Drielandenpunt

What do you do when you live in Limburg and have a friend visiting from the UK? Primarily drink lots of beer, but after that you take them to the Drielandenpunt (three lands point), the point where the  Netherlands, Belgium and Germany all converge. Who wouldn't want to be able to say they've been in 3 countries in one day?!
So that's exactly what we did the with the lovely Sam today.

At the Drielandedpunt there are several restaurants and food vendors, two viewing towers, a maze and, coincidentally, the highest point in the Netherlands.
First up we did the maze, which was supposed to take us around 30 - 45 minutes to solve. We decided to make a race of it, Sam went one way, Alex (Arjan's dad) went another and Arjan and I went together down the third route.
We walked that maze to and fro for a good long while, it was very tricky! There were a lot of twists and turns, evil water traps and three bridges that rose up above the maze just to tantalize you with how close you were to the centre.
Arjan and I made it to the middle first after nearly giving up from hunger and bladder fullness, then came Sam, and after no sign of Alex for a while we made our way out to the exit and gave him a call.
We then stopped for a quick refreshing beer before walking the 100m to the actual crossing point.

These passages had little fountains that were triggered by motion sensors, you had to run through before they went off again! 

The pavilion in the centre

Silly mirrors

Congratulations! You found the middle...

Sam was a little jealous that we got there first

"I've got one foot in Germany, one foot in Belgium and my balls in Holland!"

The little green lines in the ground show the borders, left is Germany, Netherlands in the middle, then Belgium on the right 

A quick stroll into Germany

The highest point in the Netherlands....

It was a really fun day out and we got a lot of exercise! If you're ever in the area I would recommend a visit, we never made it up a viewing tower, but the view from the road was beautiful as well.

Summer Loving: Part 2

After all the excitement in York and Wales with my family, it was time to head south to Chichester for our second wedding of the summer. This time it was our lovely friends, George and Leah, from Brighton tying the knot.
It was incredibly hot that day, Chichester is a beautiful city and it was heaving with people out enjoying the rare British sunshine. We made our way to the hotel and freshened up before leaving for the venue.

The wedding was absolutely beautiful. It was wonderful to see old friends and it was a pleasure to do it at such a lovely place on such a brilliant occasion.
I remembered to charge my batteries this time, so here's a few pictures from the big day.

Leah was so beautiful in her dress, there were buttons running all the way down the back. 

Ice-cream van?! Uh yes please!

Arjan and Sam, the Best Man

Pimms by the jug during cocktail hour!

Somebody's a happy boy

George is a graphic designer and created all the invites etc himself, it looked amazing! 

They had a polaroid guest book! How cool is that?!

The dinner hall.

Sorry guys, we had to steal this polaroid, it's the only one of us two where Arjan isn't pulling a face!

After dinner the evening guests came as well and they had a brilliant band doing awesome covers of hits through the ages. I was too busy dancing to take any pictures.

The next day Arjan and I had a walk around Chichester and got to see what a wonderful little city it is. There are beautiful parks, an amazing cathedral and lots of little alleyways and nooks to explore, we had a really nice day and it was good to be able to relax before our flight back to the Netherlands the next day.

What the city looked like 914 years ago

What the city looks like now, that is the same hill that the fort stood upon 

Bishop's Palace Gardens for a sunset stroll

The Cathedral

So here's to Leah and George, I wish you a life together full of laughter and love.

Yorkshire Wildlife Park

Back in March I went home to celebrate my mums birthday, we visited the Yorkshire Wildlife Park and had a great day out, but when I got home I saw that all of my pictures had somehow disappeared! I was so annoyed, it is a brilliant place where you can walk among a lot of the animals in large enclosures and I'd gotten some really beautiful pictures. So when my mum suggested we take Arjan for a trip while we were there for my birthday I instantly said yes.

It was roasting hot on the day we went, which made a change from the biting wind that was present for our last visit, and most of the animals were out sunning themselves.
My mum, Arjan and I had a great time, we wandered around, stopped for a bit of lunch and had a fun day together.

Meerkats

Lion yaaaawn

Simba

Wallabies!

The ring-tailed lemurs had two new babies, they were so playful and energetic

This picture had no zoom at all, this guy was right next to me

This little burrowing owl was giving us the stink-eye

Raccoon dogs, oddly not related to raccoons at all

This squirrel monkey was sleeping in the most uncomfortable position

They had a Pringles tube filled with crickets to play with, some of them were getting really frustrated that they couldn't get them out easily!

These are Maru or Patagonian hares, there were loads of babies 

Baby camel peeking over!

Hot tigers take baths

If you are ever in the area, I strongly suggest you have a visit. Tickets aren't too expensive if you buy them in advance online and it's lovely outing for people of all ages.