felt at all.

The ferry, Stena Hollandica, is quite new and the condition was excellent, which was good news when reading about some North Sea ferry services. Arrived into Hoek van Holland at about 07:30, and was on a train shortly thereafter. Nice to get a second stamp in my passport after getting the first at Heathrow when I first arrived. Fairly casual process though, a few questions about the purpose of your visit, where you're staying. No need to see return ticket, or travel docs or anything other than the passport. Not complaining!

Early checkin was excellent news at the blue square best western hotel. Had a nap, and then have pooled about the city on the trams. I was able to buy from the tourist office an all day tram ticket for €7.50, which despite being paper, has the RFID chip in it like our myki cards. Just goes to show how crazy Victoria was to give up on the short term ticket option, this paper one works fine tapping on and off the trams, though the Dutch call it checking in and checking out, and the reading gives you a cheery tot ziens goodbye on checking out! The trams have separate entry doors and exit doors, the two entry doors are watched by the driver and the, wait for it, conductor, who check that people check on and the reader gives a green light. The conductors also sell tickets and dispense travel advice - what a novel idea!

Three nights here in Amsterdam, then back to the UK somehow, haven't decided yet. Pondering either the Eurostar or a day ferry sailing.