Travel Tips

Id always wanted to visit The Netherlands. More for the people than the place. You meet alot of Dutch on the road; they are keen travellers, and although I dont speak freaky deaky Dutch, they all speak good English and rate in my books as one of the most pleasant peoples in the world.

Id heard other recommendations from other cycle tourers that you should cycle anywhere but The Netherlands as its flat so its boring. To me, thats like saying eat anything but steak, as its delicious so its boring. Thanks for that, but Ill take the steak regardless.

The Netherlands has an extraordýnary network of cycle trails. We followed the LF1 up the west coast. I think that must stand for ‘Long ******* One’ as it twists and turns and at times feels interminable. But it took us through picture postcard villages, pine forest, rolling dunes and vast wetlands. It was truely wonderful cycling. And everything was so… pretty! Not dramatic, nor espeacialy historic, nor even beautiful. Just… pretty!

The villages were like Nordic toy towns. Very neat. Very clean. Everything in its place. The quaint houses were always picturesque. Streets were mostly laid with delicate block paving. The cycle paths were often as wide as roads, smooth as glass and frequently had their own little sets of traffic lights. Hagar thought hed copt it in an unfortunate tractor accident and gone to bicycle heaven. And all so very pretty.

They even had windmills.

Still unable to bring myself to buy a proper map, even from our communial ‘kitty’ purse, we edged north using a very basic ‘Map Of The Netherlands’ scrounged off a tourist office.

On the northern coast we spent much of the day on a tarmac cycle track that snaked through sandunes. It was the hottest day so far, around 30C, and without any shade and with sunglare off the sand it was over powering.

Juliet was hit quite severely by sun stroke. Dehydrated and ill I rushed her into a beach shack to find shade and grabbed water and a couple of expensive cokes.

With a certain mortification I quickly became aware we had stopped on the perimeter of a nudist beach. But not just any voyeristic hangout, but a gay mans hangout! Across the dunes single men wandered, a towel swung casualy over one shoulder, periodically stopping to gaze around as if lost. Like randy meercats, heads popped up from nowhere, scouted the sandscape before disappearing again. It was a most perculier black comedy.

Juliet recovered over time and we hastily moved on, but it came as a stark warning to beware of the sun and to carry enough water.

There was only one great disappointment about The Netherlands. The tea. Our supplies ran out and being such an ımportant daily ritual I searched a supermarket with some urgency. Aside from sacraligeous fancy fruit teas, the only traditional tea they had was 'English Malange', which was about as English as a Dutch pancake and not only did the water disolve the tea but ıt also disolved the tea bag. We persisted regardless, but the resulting surface effluence was quite disgusting.

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