Written by Belinda

Not wanting to travel on Friday the 13^th, I booked a cabin on the Pride of Rotterdam for Saturday 14^th November, months ago back in Australia. Hamish and I watched a few YouTube clips and were pretty excited about this prospect. However as the time drew nearer and nearer, my excitement was turning to dread. The UK was experiencing winds and rain from the West due to a storm cell (hurricane, actually). As I write this from The Netherlands, York is currently flooded and there have been reports of -6 degrees combining with the rain to cause widespread snow across The North.

Rod and I anxiously kept an eye on the weather for the crossing. However, it was unlikely we were going to amend our plans, so we stopped looking: there’s only so many things we can change in this trip and the weather is not one of them. Just before we went to bed Friday the, the news of Paris was on the internet. Needless to say I didn’t sleep very well that night with many ifs buts and questions racing through my mind. This is the only time in 7 weeks that I have felt a long, long way from home.

We set off Saturday morning for our port destination of Hull; approximately 4 hours south from Dunbar. Had a long and delicious lunch with an ex-nursing friend from Australia and after much catching up and with full stomachs we headed to the ferry.

We queued up with other vehicles and checked in – not dissimilar to getting on the Chunnel. However, this time our vehicle was randomly searched. The port officer looked in the back seat, with the mass of bags and jackets and Hamish still in his car seat who proclaimed: “Nope, nothing.” We parked on the ferry and found our room relatively easily. We unpacked and decided to check out the various forms of entertainment and shopping on the ship. Plenty of bars, two restaurants, café, shops, a kids play area and a few armoured Police just to round it off. Whilst Hamish was watching 101 Dalmations, I checked the weather again. Gale force winds (7-9 on Beaufort scale) and 4m waves expected. Great. We had a light dinner of sandwiches and headed to our cabin as the ferry departed, where we all took travel sickness tablets.

To cut a long story short, the trip was uneventful. Hamish sleep soundly, no-one was sea sick and although there seemed to be plenty of noise, it was mostly from partying passengers returning to their rooms. Don’t get me wrong though, that ferry rolled and swayed all night and now I can say I’ve done it, thankfully I don’t have to do it again.

When daylight came around, there was plenty of chop in the sea which made showering interesting, but by time we headed downstairs for breakfast we were in the smooth harboured waters of Holland and it was like the previous night had never happened.

As we exited the ferry, all drivers were breathalysed and stopped at Customs. More questions about our red number plates (thanks Drive Away Peugeot), our nationality (you’re holding our Australian Passports) and our plans. Two hours later we were safely in Almere in the home of family friends eating chocolate mousse cake and drinking the best coffee I’ve had for two months.