The steam tram from Hoorn to Medemblik is run nearly completely by volunteers. They travel through the dutch country side and show you polders as they are.

Flowerfields are a common sight in Holland. These fields were begonias. The more common sight is with the flowerbulb farmers. In springtime they have rows and rows of colourful flowers which sure are a georgeous sight, and often smell too

All the carriages are restored by volunteers. The trip is managed by half the people they have on staff. There are appoximately 200 volunteers and about 5 permanent staff members. They transport over 1 million passengers in tourist season. This photo gives the view we had of the "restauratie wagen" the carriage where you could purchase beverages.

As we have mentioned in our diaries, the weather was kinda bad on our trip. We didn't see sun for a few weeks. This is not uncommon in holland. This picture really shows the weather we had most of the time.

This is such a dutch scene, I didn't want to keep it from you

Noord-Holland, one of the provinces of the Netherlands, and coincidentely the one I grew up in has a lot of 'polders'. Every polder has a canal encircling it. The water is pumped out of the polder and into this canal, from where it is guided elsewhere. This is one of these canals. The train went right past it.

Flower mill "de Herder" (the shepperd) in Medemblik. Here I spent many saturdays. It is also the point of change-over to the boat to Enkhuizen. Interesting to note is that this windmill has been transplanted twice. The mill started out in a town called Wormer and was moved to a different location about 150 years ago. When Medemblik decided to replace the windmill which had burned down a few years prior, they purchased this windmill. It had lost its access to free wind and as with all mills had started to deteriorate. The mill was moved, bad bits of timber replaced and here it stands proudly once again. This mill is a flour mill.

The boat trip to Enkhuizen took about an hour and passed through the 'outskirts' of het ijselmeer. This used to be a sea (Zuiderzee) until the 'afsluitdijk' closed off the tides. Many vilages on the coastline still have fishing as their primary industry. Nowadays also watersports are very popular as the removal of the tides from this once-sea (water is bracken now) has made it excelent for sailing. and ofcourse tourism. This is one of the many ships we passed.

Enkhuizen is one of the fishing towns on the ijselmeer coast. It celebrates its 750 year existance this year. It used to have fortifications, and this tower is part of 'de dromedaris'. A building used to guard the harbour and town.

Enkhuizen: Part of the old town.

'De Dromedaris' as seen from town

On our day in Amsterdam we took a canalboat trip. After Venice, Amsterdam has the most extensive canal system in Europe. Unlike Venus it is not sinking :-). The waterlevel in the canals is controlled by a system of locks which wash out the water in the canals atleast once a day. The canals are used for living on and in. There are boats, dingies, house-boats everywhere, and there are a lot of bridges.

This is the oldest bridge in Amsterdam. Not sure of its date. It is called "magere brug" (Skinny bridge). It crosses the river after which Amsterdam was named: The Amstel river. Amsterdam means "dam in the Amstel river"

Houses were built on either side of the canals. The faces of the houses have many shapes and sizes. This is a photo depicting some of the different faces of the canal houses. The houses are often atleast 4 stories high, and nowadays this is often split into different apartements. The doors and stairways are narrow, which is why every house has a hook attached to the roof so large pieces of furniture can be lowered with a pully.

On te way to the efteling we stopped in a fortified town "Heusden". The town centre has been restored in its original state and is quite cute. They put up some of the cannons which were used to shoot at enemies trying to decend down the rivers into holland.

Part of the river as seen from the fortifications

Mel and Rashelle on one of the cannons

The Efteling is a fairytale themepark. It has high-speed rides and slow rides. This is one of the slow rides. Its really pretty, and unfortunately you cannot see that on this photo. The ride is called Droomvlucht (dreamflight) which takes you to fairy land with fairies, pixies, trolls and gnomes.

The original park started as a fairytale forrest. A few years ago all buildings were restored. This is one of the gnome houses, as everyone knows that gnomes live in red mushooms that have white spots.....

All of the fairytale forest has these mushrooms on the side of the path. They make music, but softly. Kids find this fascinating. I know I did as a kid, and again I saw many a child running from mushroom to mushoom... imagination is a great thing isn't it?

This is the troll king who sits there jabbering away in gibberish. Its cute and well done.

Rapunzel.. rapunzel..

This dragon is guarding a treasue chest and when the kids try to remove the crown from the chest the dragon starts to move and spew smoke. Duane was truly fascinated by this dragon....

Originality is important to the designers of de Efteling. This is Mel standing in front of a hudge treasure chest. ATMs are built into the sides of the chest so yes, you can get money out of the treasure chest.

This creature is to the Efteling what Ronald McDonald is to McDonalds. His name is "Pardoes" (Pardooz)

Rashelle after she nearly finished her full-size fairy floss