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May 22 Monday 16º C sunny Bicycle touring Holland We cycle along the dike. It protects us from some wind. We reach the 30 kilometre stretch that has Ijsselmeer Lake on one side and the Wadden Sea on the other. Ijsselmeer is the former Zuider Zee. The road is marked scenic, but there is nothing to see but dike on our left and water on our right. Fortunately, a group of seven cyclists passes us and we tuck in behind them. They pull their bikes without panniers to a stop in the middle or the route for a Coke and bananas. Sharon and I pull our fully loaded touring bicycles to a stop too. The group of seven cyclists give us munchies. They are police officers from Utrecht and they do this ride once a year. Today they plan to cycle 230 kilometres to a predetermined camp site, and then cycle another 160 kilometres tomorrow. Sharon says it still doesn't beat our 313 kilometres on Newfoundland with our fully loaded touring bicycles. They all have lightweight racing bikes with clip-in shoes. That doesn't stop us from tagging along on our overloaded touring bikes over the last half of the bridge, though. There is a viewpoint and a campground at the middle of the 30 kilometre crossing. These Netherlands people have thought of everything. The police officers tell us that during low tide it is possible to walk over to some of the Wadden Islands. We see people with rubber boots out walking in the muck. It takes about four hours to walk across they say. On the other side of the bridge we cycle out of Holland provinces and into Friesland. The Netherlands. (Supposedly it's all the Netherlands and only North and South Holland are Holland -- but still part of the Netherlands.) Bicycle tourists, like us, use the words interchangeably it seems. We're astonished to look across a flat farm field with a farmer out working with his tractor (not that that's astonishing), but in the background we can see a huge sailing boat looking as if it is skimming across the land. It is in a canal, of course, that runs through the farmland. Bizarre. We should put canals in Alberta, too. The bridges that cross the canals lift vertically to allow large watercraft to pass. Sharon makes a delicious chili for supper at the one picnic table by a pullout beside a lake. There is parking for about a dozen cars and innumerable bike parking. No one is here now that it is late in the evening. Tractors hauling hay go up and down the bike path. We give them right of way. Just as we're finishing supper, a group of six cyclists go by that resemble our police friends. Guess they haven't had enough cycling for the day and are out for an after-dinner spin on their bikes. So that's why we hardly ever see police in Holland -- they're all out cycling! We looked at the map and decided to cycle south to Belgium instead of cycling north to Denmark. In France we cross over to cycle England. Cycle Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. Catch a ferry to Norway in August and then cycle tour south through Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland and other east block countries possibly, depending on how difficult it is to obtain visas. We set up our Kelty two-person cycling tent to camp in a forest among the most mosquitoes yet. |
