1st June 2017

Randomeer 

"How about another long bike ride today?" suggested Skip over his weetabix. 

And as it was a lovely day, I readily agreed. We took a short cruise up the now mirrorlike meer to Zeewolde, where there are convenient moorings in the middle of town. As it's nearly the end of our trip, we didn't need to do any shopping, but if one needs to provision a boat then this is the spot. 

For a change, the meer was like a mirror. Our favourite island moorings are inside a small lagoon in Regge Island straight ahead in this photo. It is only 1km outside of Zeewolde (visible on the left of the photos) and about 4km from Standhorst.

There are 5 big supermarkets (Heijn, Boni, Deen, Aldi and Lidl) all within 200m of the binnehaven, as well as all the usual other stores like Hema, Blokker etc. As Zeewolde is just a short hop across the meer from our homeport, Standhorst, we always make this our first stop and stock the boat up here. One can wheel the trollys right to the boat.

Looking at the Elderflowers. There are going to be plenty of berries here later in the season.

Bikes ashore, I planned a 32 km ride through the nearby forested nature reserve. I don't really know quite how it happens, but these bike rides always turn out to be longer than the maps suggest (probably because we go wrong quite a lot). This one turned out to be exactly 40kms from boat back to boat (with a detour to a lovely riverside pavillion for coffee). And I managed it all on one bike battery!  A record.

 Skip's bike nav - Sygic on the small tablet held in place by Allan & Fays xmas present. Works GREAT!

We stopped at a small lake inside the nature reserve and were pleasantly surprised to see a herd of about 50 small ponies on the other side. Just then a family group of 9 showed up right next to us.

The ponies are semi-feral Koniks, which are apparently common in European nature reserves. We also saw a couple of buck, but they disappeared too fast for us to photograph.

Much as we find Zeewolde convenient for shopping, it is not a particularly picturesque overnight stop, so we headed out 1km into the middle of the meer to our favourite Regge Island mooring which we shared with 5 other boats. As there is space for about 20, it was not exactly crowded. Camp chairs ashore, beers open, BBQ lit ..... relax.

I made a new friend on the island, but I think he was more interested in our nibbles :)

So, tomorrow it's back to homeport and a couple of days of chores before we leave the boat. It's not going to be very interesting, so I will now say Cheerio until next time.

Total kms : 610 - engine hours 70,30

Total kms on our bikes since we got them : 1433

By the way, Skip would like to share an insight he gained during our trip through Friesland: 

How to identify a charter boat - extensive overuse of the bowthruster and plastic furniture on the aft deck. Now you know too, it will give you a chance too give them ample canal room.


PS: thanks to: Pat & Jim, Rosi & Gunther, AlanMac, Allan & Fay, David & Glenis, Joan & Lucia without whom none of this would be possible. And also thanks to those who commented on the blog.

31 May 2017

Spakenburg to Randomeer mooring.

I spent an entertaining morning visiting the Spakenburg museu and wandering around the old harbour taking pictures of lovely old boats. There was a tour group of about 20 ladies of a-certain-age (OMG I'm one of them now!) just starting a tour when I arrived, so I elected to wait in the charming museum coffeeshop with a cuppa browsing through their books while the group went ahead of me.

I found a really interesting book in english written by an american woman detailing her gramma's penchant for wearing the traditional clothing from the town. Unlike the "black-stocking" religious cults further north around Staphorst, the ladies of Spakenburg wear their dress just because they enjoy it.

Of course, the museum had many examples of the outfit and what totally astonished me is the awkward over-the-shoulder-sorta-shawl thingie they wear. It is called a "Kraplap" and is usually made out of a colourful floral cotton and fastened with a red and white check sash. All very well and good, but it it HARD.  I mean, HARD.

The only way I can think to describe it is this:  imagine you have a green rotary cutting mat on the table in front of you. Mmmmm you think, I am going to now glue a piece of floral fabric to my mat. OK, now what. Well, how about I cut a slit in the middle of it and hang it around my neck?  Maybe fold it over my shoulders a bit? I'm telling you, completely bonkers. You really have to wonder how they came up with this idea bearing in mind they have been wearing them for 150 years at least. But wear them they do, even today, summer and winter and apparently they wear them without jackets on in winter because "they look like sumo wrestlers" when they wear a jacket over the top according to the writer's gramma.

Still, the museum was interesting giving an insight into the town's history and the effect of the Zuiderzee closing on the town - which was substantial.

While I spent a happy couple of hours in the museum, Skip took himself off on a bike ride around town. "I saw a whole lot of old ladies in funny dresses!" he reported when he got back to the boat. I explained about the Kraplappen.

After lunch, we decided it was too hot moored up in town, and moved up the meer about 12 km to some moorings next to the woods below Zeewolde. We put the bikes ashore and bundu-bashed a couple of 100ms up to a bike path leading to Nijkerk, about 15km away. Never having been to Nijkerk, we decided to follow it. Well, we can now cross Nijkerk off the list. Big, unnatractive industrial town. Nah.

Lovely quiet night with nowt but birdies to disturb us….