Wednesday, September 16, 2020
The second day of my short holiday
After a good night sleep, I woke up in Stayokay in Soest.
The lady at the receptiondesk gave me the advise to start breakfast
at half past seven, to be there before all the children would arrive
for their breakfast.
There are a lot of children from the International school in Soest,
who have a 'camp' at Stayokay.
The breakfast was good and after breakfast, I loaded all my luggage
on the bike.
Ready to leave Stayokay in Soest
The National Military Museum is situated on the former Air Base at
Soesterberg. It combines the collections of the former Military
Aviation Museum in Soesterberg and Army Museum in Delft.
In the past, when I worked for the Dutch militairy, I used work on
that airbase sometimes, but it is not an active base anymore.
The National Military Museum
Because of the corona-virus, you have to follow a dedicated route
through most of the exhibition but that was no problem.
There is a lot to see in the museum, airplanes, helicopters, armoured
vehicles and tanks, various old and new guns and, some nice motorcycles!
Older and newer airplanes
A nice row of motorcycles
A Batavian horseman from 50-12 BC
Cutaway model of a 'Mannlicher rifle, model 1895'
Militairy BSA. That is the way I would like my sidecar
North American P-51 Mustang
BMW R75 from 1942
After I had seen most of the exhibition in the building, I went
to the restaurant. I bought a coffee and applepie and went
outside to enjoy it.
Coffee and applepie
There are also some airplanes outside. In the high season, there
seem to be more planes outside but it was interesting anyway.
MIG 21
Soesterberg is not an active airbase anymore but it is still in use with
the glider club and while I was walking on the platform, I saw a glider
taking off.
A glider taking off from Soetserberg
I spend some more time inside the museum and my plan was to have lunch
in the museum but there was a long row at the restaurant so I left and
went to my motorbike to ride to lelystad to visit Aviodrome.
Leaving the Militairy Museum
The weather is perfect fort a motorbike ride and the roads around Soest
are fine but later, past Nijkerk, I found the roads in Flevoland rather
boring.
Nice country road in the province Utrecht
Long straight roads
At a quarter past two PM, I parked my bike near the Aviodrome in Lelystad.
Aviodrome is an aerospace theme park with an indoor- and an outdoor exhibition
with a lot of items from aviation history
At Aviodrome
A copy of the original 'Wright Flyer'
The 'Fokker Spin' the first airplane Anthony Fokker build
Stained glass window with airplanes
Cockpit of a KLM Lockheed Constellation
The Lockheed Constellation, often calles "Connie", is a propeller-driven
airliner with four engines. The KLM used to have those airplanes in their
fleet and the one in the museum was bought in the USA and flown over the
ocean to Lelystad airport.
A model of the old Schiphol with a scale model of a KLM Lockheed
Constellation
At the museum grounds is a rebuild of airport Schiphol from 1928.
I liked it because at home I have an antique school poster of Schiphol
in that period.
The main building of Schiphol in 1928
My antique school poster of Schiphol
I went inside, and in the building was a display of old radio equipment.
All the radio equipment was in working order and is in use by a club of
radio amateurs with callsign PI4ADL.
The eighty-watt Morse transmitters have a reach of four thousand kilometer !
The radio room
Via a Boeing 747, I went back inside the main building and walked to the
space exploiration section of the museum but on my way I came past the
Douglas DC-3 in KLM colors.
KLM DC-3
In the space exploiration section of the museum was a the gemini capsule, a
section of the ISS and a scale model of the ISS (International Space
Station) and a lot more 'space things'.
A scale model of the International Space Station
The Aviodrome is an interesting museum but after a while I had seen what I
wanted to see and left to ride to Bed & Breakfast Ytsma State in Follega.
Because I had plenty of time, I decided to take the long route, via Kampen,
a very old historic town. Before I reached Kampen, I had to ride the boring
roads of Flevoland and to endure the rush hour traffic jams.
A boring road in Flevoland
...and a traffic jam
Riding in a traffic jam on a boring straight road is even worse then just
riding a boring straight road so when I saw a big golden M in the distance
I decided it was time for dinner, a Big Mac, a Macshake and a nice salad.
Dinner at the McDonalds in Kampen
Kampen is a nice old town with a lot of historic buildings and a nice old
city center. I think I will come back here some day to see more of Kampen.
A quick visit to Kampen
Past Kampen I rode North to Friesland, to Follega where my room in the
B&B was waiting for me.
Riding to Follega
At half past seven PM I arrived in Follega and the lady of the B&B told
me I could park my bike behind the shed so it could not be seen from the
road.
It was nice to see the sun going down in the distance over the fields
from behind the shed where I parked the bike.
A nice view
I had a nice room and as much coffee as I wanted. But there was no
light on the writing table so I could not work on my travel-log. Fortunately
there was a big TV with a lot of channels so I watched TV for a while before
I went to sleep.
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