Ed took us into IJmuiden via the dockyards where a mass of different ships were in harbour, loading and unloading. We drove past a huge concrete bunker where German U-boats were housed during World War II. After the war, apparently, the local harbour board tried to demolish the bunker, but seven metres of concrete resisted their every effort, so the interior was stripped and converted into factories, which are all hidden within.
We said goodbye to Ed and caught a bus into the rail station on the outskirts of the city, then a train into the central station. We had a long wait at the tourist info centre to find out about connections over to England, and because it was going to be quite expensive, we decided to take a night ferry rather than stay another night.
We left our packs in a left luggage locker and walked over the old part of town where we lunched on spaghetti bolognese in a small, quiet cafe. With nothing better to do we decided to visit a sex museum. We spent about half and hour there viewing exhibits of pornography through the ages and various displays of sex aids, erotic art and literature and pornographic videos.
From the museum, we made our way back to the station to wait for the train, which left on time, and rolled out of Amsterdam and into the immaculately cultivated countryside of Holland. The evening air was cool and hazy. The sun was an orange ball hanging above a horizon, which consisted of trees, chimneys, and the occasional church spire. Darkness fell as we crossed the border into Belgium, the Dutch architecture giving way to the slightly more gothic-looking Flemish style.
At Ostend, we had a wait of one hour before we were taken by bus out to the waiting ship. We boarded and found seats where we could lie down on the floor. We spread out our sleeping bags and were asleep before the engines even began to throb down in the depths of the ship as we nosed out of Ostend harbour into the darkened North Sea.
CurseOfTheTraveller 