Day 110: Ursem to Makkum, Netherlands: Over the Afsluitdijk!
Today we headed pretty much straight up the middle of (North) Holland. What we saw was in two parts. In the south part (of the north) there are towns, and therefore naturally houses. The houses are our main story. What we saw were places that seemed much like dollhouses. Maybe they were small, or maybe it was just the way they were proportioned. In any event, they featured often elaborate brick work, often thatched roofs - or a thatch tile combo, black or dark green woodwork with yellow or gold trim, and many other characteristic touches. We snapped a lot of photos of houses, and many of them can be seen on this page.
Sheep were also headliners. Yes, sheep. They outnumber the cows, maybe 5 to 1. Who would have thought of Holland as the land of sheep? Aside from the sheep, there were again (like in Gelderland) all sorts of other animals: big horses, little horses, teeny horses, goats, bunnies, you name it. All of this was interspersed with canals, and quite a few old windmills.
The canals are quite something. Cycling around, you are always by a canal, but it doesn't strike you until you see a map. There are lots more blue canal lines than there are roads. It puzzles us a bit (so someone put us straight) - how do you drain land that is below sea level? Where do all these canals go? Are the windmills shoving the water out the drain at the bottom of the country?
One of the very cute buildings we came to was a bakery. Oh boy, we thought, not only a bakery but a great photo op. Well, the photo op was still there, but we were surprised to find only a few cookies on the bakery shelf. The baker came out and we accused him of holding out, since we we could smell the bread baking.
He said he was diligently working away (it was 10 a.m.) and then revealed some currant buns, which we snapped up. They were good, because we were starved, but in truth were quite fluffy. The Dutch, we see, are nowhere as religious about bakery as their European neighbours. p.s. The cookies were macaroons, Dodie's favourite, we snapped those up too!
Beyond the town of Winkel, the nature of the land suddenly changed, producing the second part mentioned. Now there were few buildings and no sheep (or cows), just hay fields. When you look at this area on a map, you see white with a fine symmetrical grid of canals marked in blue. There is, of course, a story to this but we do not know the background. All we can do is experience the things as we run in to them.
It was a good thing about the macaroons, because out beyond Winkel there were no services to be found. Lunchtime came and went, and we just pedalled on. The GPS happily reported a good handful of restaurants near Den Oever, the launching point for the northern dike, but first we had to make it there.
When we rolled in to Den Oever, about 2:00, we found and attempted to buy out a grocery store. Then we made our way to a bench and stuffed ourselves with bread and cheese and yoghurt and tomatoes and fruit salad and cookies. But then, after 3:00, we had to ask ourselves if we would attempt the dike right away, or wait until the next day. The weather was right and we thought we saw camping quite close on the other side, so we went for it.
With our big lunch and favourable wind, we actually pretty much floated across. We had read things like how hard it would be if there was a head wind, and how one should not even attempt it in any kind of stormy weather, but this time it was easy.
We found the camping too, and it features a sort of trailer "kitchen" that has those most valuable of amenities: table, chairs, light, power, and internet! Yikes, it even has a microwave. So that means we can upload today's photos and also go back for yesterday's. With the microwave, there will even be freshly reheated coffee while it all happens!
Note: If there is no caption for a photo below, it's just an interesting house to look at. In a sort of low key practical way, the houses here are WoW!
