Dear friends accompanied us, starting from Zwolle, where they arrived on Saturday the 25th of August. They came from Steenwijk, where they had strategically positioned their car. This, of course, gives away our eventual destination… Anyhow, these circumstances caused us to be a week overdue. So we’ll not write too much – simply catch up. We left Zwolle on Monday at 11:47AM and moored at Hasselt some two hours later. No pictures about pretty Hasselt. In case you’re disappointed: we showed pictures about this gem of a place last year extensively (week 30).

On Tuesday we left at 11:25AM and reached the next touristic hotspot in this area, being Giethoorn, where we again moored some two hours later.

This is what Giethoorn looks like, even on a Tuesday-afternoon at the end of August. It’s (still) crowded and peaceful at the same time.

When we had a few drinks two of us choose for ice-tea – one green tea, the other peach flavoured. There’s a wasp-plague going on (they are curious but harmless when left alone) and the empty ice-tea bottles turned out to be very effective wasp-traps. After entering the bottle they are unable to leave – which does not advocate for their intelligence.

The next little town, worth a visit, was Blokzijl. We started the engine around 10:30AM on Wednesday and switched off again around two hours later. As we have presented a picture of our mooring-spot before (week 22, 2017) we offer you the view to the west side of Blokzijl’s harbour on the 30th of August at sunrise, 7:15AM.

Entertaining visitors is a job not to think too easy-going about! Therefore we left conscientiously on Thursday when it was almost 8:00AM. The choice this time was Ossenzijl , more specifically De Weerribben, part of Nationaal Park Weerribben-Wieden (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weerribben-Wieden_National_Park). We looked again in amazement when passing the waterways between Blok- and Ossenzijl and arrived around 1:45PM.

The view from our ship, when moored at Ossenzijl. Is this 100% Dutch or what? (Find the cow.)

The four of us had a 1½ hours exciting cruise within De Weerribben. We made a load of pictures and decided to offer you this one because of its alleged artistry. (Haha.)

On Friday we said goodbye to Ossenzijl around 10:30AM. Destination: Steenwijk, thus making it easy for our friends to pick up the car and travel home on Saturday after a most enjoyable week. We reached Steenwijk at 2:15PM, some delay included because of the lunch-break of a bridge-keeper. When we passed, at 1:00PM, the man turned our to be a genuine curmudgeon. Cheer up man!, it’s better for yourself and for us at the same time. Is that so difficult to understand?? (Maybe his wife had just told him that in reality she had always hated him, who can tell?) One of us was offered a lift by our friends to the very centre of the country, to be part of a big party on Saturday-night, combined with picking up the next visitor (a sister (in law)) on the following Sunday. Because of all the fuzz we forgot to make a picture of Steenwijk’s harbour with our ship inside. Instead we offer you one that we borrowed from the site of Steenwijk’s Rotary Club. Needless to say, with our sincere thanks! We were positioned on the left in the far back of the harbour. © Rotaryclub Steenwijk. Tomorrow yet a blog about week 36, the last one. At least, that’s the plan. Bye bye.