Cycling Adventures 4: Zaanse Schans and Landsmeer

Day 5 - Edam to Landsmeer
Our second last day was a rather short distance to cycle. We again became obsessive about the beautiful gardens and houses, taking photos left right and centre of traditional dutch homes.

Traditional green Dutch house and exquisite garden

Another lovely green garden and green house

Before finding our campsite we cycled to Zaanse Schans, a neighbourhood of Zaandam with preserved windmills, workshops and houses. It is a popular tourist attraction due to its proximity to Amsterdam. 

It was a beautiful day and Zaanse Schans was packed with tourists. We were rather glad that we had done our cycling trip in a clockwise direction so that we visited Zaanse Schans last. It meant we had more of a glimpse of "everyday" Holland before seeing this tourist set-up. Not to say it wasn't good, but I am glad we didn't just do a day trip out of Amsterdam and stop at that. 

Zaanse Schans is pretty much full of things the Netherlands is famous for: clogs, windmills, cheese, stroopwafels, etc. Our favourite part was learning what the windmills were used for in addition to pumping water. There used to be over 600 mills in the area and now there are ten. The mills are used for sawing wood and grinding oil, spice and flowers.

Zaanse Schans mills

Drying our towels in Zaanse Schans with the ducks and geese

Pretty Zaanse Schans

From the viewpoint at Zaanse Schans

After our time in Zaanse Schans we continued on to our campsite, located east of Zaandam and north of Amsterdam near Landsmeer. An initially grumpy lady reluctantly took our money and found us a spot to set-up. The campsite was next to a lake so we took a quick dip and read our books before heading to town for a drink. To our surprise the waiters brought around a complimentary cheese board for all the patrons to nibble from. Heading home to our tent we were thrilled to find that not only were we camping next to the Outnumbered family (!), but the man next to us was having a BBQ and managing to funnel the smoke directly towards our drying clothes and tent!

On the road to Landsmeer

Landsmeer house with cute bridge

Traditional tent photo

Day 6 - Zaandam to Amsterdam

Our last day of cycling was another short one. It is amazing how close the countryside is to Amsterdam. Then all of a sudden, there is the railway station. We initially planned to cycle on to Utrecht to spend another day in Utrecht, say goodbye to Ilir and get the rest of our luggage. We decided to take the train with our bikes to have more time in Utrecht. This also meant we would get to our Amsterdam campsite at a reasonable time...or so we thought...

Cycling Adventures 2: Oudewater, Gouda, Rotterdam and the Hague

We had some excellent weather in the Netherlands. It was perfect for cycling around the country and that is what we did:

More or less our 6 day cycling route

Day 1 - Utrecht to Rotterdam
Setting out kind of late we were again excited to be on bicycles, this time tent and clothes in tow. We had a map and although we would get lost a few times, the signage in the Netherlands is excellent (for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers). 

Blue skies and cycling!

Look over there!

Not only was the weather stunning but just about everything else was ridiculously scenic and lovely. I am not exaggerating when I say most people's gardens look like Australia's wineries*. I don't mean in size but in the care that is taken to manicure a lovely, welcoming setting. I really didn't see many exceptions.

Traditional Dutch house and baby windmill

Thought this statue was great

One of many, many lovely canals

* Not to say Australians don't keep lovely gardens. They do, just not with the same consistency as the Dutch. Who to be fair, have a lot more water and probably better soil!


It was not long before we stopped for lunch. In fact, we were still in Utrecht Province at a town called Oudewater. There appeared to be a lot of witch shops and the like. Later I found out that the town hosts some "Witches' scales." During the 16th century people accused of witchcraft would come to weigh themselves to prove their innocence and avoid being burnt on a stake. The idea behind the scales is that a witch weighs less than a normal person because they have no soul. Anyway, we knew none of this, failed to get our certificates of innocence and may well be witches. 

Deciding not to muck about, we hopped straight into some wine and a cheese board. It was delightful. It must be noted though that this was when we first became aware of the slight bee annoyance that would follow us our whole trip. (Where there are flowers there are bees.) Luckily we spotted the local technique of trapping bees in an empty glass or bottle. The trick was to remember to let if free when you left or the waiter would be in for a nasty surprise!

Enjoying the sunshine in Oudewater

After lunch we were on our way into South Holland, keen to stop in Gouda to check out the birthplace of the famous cheese. (It is also the home of Stroopwaffles!) It was mostly quiet with noone about except for the main square. Seems like lots of the locals were holidaying on the coast or elsewhere. We poked around a bit, ate some cheese and moved on.

Mmm cheese sign

Gouda's gothic city hall

Rob was first introduced to the clever processes the Netherlands use to manage their water challenges back in 1994. Having never been myself I was pretty interested to find out more about how the various mechanisms work. We saw the lock shown below on our first day as we headed towards Rotterdam. We watched how they reduced the water level so it would be level with the side they wished to enter. It took a fair while but I suppose traffic lights can too!

Watching how the lock worked 

Cycling on we made it to our destination Rotterdam. Ready to eat and put up tent (probably in the opposite order), we kept on cycling right to the edge of Rotterdam zoo. Our campsite was pretty standard but the woman that checked us in was extremely friendly and very excited to give us tips for Rotterdam. Desperately thirsty and hungry, after 10 minutes of advice, we had to cut her off!  Deciding to eat at the campsite was not what she had in mind but was what we did, vowing to make an early start and explore some of Rotterdam.

Here is a CRUCIAL camping tip for the Netherlands: They usually do not supply toilet paper. They seem to have absolutely everything else: restaurants, convenience stores, game rooms, mini-skate parks, bike hire, just not toilet paper. You can often buy it on-site but its a useful thing to know beforehand. (Sometimes they have a spot for it but just don't provide it.)


Day 2 - Rotterdam to Scheveningen

The next day we searched high and low for a breakfast spot. Many of the cafes were shut until we got right into the centre of Rotterdam's port. We had aimed to go to market square and ended up there for breakfast. Markthal, the "Sistine Chapel of Fresh Produce", is a new, exciting building that hosts 230 flats and a huge food market underneath. The eye-catching ceiling has images of fruit, vegetable, plants and animals; as well as apartment windows peeking through. I thought it was pretty impressive but did wonder how long it would be before it started to date.

Markthal ceiling

View from the outside

Due to the devastating damage of the Rotterdam Blitz in World War II, the city's building are all, relatively speaking, new and modern. I think it is interesting that the decision was made to demolish the city and start afresh, providing space for innovation and improvement. Across from the Markthal there are yellow cube houses poised on an angle over the main road. The cube houses, Kubusewoningen, designed by architect Piet Blom, were inspired by the idea of living in a treehouse in a forest. Each cube represents a tree-top. The space is now used for small offices, a museum for interested tourists, a youth hostel and social housing. More on Kubusewoningen here. 

Kubusewoningen

Underneath Kubusewoningen 

From Rotterdam we cycled a relatively short distance to our campsite for the night, near Scheveningen. The Netherlands has some "wild camping" spots scattered around the place and we'd picked this one due to its close proximity to the Hague. Unfortunately armed with the coordinates and a description of where to find this particular designated area, we absolutely could not find it! AND this was after an initial wrong turn that led to a one hour scenic route. (Luckily not just a figure of speech here: it was absolutely scenic!) We found the general vicinity of where it was meant to be and split up, searching high and low, in and out, round and about. Eventually we found a football golf centre where we asked for help. We got precise directions to "the woods", still had a bit of trouble, and finally ran into a teeny tiny sign showing us we could camp. It was by then late afternoon so we quickly put up the tent and cycled into Scheveningen for dinner. Coming back from dinner we were startled out of our skins when another voice came out from the trees near our tent. Turns out we had evening companions who had managed to find the site and even later than us! What a night we were all in for as a dramatic storm thundered down around us.

Triple windmill  

Traditional tent photo: "wild camping"

Day 3 - The Hague to Zandvoort
We got into the Hague fairly early for a morning coffee and the news. Looking at the pictures in the Dutch newspaper l saw that there had been an horrific accident the day before where two cranes had fallen, flattening houses. A dog died in the accident but amazingly there were no other fatalities or injuries.

Given the adventures of the previous day (i.e. getting lost), we did not spend a great deal of time exploring the third biggest city of the country and is the seat of government in the Netherlands. It was pretty exciting to cycle right into the political centre of the country at Binnenhof. I kept waiting for someone to stop me. Then I remembered I was in the Netherlands. They weren't going to tell me to get off a bicycle!

The buildings of Binnenhof were really something special and we spent a little while admiring them before cycling through other parts of town. Before coming the political centre, the Binnenhof was originally the residence of the counts of Holland. The Ridderzaal is the main building of the Binnenhof and was built in the 13th century. Amongst other things, Ridderzaal is used for the state opening of parliament where the monarch delivers the speech from the throne.

Outside the Ridderzaal

Binnenhof and Hofvijver lake

TO BE CONTINUED....

Mongolian Tour: Terkhiin Tsagaan (The White Lake)

...As Kat has already mentioned, the beautiful reality of our roadtrip across Central Mongolia was that we could see the landscape changing each day as we drove.

One of the places where this was most evident was around Terkhiin Tsagaan, or The White Lake.  

White Lake "Terkhiin Tsagaan"

The lake was formed from the eruption of a nearby volcano called "Khorgo", the crater of which you can (and I did) comfortably walk around in about 30 minutes. 

Rob on the far side of Khorgo

Standing on top of it feels a bit like being at the top of Rod Laver Arena, except a Rod Laver at 3000m above sea level that had the tennis court removed and replaced with a very steep slippery slide of loose basalt rocks.

Kat watching the tennis

The lake itself is beautiful and the weather for us was just perfect.  There were clouds bouncing off the lake, boys building their summer ger camp, with yaks and horses grazing on the lush pasture and hills surrounding our roasty warm ger. 

Yak party

Mongolian take on a horse float

Kat and I enjoyed some quiet time walking along the lakes edge to one of the many vantage points where we could look at the lake and the tourist camps, but also where we could watch the horse mobs making their own way with no human control to some pre-determined destination.  While on the road, through the book I was reading ("Guns, Germs and Steel"), I had just learned about the hierarchy that apparently exists amongst horses.  Generally led by a stallion, Mare A will have her foals following her and always be followed by Mare B and her foals etc. So, because I've never been around horses enough to learn this, I had to go on a fact checking mission before writing this down, according to this reference it's TRUE!

Krueger, K., Flauger, B., Farmer, K., & Hemelrijk, C. (2014). Movement initiation in groups of feral horses. Behavioural Process., 103, 91–101. viewed January 9, 20144, http://www.rug.nl/research/behavioural-ecology-and-self-organization/_pdf/kr_ea_bp14.pdf

Horse hierarchies

It was amazing to actually see this in action only hours after reading about it.

We also had the opportunity to visit a local family who run a herd of yak.  From their camp they make all kinds of dairy products: milk, butter, yoghurt and curd all from their own yaks. The yoghurt was good but I could not get enough of the the butter - absolutely devine!  I must have done a good job on complimenting the yoghourt as Bimba was still trying to feed it to me 4 days afterward, when it was starting to get a bit funny (with no refrigeration).

MMMM yak butter and bread

The day was polished off in style with Batar and Bimba preparing a hot rock BBQ.  Meat is cooked by super heating rocks and laying the meat on top of them with some cabbages and vegetables on top to hold the heat in.  Just don't accidentally eat a rock!

"Batar Special" Mongolian Hot Rock BBQ!

My one wish for this part of the trip was that the water in the lake wasn't so cold, we could have had some lovely swims!

Afternoon lake views