The south end of the beach at Hua Hin, Thailand.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Hua Hin, Thailand.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Maldives on March 23rd.

Sunday, June 27, 2021

Arrived in Netherlands... and the world's largest camping gear store!

It was only a 50 km (30 mile) drive from our RV dealer to the Netherlands border... and another 10 kms (6 miles) after that to the world's largest camping gear store.

I am calling it "the world's largest", although that has not been confirmed. But now that we've been there, we don't see how there could possibly be anything bigger! It is quite the place.

Here is our drive for the day...

76 kms (47 miles).
From right to left.

Scenery along the way.

Arrived in Netherlands.... country #44 for us!

At the border, as with most of Europe, there was no border procedure. There is simply a sign. 

In the Netherlands.

We arrived at the Obelink Camping Gear store at just before 12 noon. The store is huge, and so is the parking area. And, it was very busy. We decided to have some lunch before heading in for what we knew would be at least a couple of hours of shopping.

These are not for sale, nor is this a campground. 
These are all customers shopping in the store!

They have a big parking area for cars, and a couple more just for RV's.
You are not allowed to overnight here.

I noticed a sign on the entrance door saying that as of June 26th (yesterday) masks are no longer required inside the store.


Essentially, life is now pretty normal here in The Netherlands. Although, we kept our masks on, as did maybe 40% of other people in the store. The majority were not wearing masks, and I think they were pretty happy about that.

The store is huge. Like an Ikea, but with everything related to camping. It's hard to describe how big it is because there are sections that have up to three levels. I looked up the floor space and did the math, and it is 4.4 times the size of the average Walmart in the United States.

But although it's huge, it was also very busy. It kind of reminded us of the way shopping malls used to be the week before Christmas before online shopping arrived on the scene.

Yep.


Just a couple of random in store photos.

We were there for four items in particular... two outdoor chairs, an outdoor table, and an electrical inverter. But we knew that we would buy other things too.

The size of the chair section could have been a separate store all by itself.

Ruth, in the chair section.

We probably spent an hour shopping for chairs. Sitting in all the various styles, comparing the weight of the chairs, the different fabrics, which ones recline more than others. We ended up buying the lightest weight ones that could both recline and be used to sit at a table. We didn't want to go cheap, we wanted ones that would be comfortable and hopefully last the length of time we would own the motorhome. We ended up spending €60 ($88 CAD, $72 USD) each chair. (All prices include all taxes).

We also bought a lightweight height adjustable outdoor table that is small enough to be used as a side table, or is big enough to put a meal on. €40 ($59 CAD, $48 USD)

In the electrical section, they had a wide variety of inverters... everything except the one that I was looking for! It was a bit frustrating because we didn't need anything fancy. All I wanted was a basic 300 watt modified sine inverter with a 12 volt plug. I was certain they would have had that item, but they didn't. So now we were kind of stuck because we didn't have any way to charge the laptops over the weekend unless we went to a campground and paid for electricity. 

They were out of stock on the smallest (400 watt) modified sine model, and the next size up was 600 watts which was overkill. Having an inverter larger than your needs simply wastes electricity just by turning it on.

I ended up with a 300 watt pure sine inverter, but paid more money than I would have liked. Inverters in Europe are about 50% more expensive than North America to begin with, so shelling out €98 ($144 CAD, $117 USD) for something that was more than we wanted or needed was really frustrating.

In the lineup at the checkout.

Now to figure out where to put everything!

Besides the stuff we mentioned above, we also bought a small patio mat, three sizes of collapsible bowls, a hanging clothes drying carrousel, anti slip shelving liner, a wash bowl that fits the size of our sink, a laundry hamper, and a colander.

Spent a total of €318 ($467 CAD, $380 USD).

We had been in the store for almost three hours, and there were still areas we didn't see. But we were done. That was enough of that!

I had found a free camping area about 15 kms (9 miles) away that sounded nice. So we headed over there. It turns out it was back on the German side of the border... by less than one km! No services, just a nice grassy overnight parking spot for self contained motorhomes only.

Trying out our new chairs!

We moved to the other side to sit in the shade.
GPS 52.053945, 6.695076

There were maybe 16 rigs here last night, but we were lucky and didn't end up with anybody on either side of us.

There is a conservation area walking distance from here, and it's supposed to be a nice day so we are going to stay here a second night. 

Oh, one other thing! I know it's only based on 76 kms (47 miles) of driving, but our onboard trip computer tells us that we are getting 7.8 liters/100 kms fuel mileage. That is the equivalent of 30.2 miles per U.S. gallon! We knew Max would get good fuel mileage, but we didn't think it would be quite that good. Also, Max has that new "stop-start" technology where the engine stops as soon as you stop at a stop light, and restarts again as soon as you press the clutch pedal in. Neat stuff!

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Nice deal on this 14" Chromebook Laptop.

And in Canada...


23 comments:

  1. I remember you talking About expensive inverters in Australia as well. I am sure you remember all the inexpensive inverters you posted in the past from Amazon. I have so many I have lost count. I also have two booster packs that came with many adapters to charge almost all laptops, phones and tablets.

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    1. It certainly looks like inverters are more expensive just about everywhere compared to the USA, even Canada's prices are better than here . It is just frustrating that we had to get something that was a more that what we really needed but it is working and that is the main thing.

      Sounds like you well prepared with different power sources! :-)

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  2. That's a good deal on the HP Chromebook. I have had one for quite a while and love it. I rarely use my Dell Win10 laptop anymore.

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    1. It certainly is and that is why Kevin posted it, he only posts good deals! :-)

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  3. Welcome to the fatherland. I hope you spend some more time in the Netherlands, my country of origin, although I spent the least amount of my lifetime there…

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    1. Thank you Peter, we weren't really in there for long though. We were hoping to spend a week or so there but things have changed a little in our plans, now I am not sure if we will be headed back into the Netherlands as planned or not, if not then we will definitely be headed there again at some point.

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  4. I think it would be hard to go back to a North American built rig after having Max. You might have to bring him home with you.

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    1. This class B+ motorhome made in Canada is very close in quality to any others.
      https://youtu.be/6Zl8cjeC9AA

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    2. Yes, it would be and the hardest thing would be getting a unit that has such good fuel mileage as Max. No, we will not be bringing Max back home with us.

      Geromio, you are correct this one is a well built unit but it is also almost twice the price of Max!

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  5. Your mileage! Wow! My little Suzuki SX10 gets between 9 &10 l/100. Our ‘89 Dodge camper, who knows, too scary to figure out. But we only go about an hour from home, except for 1trip to Saskatchewan in the summer to Stargaze.

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    1. Yep, the fuel mileage is fantastic. They really know how to make their vehicles fuel efficient here which is great because the cost of fuel is very expensive!

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  6. Wow, not sure I could have lasted 3 hours! BTW do you chose the deals you post on Amazon.ca?

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    1. I am not sure how we lasted three hours and we gave up in the end! There was still more to see but we were done with the whole shopping scene in there, what a huge selection of camping and RV stuff.

      Yes, Kevin chooses the deals for both Amazon.ca and Amazon.com. unfortunately there aren't usually a lot of great deals on Amazon.ca. :-(

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  7. I'm trying to figure out the speed limit sign. How close is this guess?
    -- Inside the city = 50
    -- Outside the city = 80
    -- Two lane or undivided highway?? 100
    -- Autoban or divided highway?? 130

    Although I would think outside the city and undivided highway would be the same thing.

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    1. We would say you are pretty much right. Not quite sure what the picture of the car means with the 100 though, that one we aren't totally sure about.

      Outside the city and undivided highway may not be quite the same thing, some of the roads outside the city are very narrow, so you wouldn't want to be traveling along them at 100 km and hour, even some of the wider undivided highways have too much traffic to travel along at 100.

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  8. Do you have a CDN decal for max

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  9. Looks like did well with the shopping, a lot of cool things! Are you still in Germany? Where are you going next?
    Where too next? Have a good time! Take care, Rawn

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    1. We think we did well, it was all stuff that we needed.

      The store was in the Netherlands but yes, we are back in Germany at the moment. We have no idea where we are headed next. We will most likely just be staying in both the Netherlands and Germany at least up until the end of July.

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    2. Have you had to get any travel Visa for the EU countries ? I remember in a previous post you wanted to get a Permanent Residence Visa for Germany.

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    3. No, we haven't needed to at the moment and with us hopefully going back to Canada in August we didn't want to start the process as there are interviews and such required so we to be totally available for them. At the moment we have things figured out at least until next spring without needing to stay in the Schengen Zones for any more that three months in and three months out. We may do something about it in the spring though.

      Delete
  10. 10 Amazing Things To See In The Netherlands This Summer

    https://www.traveloffpath.com/10-amazing-things-to-see-in-the-netherlands-this-summer/

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    1. Thanks for the list! I think there are a few things on that list that we will be missing though, the cost is just a little too high but other things I am sure we will see but in our own way as we always do. :-)

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