Day 105: Ooij to Wageningen, Netherlands: We are starting to get the "point".

September 1, 2012

Our cute campground behind the farm house turned in to a major bug in the night. The cause was one of the usual ones – noise. A small group of newly arrived young people set up their tent on the other side of a hedge and proceeded to talk, laugh, and giggle loudly until midnight. Then they continued to play a radio until 1 a.m. and then to talk a little less loudly, until 4 a.m. when Dodie went and told them to shutup. “Oh, sorry”, they said.

Meanwhile a man drove up to the “deserted” trailer beside us at midnight, and proceeded to flap tarps, fill buckets with water, slam car trunks, etc. for an hour or two, before crawling inside the trailer and going to sleep.

He got his, though, as we got up early and proceeded to flap tarps, pour water, zip and unzip tents, and drag metal tables over concrete. Nothing malicious, you understand. Those tarps needed flapping!

This horse lives in the farmer's front yard

We spent the day involuntarily gathering information about the point to point bike path numbering system. Since we came up here on the Rhine Radweg, we naively thought we would carry on the same, as long as the Rhine was willing to carry on as well. But we quickly learned that the Dutch had renamed the route for which we had the map book to “LF3”, and that they had apparently done that so they could then kill it. LF3 signs were rare and inconsistent – so there was no point in trying to follow them.

That left us with either using the automobile road map the farmer had given us, or giving the point to point bike path (Liet Pad) route a try. The network of bike paths (which does include paths beside roads and some few shared roads) is immense. The paths are not named or numbered, only the points where they intersect are. Signs along the way direct you to the numbered nodes. At each node there is a sign with a map that shows where you are and what the surrounding nodes are. Standing somewhere near the map are signs that point to the nodes you can go to next.

The maps, of course, do not cover all the zillions of nodes in the country, but only the hundreds in the near vicinity of about 10 km. So you can write down maybe your next six nodes, and scratch them off before writing some further routing at some subsequent map sign.

In some ways, it’s a brilliant system, and today it certainly allowed us to flit about like moths with a lamp, making not too much forward progress but doing it with absolute node to node precision. It’s not really anything to do with the node system, but I guess just reflects that the bike paths are each fairly short and/or wiggly. We figure we cycled about twice the distance on the paths, compared to the as the crow flies distance.

Although we may soon try using real roads a bit, the bike paths are (as always) our way of getting by the big roads and through the cities. Our planning was mega improved by getting our hands on a whole country node map and a regional node map for where we are right now. These came from the tourist information in Arnhem (the “VVV”), which is a full fledged one. One other VVV that we found was run off a table in a café, and had little. (p.s. anything marked “I”, the universal tourist information symbol, is a useless signboard.).

Dodie says the point to point system is giving her a major headache, and preventing her from seeing the country, as she focuses on lists of points, spotting point direction signs, and reading point maps at “stations”. She is sitting opposite me in a restaurant right now, squinting at her one zillion point all country map and scribbling point lists on scraps of paper. Actually, they provide you with very cute note pads with circles where you can write itineraries of up to 17 nodes per page – great for triflers, but we are long distance professionals!

Oh yes, what about Holland, the country we supposedly came here to see (as opposed to node maps). Our main impression is of flat farmland filled with many kinds of animals, mainly cows. (We love cows, but notice that generally the whole country smells like cow poo!). Much as we love flat, and farmland, and animals, we miss having that sprinkled with historic and beautiful towns, with market squares and painted houses and fancy churches, and maybe a castle or two on the hill. oops, maybe we even miss hills! Towns and houses here are practical and plain.

So what about the cyclists’ paradise part? Well, the paths are there in quantity, and almost all well paved. And the cyclists are here, in quantity, all on “Dutch” bikes, of course. But we have some beefs:

Cyclists are not very polite to each other.

Car drivers do not give the cycle the right of way.

Motorcycles are permitted on the cycle paths, often travel at full highway speed, and are a total nuisance and menace. (They are supposed to be limited to 50cc to go on a bike path – not!)

Now about camping. Like elsewhere in Europe, camping generally means coming out to a trailer that you have paid to place on a lot with 500 others, for the season. The places that house these trailers often have a spot where a tent can go, but often not. If you ask people if there is camping nearby, you may get an answer geared to a season in your trailer. Our Bikeline maps, in any event, show very little “camping”, of the type a cyclist wants, in this area, though our new maps seem to hold out hope for more.

This evening we were passing through a wooded area and eyeing it for potential wild camping, since no other options were apparent. We passed a runner, but she came up level with us as we were later stopped at a road intersection puzzling over our next move. The runner, Annette, was able to direct us to a nearby camping, which is where we are now. Thanks, Annette!

The camping has a restaurant, and we came in for our first taste of Dutch (campsite) food. We ordered sate, and it was good – grilled chicken on skewers with peanut sauce. This of course comes from the Dutch historical connection with Indonesia. It was good this time, but we have a feeling this is the “schnitzel” of Holland. We have time to find out, as we now zig zag our way toward the Iselmeer. Our plan is to spin around it in a circle. We are good at spinning in circles!

A node - number 66 - we sometimes called them "stations"

Dodie scribbles node numbers at a "station"

This station has a table, most do not, and are often cleverly hidden

Ferry across the Rhine, with other cyclists

Albert from Stuttgart, the only other touring cyclist we have met here

Our first bakery. Quite plain, but the apple squares were brilliant, with just the right cinnamon spicing

These nodes are confusing, but how did we get to a kangaroo?

This horse was taking the bike for a walk, the girls said

The ferry used this float boat system to swing in the current

Cows on a bridge. (Cows are everywhere!)

Arnhem free bike lockup has two onsite attendants and claim tickets

Dodie gets more maps, is happy about it for now.

A giant peace march, we think. It has to do with 1944 and paratroupers.

Our restaurant menu - hard to figure, but OK

Today's ride: 66 km (41 miles)
Total: 5,378 km (3,340 miles)

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