THE NETHERLANDS – WARM SHOWERS, WARM WELCOMES AND WARM WEATHER

After a week of pottering in Amsterdam, we determined it was time to stop mooching at our friends’ place, and start doing some of this cycling business we had set out to do. We were also assisted in this decision by the internal EU borders opening on June 15, so we could actually move out of the Netherlands. 

Happily, the good weather returned for us and, even though we left Amsterdam horribly late (something of a theme in our mornings), we had an amazing cycle south to Gouda. Gouda was on the itinerary because: (i) we don’t like to cycle too far in one day after our initial, somewhat over confident, run to Arnhem (clearly not the most committed cycle tourists – it is a work in progress); (ii) it happened to be en route to Rotterdam; and (iii) it is named for a cheese (on reflection, this should possibly be the number one reason to go anywhere really). However, it is worth noting that Gouda really was an absolute treat to visit. The town is lovely and we were lucky enough to be the guests of some great warm showers hosts.  Sarina and Richard welcomed us into their home (a super cool old town house they are renovating in the centre) and took us out for a wander around town, ice cream and drinks (accompanied by my favourite Dutch fried delicacy of bitterballen – think a very soft meat ragout contained in a crumbed coating and deep fried to perfection followed by a liberal dunking in spicy Dutch mustard). We then enjoyed dinner at their place. Turns out that they are both amazingly creative and we got to see lots of their work including art, comic series, film shorts and props. My personal favourite was the life sized silicone foot from a horror movie shoot that sported a nice arrow wound in the achilles and which, on our arrival, happened to be the centerpiece on the dinner table. This thing was unbelievable and I waivered between totally grossed out on close inspection of the toe nails and overwhelmingly impressed at the realism – I finally settled firmly on the latter.

A side note at this point: We used warm showers a lot in Netherlands and Belgium. For those who have not encountered this before, it is basically like couch surfing, but for cycle tourists. The network in the low countries is incredible and, while I don’t think Thomas and I are typically very social after a day of travel, we have been absolutely loving this experience. Whenever we have a warm showers host, we have met the coolest people and, very often, people we would never have the opportunity to meet in our everyday lives/careers. Case in point above (Sarina and Richard do not know this, but we have basically decided we are now best friends – just saying).  Other notable highlights to date have included, Belgian naval officer Thibault (and his lovely wife Catherine) who is involved in destroying mines from World War Two in the North Sea and who had us for dinner, camping with Alpacas at the farm of Joep who is involved in paleo climatology and has spent time sailing the world, drinking way too much at a craft brewery in Breda with Vic who was kind enough to have us for two nights and enjoying dinner with Darrel (a chef from Cape Town) and his lovely wife Florence at the farm house they are renovating in the Belgian countryside and hearing about their planned cycle trip from Belgium to Cape Town with two teenaged children(!). The list goes on. The overwhelming generosity of people in this community has, without fail, totally blown us away.

Following our stop in Gouda, we made a very slight detour to the Kinderdijk (lots of windmills and a story about a lost baby that a cat kept afloat on the dijk by jumping back and forth on its cradle), Rotterdam (for cube house architecture and ramen – we were a bit sad not to have spent more time in this city as it was really very cool), Breda (for craft beer and a lovely town) and, finally, Eindhoven, to see family. Our last night in the Netherlands was spent drinking way too much at the house of Tom’s second uncle and was definitely an appropriate send off to (and summation of) our time in the country. Great people, too much alcohol, yum food and a lot of fun. 

At this point, for those that have clicked the link and are still here, I will make a slight divergence from travel stories to talk about a couple of other topics close to my heart: (i) FOOD (and beer); and (ii) our gear.

So, a somewhat brief note on the food and beverages in the Netherlands, because, let’s face it, it is really one of the things in which I’m most interested anywhere we travel. In our opinion Dutch food generally is just okay – you get some great meals of course (and they have great restaurants for other cuisines), but in terms of the breadth of Dutch cuisine itself (particularly for non meat eaters), it’s a bit lacking. Where Dutch food really comes into its own, in our humble opinions, is (i) anything they do that is fried; (ii) the sweet snacks; and (iii) the craft beers. All of these are world class and I would challange any country to give the Dutch a run for their money in this regard. While I have already mentioned the total amazingness of bitterballen, Dutch fried goodness is, of course, not limited to this delicacy. Think mac and cheese balls, cheese croquettes, lightly fried fish pieces and the best French fries with mayo ever! (although, the Belgians may argue this last one). Our absolute favourite sweet treats included (obviously) stroopwaffel (two quite small chewy biscuit-like waffels made into a sandwich with a syrup or caramel sauce in the middle), very chunky coconut macaroons, any baked good they make with apple and cinnamon, salty liqorice flavored chewy candy and a surprisingly excellent chocolate brand we discovered on arrival (Tony’s Chocolonely is not to be missed).

And last, but certainly not least, the beer. On our original plans for the year being scrapped and deciding that we would instead go to the Netherlands, Thomas informed me that this was, in fact, okay with him, because he had actually always wanted to do a beer tour of the Netherlands and Belgium. While the Netherlands does not have the history of trappist brewing evident in Belgium (there are only two such breweries in the country), they have embraced the current trend of craft and micro brewing whole heartedly and the number of such breweries and their quality in the country is actually quite overwhelming. Basically, every tiny town through which we cycled had a brewery making a local tipple and we endeavoured to sample as much as possible. Quite the challange. While we went to many such breweries (both tiny and more commercial), particular highlights for us were De Hemel in Nijmegen, Brouwerij Frontaal in Breda, De BrouwVrouw in Enkhuizen (all making excellent craft brews) and Stadsbrouwerij in Amersfoort (brewing a triple to a 200 year old recipe and an amazing smoked ale).

Turning now to our gear. Because (i) we have never cycled toured before; and (ii) we had initially planned to be cycling in Central Asia this year, we needed to basically buy everything for the trip as we had nothing and needed it sorted prior to taking off. As we were in Abu Dhabi at the time, this presented some logistical issues. In particular, (i) there are no shops for this sort of thing in the Emirates (50 degree temperatures and massive highways put off all but the most hardy and long term cycle tourists – and certainly no one that lives there does this sort of harebrained thing); and (ii) we really had no idea what we were doing (read: knew absolutely nothing about bikes and cycle touring generally). So, we needed to research what was required and organize for everything to be sent from the States or the UK (which was a massive pain and quite an expense). Pretty ironic then that we managed to start the trip in the Netherlands, the cycling capital of the world, where we no doubt would have been able to get everything and anything we wanted had we known how things would work out.

In any event, in terms of bikes, we ended up with Bertie (my bike) and the Bat Cycle (Tom’s bike). I thought naming it the Bat Bike would have been more alliterative, but Thomas vetoed this based on his bike (apparently) being the same colour scheme as the 1950s Adam West batman, who had a Bat Cycle. I remain unconvinced, but Thomas stuck a lot of batman stickers on his bike to prove the point, so Bat Cycle it is.

Both Bertie and the Bat Cycle are Surley Long Haul Truckers. These are basically good quality, very sturdy and very basic bikes. They tend to be the bikes of choice for a lot of cycle tourists because they are easy to fix and do not break easily in the first place. That said, they are steel framed and weigh an absolute tonne. We cutomized the bikes by adding some super low granny gears for those anticipated hills, some very wide handle bars (feels like one is driving a boat), and chucking on racks and a brooks saddle (still not really sure if we needed these, but they do look nice). We also put on some pretty fat marathon tires. On receiving the bikes, I noticed an interesting sticker on the frame – see below. Turns out that this is for the tires, but I do enjoy riding about on my bike with the assurance that Fatties (do indeed) Fit Fine. I find it particularly confidence inspiring considering all the french fries and beer we consumed in the Netherlands.

I am sure I will write an update on my thoughts of this bike purchase at some point when I actually feel like I can have an opinion on such things – that time is not yet. At this time, I will say that I am slowly falling off the thing less and less (win!) and we do seem to have managed a fair few kilometres.

In terms of other gear, we went with Ortlieb bags – which are amazing in terms of durability, being waterproof and ease of getting them off and on the bike. Less amazing in terms of the clips breaking super easily. We also bought an MSR Mutha Hubba tent, which we love. It is big inside and super lightweight and we even have an attachment to put our gear in if it is pouring or we leave the tent and go away hiking for a bit (worth every expensive penny). Finally, we have an MSR universal wisperlite stove, which we hate. This thing is meant to run off of any fuel, but mostly we use petrol, because it is easy to get and the stove has a fit with just about anything else. First experiences with said stove happened in Belgium (more on that in the next post) – a few months later, we remain unconvinced.

June 2020