Into the Netherlands: An exciting day for Ken on the tractor front

August 21, 2015

It was today of course that we would get to the Netherlands, and it would be fairly early. We have had good maps all through Germany but the one we have for the Netherlands is definitely second rate as well as falling to bits.

Once again the conditions were perfect for biking and the cycle ways easy, the landscape was much more interesting than yesterday and we made good progress to the border that was about 15km away. Now into the Netherlands. Was it different from Germany? Well the gardens did not seem to be quite as immaculate as those we had seen in North Germany and the houses, still red brick were somewhat smaller and they all had lace in the windows. One of the things really intriguing us was the way children were being transported along. In NZ and Australia you really don't often see mothers taking their children anywhere as they are enclosed in cars. Here it is completely different as everyone is on a bike. When a baby is small it is in a special baby seat in front of the mother with a special wind screen and clamped to the stem of the handle bar. As they get a bit bigger the seat is clamped to the rear carrier. Occasionally the bikes have big box like carriers in front for children as they do in Denmark but these are rare. Now what happens when number 3 arrives? It is rather like baby birds being thrown from their nests and having to survive. Quite tiny children are riding their own little bikes. I can just imagine what it would have been like in the Wala family with Matthew in the front seat, Charlotte on the rear and 4 year old Jacob valiantly pedalling along behind them. It is rare to see these little bikes attached to the parents bike and trailing behind but what you often see is mum with her hand on the little one to give him or her a bit of a push.

We stopped for our morning coffee at Ter Apel. It really seemed as if we were in the Netherlands ( which was not surprising as we were) there was a canal going through the town with a lovely old Dutch barge that had not as yet escaped to the French Waterways the bridges across the canal were opening to let craft through and all along the canal were neat little red brick houses.

Our aim for the day was Emmen, it was lively with a market going on in the middle of the pedestrian area and it was here in the centre of everything that we got the last available room in this hotel

Ken Writes
There were two special tractor highlights. At one point there was a salesplace featuring ride on mowers in front but with more inspection there was an Aladins cave of tractors. There was a MF155 similar to Dads 135. But out the back a 1960 air cooled Eicher and most excitedly a Hummel - I have never seen one before. It is a 50's model - quite small, no 3point linkage and the engine is a single cylinder water cooled 2 stroke diesel. The owner had excellent English and is a combined dealer and collector.

A little later we came to a bloke tedding hay with a Zeator 2511 that is a later version of my 2011 with 2 cylinders and looking almost the same