Hello to All,
On leaving France, we head into Belgium to a town called NIEUPORT: Great local markets and every man and his dog riding a bike. Bikes have preference on the roads and pedestrian crossings. They even have a special light for bikes at the traffic lights, bikes go first.
Next day into the Netherlands, a town we have been to before, SAS Van GENT. We park along the canal and watch the canal traffic transiting to and fro.
It's the weekend, so all the weekend warriors are out in force. We are so tired of vans parking 2ft away from us - so I decided I would put out an "imaginary" force field it worked !!!!! ( the Germans are the worst offenders). We could be in a field, paddock or anywhere and with loads of spaces, but no, they will come and park right beside you, it drives me NUTS !!.
Anyway, we went for a scenic ride along the canal and there was a fishing comp happening - The World Feeder Fishing Championships, 36 teams with 5 people each, this was set along the canal for a couple of klms, it was very serious stuff, no one was talking just watching their rods, and waiting.We talked to Shaun from the English team, who after day one were leading the competition.
Meanwhile these huge ships were pottering by sending their wake crashing into the banks as the men fished on....On returning to H.H. my force field was still active - Terry thinks I might have a hidden talent ( time will tell).
We were going to do a story just on Canals, because they can be unbelievably beautiful, intriguing, colourful, scenic, busy with traffic or very quiet, wide or skinny.
We just love them but I guessed you already know that. We have have some stunning photo's, mostly you can ride your bikes along them forever. It’s never a dull moment, there's ducks, geese,swans, cranes, frogs and this time of year lots with babies.
We met a lady walking along the canal, on her arm she had two exotic looking birds, we stopped for a chat, the birds are from Brazil. They even had tiny harnesses on, these we're tethered to her arm. She said she loved the Australian cockatoo and we said YES BUT !!! They are extremely noisy and can be very destructive ( we should know they tried to eat our back veranda, and b.b.q setting). She was on a 85 meter working boat, they have a contract to carry Pet Food along the canals. She said it can get very lonely being on the boat for along time, her birds give her great joy.
So, here we are sitting beside the canal and watching the red poppies swaying in the breeze, and just finishing a cup of tea thinking life is not to bad at all ( we are lucky to be doing this ) and at 6pm we'll pour ourselves a nice refreshment and celebrate another nice finish to another nice day.
Now…. I might have mentioned that I am NOT a tunnel fan, but we have just driven 6.6 klms and it's all under water. I'm always looking for that light at the end, and wishing it would really, really hurry itself up. Holland has so many islands to skirt around this was the way to do it quickly.
We ended up at KATS near COLIJSPLAAT: settled in, then rode around the Dyke for about 25 klms. Scattered along the bike trail was broken bits of oyster and mussel shells. Intrigued we watched the big gulls drop their plunder from a decent height, it smashes, on the dyke wall and then… Bon appetite (very clever).
Back at the campsite we took pity on the local stray mother cat with 4 kittens, for breakfast she had, a small cube of cheese, 2 slices of ham, and a scoop of Bolognese meat sauce. She then wandered off into the fields looking for some mice. I now have to add cat biscuits to my shopping list....
Signposts in Holland are mind boggling, The pronunciation and spelling baffling, it looks like all the alphabet jumbled up into one long word.
ALBLASSERDAM: The windmill district. In the olden days there was 150 working, now only 48 remain and these remain as watermills. There job is to adjust the flow of ditch water at the side of the canals.
They bring the water higher to the low basin area, a fabulous site and a good ride around the area. Lots of geese, I'm not sure if these are migratory, there's so many of them and with babies.
GOUDA: What a lively and bustling town, we were lucky it was market day, we had a great morning of wandering around, and had our first taste of Kiberlings, bite size bits of cod or haddock. We are now pleasantly addicted. YUM......Gouda cheese of course features everywhere, giant wheels of yellow and lots of wooden clogs en mass, bright and colourful, with lots of pots of flowers and loads of bikes.
The cheese is not to bad if you like not a lot of flavour, give me a good old mature cheddar any day.
We are at a campers stop on the outskirts of UTRECHT: This town is the start to Tour De France, we will be back here for the trials and start.
AMSTERDAM: What can I say - The Capital City. It's Saturday, so many people, so busy, so alive, so good, so hippie, so cannabis, so seedy, so many bikes. The city of pleasure and hospitality, and oh… the canals. It has a great public transport system with trams, trains, buses, boats and bikes.. bikes..bikes.
It's our wedding anniversary, so back into Amsterdam we go for a canal cruise, a meal and just to enjoy the atmosphere. We wandered through the red light district in daylight unfortunately. You can choose your lady from out in the street, she stands in the window bay, parading her wares. I coax Terry along ( he's happy to stand there a bit longer ) and we go on our canal cruise, extremely entertaining.
This is where all the boats go to rest or die. The legal ones have power and gas, the illegals none, some are giants some so tiny.
The apartments have a wonderful history also, each one is about 5 stories high. When built there was a huge tax on the width of the building, so the frontage had to be very narrow, hence very narrow internal staircases SO !! Each building has on the roof it's own gantry, very like a block & tackle to haul things (furniture etc) up and down through the windows.
It's been going on for centuries. The council also had to go to great expense because of the cars making along the canals. They had to put in guard rails to stop cars/bikes driving straight into the water, they say they still on average lose one car a week into the drink.
Terry did miss out on interesting times at the red light district , the girls would not accept any I.O.U's as payment for their services - spoil sports !! Ha !! So we went to have dinner instead, great choices to be had, but we settled on Ribs, Salad and fries washed down with a Heineken. Prior to leaving we wished each other Happy Anniversary with a bottle of Italian Prosecco. We caught the tram back to H.H. Thank goodness it was good walk back from the station. Amsterdam a great city....
EDAM: Pretty as a picture, and of course renowned for it's red ball cheese. So many small canals with traditional drawbridges, it was actually a fortress town. The cheese and shipbuilding trade has played an important role since the 16th century. As we cycled by, one of the locks leading to the town was full with a rally of great little canal boats.
VOLENDAM: Is a quick ride from Edam, and is an ancient fishing village on Lake Ljssel. The photos of the traditional boats called Botters tell the story.
This is a busy tourist town, thank goodness we rode there as we had Kiberlings for a snack lunch again, this has got to stop but, they are sooo....yummy.
HARLINGEN TERMINAL: Another good overnight stop in the heart of the shipping area. Great riding along the dyke wall. We came across this familiar looking boat, it looked like the one from the movie "The Boat that Rocks”, a relay ship for a pirate radio in the sixties.
It was a sunny day so lots of boats (Botters) doing touristy things, car ferry's out to the islands, pleasure craft everywhere.
We are really enjoying Holland, the people are so friendly and they speak extremely good English (this really helps), the roads are brilliant, their gardens vibrant with flowers, all the towns/villages have flower pots everywhere along the roads. We have travelled a lot of klms now and this country is very "house proud”, no rubbish anywhere, streets,roadsides, no litter to be seen. It's very green with lots and lots of trees, boats and bikes… bikes… bikes.
GEITHOORN: A very affluent town, large homes and properties with an incredible amount of tiny canals, with boats for hire.
The pathways and little bridges were so narrow we walked with our bikes to get around some of this area. Lots of restaurants, lots of tourists, lots of dairy cattle.
ALMERE HAVEN: Summer has arrived and it's the last day of June, hot and nice. The marina is very pleasant with room for 16 motor homes and there is an Amusement/Sideshow setting up shop down the road. ( you know the ones, you have to spend hundreds of dollars to win a $1 fluffy toy or a plastic whatever?).
Riding our bikes has become less fraught with danger i.e. Terry's new frame is obviously carrying the load easier ( no punctures/flat tyres ) yet !! And I had to get 2 new tyres, which cost an arm and and a leg with fitting and labour. Mine had perished. The rubber had cracks all around the rims. I was just hoping they wouldn't burst open while riding, it was just unfortunate we had to buy these in Holland as by law you have to have a reflective strip in them, even though we do NOT ride at night. These tyres are so good they'll live longer than I will.
NOORD IJSSELDIJK:We are at Jachthaven MARNEMOENDE ( try pronouncing these - good luck ) awaiting the Tour de France, 5 days to go.
We ride into UTRECHT to catch up with Wayne and Liz (Aussie friends) to watch the presentation of the riders for the Tour de France and the entertainment in a local park. Well !!!! We got terribly lost on the way in and likewise on the way home (1 3/4hrs each way). Needless to say we missed catching up with them. We watched the events, found our bikes and rode off into chaos again.
We finally found our way back to H.H. at 9.15pm with a thrashing storm behind us, thunder and lightning very very, frightening. So with a glass of rough red and rum and coke we reflected that it had been very interesting, very colourful, along with lots of swearing!! Ours, that it. Actually most of the riders are petite, extremely slim and fit.
The M.C at the park asked a rider "so what do you eat" answer - lots and lots of carbohydrates, so that got me thinking ( We'll just have to peddle faster and do lots of longer distances) and probably cut out the evenings refreshments and canapés. YIKES !!!. Not likely to happen........
It has been so hot here, all of Europe is in heatwave conditions, 38 degs. Thank heavens we have a portable fan in H.H. We would of not been able to sleep, I'm surprised it affected us so much, and as much as I love the canals I would not swim in them, just dangle legs over the side.
Sunday and it's race day, we ride into MONTFOORT:
Not game enough to attempt Utrecht again plus some roads/streets are blocked off. So, we peddle in to claim a patch on the side of the road for race viewing. There’s a grand old tree just waiting to have our flags draped all over it.
That done we settle in for a couple of hours of waiting and waiting. But there’s plenty of entertainment.
Countdown…. as it's all timed with precision where the riders will be, Helicopters coming across the fields, then BAM!!!! It's all over in a blur......of very fast riders.
Even the promotional, cars, trucks and vans sped through in a flash of colour throwing out items, nothing to heavy as the crowd would/could of been maimed/wounded or actually got run over as they were scurrying for a souvenir.
I managed a SKODA cap that I had to push a child out of the way to get (just kidding-sort of) he already had a handful of stuff, he was not into sharing.
Well that's it ....now the other fun begins, thousands of people with bikes trying to leave the area, we end up with a BIKE JAM.....it's a fabulous sight, luckily we didn't have far to go.
Next day we catch up with Wayne and Liz, they pull into the marina on their boat "True Blue VI" heading down the canal to Gouda. We'll catch up again as the boat is based in Europe.
So off they go with the Australian flag flying in the breeze. We wave goodbye also to a wonderful Dutch couple Cobi & Roel who we were parked beside us. They have been invaluable with information local and afar. It was one of those hugs and kisses days....
I am now signing off from a town called GORINCHEM:
The next couple of days we'll head into Germany-Deutschland to buy H.H. his new steps, and have them fitted. He’s gone without them for a while now. He/we have suffered long enough. We risked life and limb only a couple of times slipping and sliding off the plastic one. They don't sit too we'll on gravel... Anyway...goodbye to All, love to All, Susie, Terry & H.H. x x x
