My eventful trip to the Netherlands!
A short while ago, I went away for a week to Holland, it wasn't as easy as it sounds, allow me to tell the tale...
People that know me, or follow me on social media may know that I'm half Dutch, and that I have family over in The Netherlands. I tend to go over there quite a bit, but this time was probably the best, and definitely the most eventful!
It all started on the 27th December 2019, we spent an entire day cleaning and servicing our Renault Scenic for the near-600 mile journey the following day. Many pressure washes later, we were ready for the early start the following morning.
The journey from hell...
The sun rose on the 28th, we put our cases in the big boot of our Scenic, and set off at around 7am for Dover. All was well in the mighty Renault, we've had the car for 6 years without a fault, what could possibly go wrong?
As it turned out, something did go wrong. We made it into Keele, Staffs when our car started juddering and kangarooing under any acceleration. We tried to drive up a slight hill to join another motorway but the car was just slowing down, and with the throttle fully down. This wasn't good news, but we decided to drive on a bit to work out what it was, we thought it could be a bit of water in the fuel tank from the pressure washer, but a mile or so later, a very alarming warning came up on the dash, exclaiming "STOP, engine failure hazard". Luckily, when this flashed, we were just passing a service station, so we stopped and then our car told us to check the ESP, which is the electronic stability program. We discussed our options, and came to the conclusion that it would be silly to press on with our Renault behaving like this, so we turned around, and thought of what we could do to save our holiday...
The warning message from hell...
The solution...
It was driving home we remembered that my Aunty Joanna (shoutout) has two Vauxhall Zafiras (very imaginative I know), so we decided to give her a ring to pop the question. Thankfully, she said yes! So we drove to her house and after we sorted out all of the insurance nonsense, we set off again, with an extra two seats and an extra 55bhp. The only problem being my Mum was the only one insured to drive the car abroad, so she had to do the lot!
The journey to Delden (take 2)...
One broken car, hours late for the ferry, I can tell you now nothing else went wrong. We roared down the motorway using all of our 163 horses, hoping that DFDS would be kind enough to let us on the ferry after, even with the change of registration. After what felt like years of driving, we made it to the docks in Dover. Thankfully, they let us on the ferry without further charges, so all we could do now was wait until we arrived in Calais. Many Gavin and Stacey episodes later (other comedy shows are available) the French woman with the microphone announced our arrival. We walked down to car #2 to be greeted by another message on the dash stating, "Theft attempt", we scratched our heads, and soon realised that Vauxhalls comes with many clever sensors and gimmicks which were activated by the rocking of the ferry. Very clever indeed, good mark for Vauxhall there!
We left Calais, still a bit dazzled by our eventful morning, but the Zafira managed to impress. Comparing our 1.5 litre diesel Scenic to the 1.9 litre diesel Zarira, we found the Zafira was much more of a capable car on the motorway. That extra grunt from the bigger engine definitely was appreciated and helped massively when a maniac French driver was on your tail. One thing better in the Renault however that I missed especially was the sound system, the speakers in the Vauxhall were pretty decent, but you could definitely tell the difference in sound quality...
Anyway, enough about cars, we'll save that for in a bit, lets get back to talking about the trip itself. We soon were greeted by a big sign saying 'Belgique', which made me feel a bit sick. Don't get me wrong, Belgium is a lovely country, I love it, but something I have to address is the motorway service station toilets. They are horrendous. First, you walk over to the toilets to be screamed at by a baby (probably because they were in a Nissan Juke, which is to be discussed further in this article). After the screaming, you have to root through your pockets for spare change, then make your way into the revolting toilets. I thought the toilets in the South of England were bad...
Oh well, we roared through Belgium, and drove through the Belgian/Dutch border. It was just a few hours further until we would arrive in Delden, which is where most of my Dutch family live, and where we would be staying too.
We rose the next morning, pretty shattered from the not-so pleasant 18 hour journey, but we still had a fantastic week! Here's a list of some of the things that happened, I cannot remember the order so I'll just list them, don't grill me in the comments, I beg...
Cycling to Germany
One day, me and my Dad were feeling extremely ambitious, so we set the challenge to cycle to Germany. It was only 40 kilometers away, so we set off on some Dutch bikes. We cycled past my Dad's childhood holiday house, many quaint farms, and eventually we found ourselves on the border. The only problem was finding a route over the border, we searched for around half an hour and soon found the way into car country. 'Willkommen auf Deutschland', the sign said. We peddled further into the land of the Autobahn in search for some lunch, we found a shop and formed our own 'German picnic' which consisted of loads of German salami, 'lecker'! After our ride around Germany, we started the peddle back to Delden, we clocked 80km, not bad I would say!
Fireworks!
For anybody who doesn't really know Holland, I say go at new year; the fireworks are immense! Little 5-year-olds in the street blowing up massive fireworks, a sight enough to freak any English mother (it did mine). It's great fun, and everybody is so cheerful.
Testing one of Holland's many bike highways!
Holland is undoubtedly cycling heaven, a short while ago they built various bicycle highways, I had to test one! The one I tested was called the 'F35' and I was extremely impressed. It's completely separate from any source of traffic, and for a keen cyclist like me, I loved it. It was cyclist utopia!
We did many other exciting things whilst in Holland, but they were my highlights. Holland really is a stunning country, everybody is happy, everything makes sense. I hope to go back sometime in the summer. If you would excuse me whilst I go back to cars, in Holland I saw something which confused me quite a bit, yet excited me...
Yep, these tiny cars, whatever they're called. I am one of those weird people that obsesses over Fiat Pandas, Kei cars and anything tiny, so to me this was extremely cool. Just imagine sticking a V8 into one of these...
These were't the only interesting automobiles I saw, have a look through some of these...
After nearly a week in Holland it was time to head home, stopping off in Ypres, Belgium for a few hours. I been to Ypres many times, famous for its Menin Gate, war sites, and delicious snack bars! Ypres is lovely!
Something interesting I saw on display in Ypres was the new Nissan Juke. I hated the old model, with its bug-like eyes, I really did not like it. The new one however I do like, it's a massive improvement! Well done Nissan!
The journey home...
After wondering around Ypres, we jumped into the vicious Vauxhall (desperate use of alliteration there) and we drove down to Dunkirk for the ferry home. We docked in Dover, and drove up north edging our way home. We woke up at 7am on the day, and it was 2am the next day and we were still on the go, we pulled over for some sleep to avoid a message on the dash shouting 'crash detected' and for it to call its mate OnStar. After two hours sleep, we drove on, coffee in hand, and soon pulled up on the driveway. I seem to remember my mum's sigh when we turned the engine off after the drive, sort of like a teenager when it's asked to do the dishwasher...
All in all, our trip to Holland was a near success, apart from our Renault, it was a fantastic week! Our mighty Renault is now back on the drive, with a new fuel pump. The fuel filter hadn't been replaced in all its 10 years, despite regular garage servicing and this destroyed the fuel pump. Fab. Oh well, all is well, although I'm still recovering from the tiredness a month on, just about to give the Renault a clean, actually.
All I say is, go to Holland; it's a beautiful place and is full of lovely people. Forget Mallorca or Turkey, I want to go back to Holland!
I would like to say a big thank you to my Aunty and Uncle for lending us their car, it gets my thumbs up! I would also like to say a quick well done to Vauxhall. For years I had slight doubt towards them, I never really liked them, apart from the epic Corsa VXR, but I have to say that Zafira served us extremely well, even whilst it was doing a HATEFUL 35mpg...
I suggest after you give this article a like, you book your ferries and head over to Holland now. Thank you for reading...
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Daniel Achterhuis is a 14-year-old automotive journalist for DriveTribe and presenter of 'The Piston Podcast'. Daniel has written for various newspapers, magazines, and was the youngest-accredited press at the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed. He aspires to become a full time automotive journalist in his later years. Check out Daniel's other work on 'Daniel's Tribe'...
Daniel at the 2019 FOS, inside a Toyota GT86!
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