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A few weeks ago, we took our (now traditional) Texel vacation. We had booked a bit earlier in the season (in hopes of getting better/good weather) and we had a bigger chalet than previous years — mostly because my mother-in-law (who insists to pay for it) wanted to have a bigger shower. She and my sister-in-law go one week before us, so they stay there two weeks and we join them for the last week.

The ferry service to Texel has two boats. It takes about 20 minutes to cross, and with 5 minutes loading and unloading, they can manage to make a full round-trip every hour. So on busy days, when they use both, there is a ship leaving either end every 30 minutes. However, the largest of the two had engine trouble, so it was not in service — which meant a vastly reduced capacity, on one of the busiest days. Which meant it took us about four hours to get to the other side.

We tried to keep our spirits up, but that got harder as it took longer and longer. We were so, so tired when we arrived — luckily our beds had already been made and dinner was ready for us!

Things did not go well for long, as my sister-in-law tested positive for COVID-19. She was coughing a lot, but did not suffer a lot of other symptoms, which was lucky. But it did restrict our activities a bit. We compensated by getting take-out from a few restaurants, and we decided we actually kinda liked it: good food and it’s more relaxed than sitting in a restaurant the whole evening. (We kept doing self-tests all through the week, but all of ours came up negative, too.)

Ever since we went to Texel, we tried to get a ride on a horse-drawn carriage that would go to the Slufter, a nature preserve where the sea is allowed to come through a gap in the dunes, creating tidal flats. But we never got around it: either it was full, or it was raining too hard, or there were too few participants… But this year we managed (though my sister-in-law could not join us…)

We went to the designated bus stop and there it was!

We were seated towards the front of the carriage. Klik and her mother were on the second bench from the front, I was right behind them. It was kinda rainy and windy, so the plastic covers had been zipped up. That limited the view to the side, so it was good we could look out the front. The driver talked a lot and pointed out all kinds of interesting stuff along the way, which was very entertaining.

The route took us to the Slufter, and because the tide had been especially high, the horses had to draw the carriage partially through the water. At the edge of the beach, the carriage was parked and we got tea and coffee. We were free to look around and stretch our legs for a bit, but of course we couldn’t do any serious exploring.

Those Belgian draft horses are big. On the left is Nel, who is a bit younger and who needed a bit of careful coaching from the driver to keep up the work! On the right is Lies, who is more experienced and who dragged Nel with her at times — which annoyed her a bit. “Lies” and “Nel” are quite old-fashioned Dutch women’s names, I like that.

Apparently the stable has a side-business making some kind of flavoured rum, and of course they gave people a taste and made sure to tell them where they could get it…

Apart from all of the troubles, it was once again a good vacation. We’ve already made the reservations for next year.

On the Friday we would leave, the second ship wasn’t running either, so we left at the moment the camping gates opened — very early, but we didn’t want to take any chances. We got on the boat right away, so that went well. This also meant we were home a lot earlier than we would usually be, but that was not a problem at all: we could get our kitties from their ‘hotel’ one day earlier!

Crossposted from my blog. Comment here or at the original post.