Next bit.....

Writing this in the morning of Monday 9 May. As I said before, not sure when it will get posted to Blogspot.

We are now on the last stage of the Dutch section of the route. Since writing before, we have crossed from the North-East facing coast of Holland (Holland is, in actual fact, only the North Western part of the Netherlands). That was an inland ride, through very typical flat agricultural land to the long sea barrier that separates the sea from the large inland stretch of water, the Ijslemeer. This used to be part of the sea, and was the original route from Amsterdam by ship. Now a big freshwater lake. The dyke is 30km long. There is a motorway and a bike track along the length of it. The wind was against us (of course) and it was a real slog. About 12 km/h, so it took a long time and was, simply, boring. There is no sea view; probably to protect from North winds, the road and cycle track are behind an additional embankment. At half way one can barely see the land.

Well, we finished it. This was on Fri 6 May. We got to a campsite and were tired. There was a restaurant with beer. The next day was the longest so far, 80km to a place on the North East coat that I am not going to name because I do not have the map next to me and have difficulty over most Dutch place names (this will start up again in Scotland). Again, beautiful flat pastoral countryside; the tall sea dyke in sight most of the time, but glimpses of the sea only when we climbed up it. When we did do this, one could see one of the many North Sea islands – there is a string of them along the coast, so the Sea here is actually the strip between them and the mainland and is called the Wadden Sea. A long foreshore going down to the sea some distance away. I guess our aim now is really to push on, to keep on or even ahead of schedule, so as to have time in hand either for catastrophes or for interesting places later on. So, “on-on”. That was Saturday. On Sunday morning we were camped next to a church and a bell rand at 9.15, so we went at 9.30 in total ignorance of what to expect. A hymn sandwich and what was probably a heart-felt sermon (heart felt by the pastor, not sure about everyone else), which was lost on us being in Dutch. Then on. But the wind was exceptional, out first taste of a real wind, though I am sure the climate here can do better. Quite low mileage and considerable tiredness so we ate out last night! We did see some quite spectacular wind surfing, with kites, on such a windy day.

Lots of impressions of the Netherlands. People are really nice and friendly, and language is seldom a problem, at least at our level of talking with people. The little towns and villages are so neat and tidy, and are prosperous. There are some huge and grand houses, some thatched houses and always well tended gardens.. Farms seem to be large units. Some are dairy farms and as this is Fresia, so there are black and white cows, though we have seen what look like Highland cattle as well. (Comment: Tom waited a long time to see his Fresian cows. I took a photograph so that he can remember them.) There are no electricity pylons; it must all go underground. It isn't till we came here that I realised how much they dominate our landscape. The countryside has always had lots of windmills, but now they are wind turbines for electricity generation. It is an interesting reflection that in Britain, there is unquestioning acceptance of pylons but such fuss about turbines, while here it is exactly the opposite. The Dutch certainly have the Green advantage! The light across the polders had a particular quality that reminds one of aspects of classic paintings by the Dutch masters; soft but very clear and hard to describe otherwise. And the wind. That does not come in paintings, but does it come in reality! We planned to go round the North Sea route anti-clockwise to get the prevailing wind (South West) for this bit. That went wrong. There are trees leaning to the North East, because of the prevailing wind, but now they face the wind. Maybe it will change direction, but one person said to us that wind is always blowing and in Holland everything depends on the wind.