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Delta Project I pulled out my ear plugs and the first thing I heard was that cuckoo bird. It was like a bad dream. We crossed a long bridge. The windmill propellers that were so clear the night before could barely be made out through the shrouded mist. They looked like giant plane propellers warming up to take off with invisible planes. "Hey guys, I have a feeling you've forgotten something." The propellers looked like a giant kid's twirly stuck into the ground. A group of school kids coming towards us were taking up both sides of the path. The first few moved over but the ones farther back hadn't noticed the parting of the Red Sea and Sharon and I almost took out a couple of kids before they noticed us. I was going use my bell, but I was concentrating too hard on keeping my bike on the one inch of pavement I had left. Ding-ding-ding! With all the bikes in the Netherlands we still stuck out with our overladen beasts. Other touring cyclists with just their two rear bags fit right in. All the Dutch had rear bags for toting groceries or other items. We had only seen one other couple with front panniers and they appeared to be tourers from America. In Zeeland we stopped to admire the massive Delta project. It was an eighth wonder of the world engineering feat to keep the North Sea at bay. Eating at the rest stop I was able to get my legs under the table, but then I couldn't reach it. How could they construct the Delta project but couldn't make a workable picnic table? On our way to Middelburg we hit a detour. The sign that pointed the way was covered, and they didn't give any alternate route. We just couldn't get to there from where we were. We carried on and came to a sign post pointing to Middelburg in the direction we had just come from. We could go back and forth between those two points all day long until we collapsed from exhaustion. Instead, Sharon noted the sun's position, got her bearings, and continued over a dune. At an intersection an old man and woman were resting. I enquired for directions to Middelburg. "Go down here. Turn right. And go and go and go," She said. It turned out to be all of ten kilometers. In Middelburg a church tower was covered with coloured jujubes. Bicycle commuters were just going home. What a wacko bunch. It was amazing that no one got crashed into by automobiles or other cyclists. They acted liked they owned the road. An interesting thing about shopping in the Netherlands -- they didn't give us any bags to put our groceries in. Deposit for pop was one guilder. No wonder we hadn't seen any bottles along the road. If the deposit was $1 in Canada we probably wouldn't see as many bottles lying in the ditch. It was a commendable solution. In Sluis, the first or last town in the Netherlands, depending on what perspective one looked from, we tried spending all our remaining Dutch coins. We didn't need the souvenirs. I succeeded by buying a loaf of bread, four salads and a postcard. Sharon bought a pair of insoles to cover the hard layer in her cycling shoes. She had been complaining the past couple of days that her shoes were rubbing her heel raw. On main street a man stood at the back of his Mercedes looking into the open trunk. His wife sat in the front seat staring straight ahead. I saw him tilt his head back and eat something. Was that herring? Naw. It must be a sandwich I convinced myself. We cycled past just as he held up an onion covered herring. Talk about having a Big Herring attack. The way he was scarfing those babies down I was convinced he was part seal. The ferry across to Belgium was the best deal I had seen in the Netherlands. One dollar for a thirty minute crossing. That twenty minute Texel ferry had wanted over eight times as much. We met four day cyclists from Belgium. They lived in Brugges about thirty kilometers from the ferry. "Are you going all the way tonight?" I asked my aging compatriots. "Oh yes," they replied. I thought they must be in pretty good shape for their ages. We docked. They cycled to the parking lot and loaded their bikes onto their waiting car. As Sharon and I cycled past they smiled and waved. Seeing forest in the distance we cycled down a pebble strewn lane to it. It was so thick we could barely squeeze our way in. The forest had been planted in rows, but underbrush had haphazardly grown between the rows. We cleared a small spot for the tent and Sharon whipped up a pot of lip-searing chili. |
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