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May 30 Tuesday sunny 25º C Bicycle touring
Holland Sharon and I laid our touring bicycles on the grass beside us while we sat at a round stone table admiring a scenic view of windmills. Fishermen cast their lines in the foreground. Across the canal, a bicycle leaned against an old wooden windmill. We are on a cycle path the runs between two canals. On the opposite bank are a rows of windmills. There are nineteen windmills in this Kinderdjke area. From where we sit, I can look around and count 18 windmills. Sharon fixes her pannier covers. She sews my old pant's material onto a decrepit front left pannier cover and a tea towel from Sardinia with a scene of kitchen items on her right rear cover. Appropriate, since that's where she keeps the cooking gear. The panniers look much better with the repair job. She runs out of thread. According to the label on the empty thread spool, we have used 375 yards of thread. Fully loaded touring for months on end is hell of bicycle touring gear. We pull our touring bikes to a stop at a restaurant at the beginning of the windmills. An old guy is fishing. He catches one. A waitress excitedly runs out of the restaurant. I figure someone in the restaurant has ordered fish. Now that's fresh. What's taking so long for my meal? Do you have to catch the thing? Two couples, spotting our fully loaded touring bicycles, stop to chat. One couple lives in the Netherlands. They cycled in Australia and met the other couple who have come from Australia to visit them in Holland. The Dutch cyclists tell us that they are flying to Florida, then cycling across the bottom of the States to Salt Lake City where they fly to Winnipeg, bicycle tour to New Brunswick and then bicycle tour back down to Florida. This winter they will bicycle tour Greece. Next summer, they are bicycle touring in China. They have cycled most countries in Europe. They said that when they were bicycle touring in Australia they met a grand total of 30 other touring cyclists. Sharon and I can hardly wait to get to Australia. The ride along the bank of the Oude Mass River is scenic. A park even has toilets. A brown Snicker's truck on the other side of the canal goes by. I wave. The driver waves back. Got any samples? I've eaten so many Snicker's bars on this European bicycle tour, they should be my official sponsor. We cycle down a bike path to a tunnel to cross under the river. A caution sign warns of a steep grade -- it's 4%! Very steep in Holland. Kinderdijk: Met another Australian couple. Actually he is Dutch. He says that he is going back to Australia to marry his fiancée if his Visa is approved. He has high blood pressure, he tell us, so his Visa may not be approved. She lives on Australia's Gold Coast and says for Sharon and I to visit her when we get to Australia on our bicycle tour. Very friendly people these Australians. Met three other Netherlanders (it's not all Holland you know, they are quick to point out), with a young Romanian woman who is a doctor. She says it took her a year to get a Visa for a two week visit in the Netherlands. We bike ride as far as a bridge into Zeeland. I ask two kids on bikes if there is a picnic table nearbt. They think hard, and finally answer no. Sharon and I figure we'll just pull out our ground sheet and eat next to the cycle path in that case. Suddenly the boys remember there is a picnic table by the golf course. We thank them and carry on cycling towards where they said the picnic tables were. Sure enough, we find one lone picnic table set up on a lawn by a skateboard ramp. On the other side is a beautiful view of boats in a harbor. We can't see this view of course, as the picnic table is set behind a row of bushes. They don't have this picnic table set in a scenic spot figured out too well in the Netherlands. Come to think of it, the Dutch don't even have picnic tables figured out too well, we discover, as we can't even get our legs under the table when we sit on the bench. Across the water we can see giant modern propeller windmills, white blades churning the air in a futuristic manner. After supper, we cycle back to the forest path where we had met the kids before dinner. Without a moment's hesitation, Sharon and I plunge into the forest to find a free bicycle touring camp spot. We have learned that the longer one ponders the more suspicious looks one receives. A cuckoo bird relentlessly cuckoos, over and over, like a looney stuck record. I shove my earplugs in so far they seem to touch my brain. And all is silent. Except that my brain repeats the cuckoo sound over and over. |
