Get revved up for a brilliant family motorhome trip amid windmills, tulips and elephants in the Netherlands

YOU know that feeling after a long drive when all you need is a beer?

Well, add that to being soaked in toilet water and you can multiply it by ten.

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And, boy, did it taste good. The pint, that is.

We had not long arrived in Wassenaar, near the Dutch city of Den Haag, when I had the unenviable task of emptying the chemical loo and it going horribly wrong.

Yet that was the only bit of our trip that went down the pan.

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And it certainly didn’t put the kids off a return to Duinrell, a campsite boasting its own theme park and the “biggest indoor water park in the Benelux”.

My nine-year-old son, Leif, has inherited my love of flumes and we got stuck in straight away with a seven-metre vertical drop akin to cliff jumping.

We then whizzed through tunnels at up to 40mph, although I did need to pluck up some, er, Dutch courage for the quickest of them.

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Even Freya, six, joined us when she could (of the 11 flumes, just two were deemed suitable for those under 1m 20cm). And I perhaps wished 42-year-olds were banned from a couple, too!

All that after we had already ridden a rollercoaster and other rides without leaving the campsite.

Freedom to Go, an organisation dedicated to leisure vehicle holidays, had teamed up with the Camping and Caravanning Club to organise our trip to a less-visited Netherlands.

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Our accommodation for the week was a lovely new Fiat motorhome from The Motorhome Travel Agency, who can help you plan a bespoke itinerary.

After owner Mike Rawlins had delivered it to our door and shown us around, we drove down to the Eurotunnel and on to the friendly Blaarmeersen site in Ghent, Belgium.

I’d never been in a motorhome before but it makes a tour so easy.

Admittedly, it is a little unwieldy when you are just nipping out — and you do need a bit of patience when trying to park it.

But, for overall convenience, it is difficult to beat. Simply unhook the electrics, turn on the satnav and away you go.

There is no monkeying around. We saved that for Burgers’ Zoo in Arnhem, which is like visiting the UK’s Eden Project, an aquarium and wildlife park complete with elephants all in one.

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Some of the animals have so much space we could not see the other side of their enclosure. The same could be said about the Ocean section.

Now, the beauty of a motorhome is that you can head off at a moment’s notice.

Another attraction near Arnhem’s Vakantiepark campsite is the Open Air Museum, a vast park chronicling Dutch life that will appeal to young and old alike.

A free tram ride gave us an overview and, alongside the overall map, a dual guide suggested a “best bits” tour.

Needless to say, that still included climbing their largest windmill and eating poffertjes, a delicious traditional snack similar to pancakes. If you take your granny, she would also have liked Delft, just north of Rotterdam.

The picturesque town, home to the Girl with a Pearl Earring painter Johannes Vermeer and the royal House of Orange, is potty about pottery.

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And after being given a tour of the world-renowned Delft Pottery and buying a fridge magnet (one of the few things in our price range), we walked from our campsite at Delftse Hout to the restaurants and bars in a main square dominated by the towering New Church.

Of course, no trip to Holland in April would be complete without a visit to the tulip fields.

And there can be nowhere better than Keukenhof, described as “the most beautiful spring garden in the world”.

Just don’t go on parade day. There were a few nice floats, including a great one with floral cows in a teapot and cup.

But as most consisted of tributes on top of a car, like a messy hearse, it was not worth turning a 20-minute drive into three hours of misery on the clogged roads.

On the plus side, while we weren’t moving, my wife was able to nip into the back and make lunch.

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And at least we had a loo in the van. Of course, this being Holland, we perhaps could have cycled.

There are dedicated lanes everywhere, although they are not used as much as you might think.

And I’m sure I know why that is.

There is a definite design flaw in that motor scooters can use them, so you are forever having to leap out of the way of a speeding teenager.

Another thing about the Netherlands that baffled me is that going Dutch in a restaurant is really quite difficult.

And finally, Erik, a security guard at Duinrell, told us that the local cuisine was a pot of everything mixed together with a meatball on top. He then pulled a face.

Still, at least the beer’s good . . .