Varel

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It’s time to start moving west again and find a route to Amsterdam. Because school holidays have started we have to be careful we don’t end up in a holiday area with no accommodation. The ferry across the Weser river was only 10 minutes from our apartment but it had just left before we got there so we had to wait for half an hour. So chilly this morning I put Sox on
Blexen. Now we head south to Nordenham
This would have been a sea side village before the dyke was built
Nordenham was long and narrow and was really hard to find our way out of on the route to Moorsee

I’ve picked Varel as a good place to stay the night. It’s less than 50km away and gives us options tomorrow on which route we should take to Amsterdam

Not much at Moorsee but at least they had a Volksbank “hold ‘‘em up, this is a stickup!”
From the Weser to Holland it’s all flat and always has lots of wind. This is one of many windmills, some still in operating order.
Unfortunately for us ,that wind today is blowing hard straight at us
That farmer has just emptied his poop cart on the paddock beside us and the smell is overpowering! (I was about to mention that we take turns in front to break wind but that seems inappropriate now)
Seefeld mill and coffee shop. This one can still mill flour but just for tourists nowadays
When the lady mentioned that the flour for this cake was milled here and the blueberries were from her garden ,it seemed ungracious not to try it
The big wheel is on the main shaft from the top , it’s over 4metres in diameter, and it drives 2 minor shafts like the one on the left which are attached to the spinning millstone. ALL GEARS ARE WOOD and in this case have worked since 1856
The wheat falls into two hoppers like this and down between the rotating millstones
And on the next floor down the ground wheat (flour ) is bagged ready for sale
Here’s an old stone that has broken

One minute it’s nice and sunny, albeit still windy, then the next it started raining heavily. We waited under a tree until it subsided then rushed for a cafe for a nice cup of tea.

Déjà vous ! We realised that this was the very cafe that 5years ago on our way back to Holland, we had that memorably bad raw fish meal. The same grizzly woman served us as well. ! I was to chicken to photograph her .

10km on at Varel they never got any of the rain. We are in a Thai hotel tonight . Different but nice

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Published by Wallis Don

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