Day 37: Kerkdriel to Cuijk

September 15, 2024

Now includes the Big Bang!

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Our host, Paul, at the Sientjes "hotel" was wonderfully welcoming and helpful. He also turned out to be a good chef, as he came up with a breakfast featuring really nicely presented yogurt with many kinds of fresh fruit, a plate with many kinds of cheese, one with many kinds of meat, and so forth. He also provided a variety of doggy bags, and invited us to carry away whatever we were not immediately eating. So nice.

Sientjes. Paul got his chance to become the owner when the previous one failed due to COVID.

Cycling today was a continuation of the very pleasing pattern of the past days in Netherlands - perfect, paved bicycle paths, verdant green farms with many animals, the river and many ferries to take, and super cute little towns filled with super cute little houses. And throughout we were doing this with very many other cyclists, and very few cars to worry about.

Often, we were riding atop the dike. In these cases, the slope of the dike was managed by sheep. And beyond there would often be cows. The photo below shows the arrangement.

Here below is the typical ferry we took today. They coast a little under 3 euros for both of us , but we needed four crossings to follow the Maas route.

This was just a private house, but I liked the steeple.

I also liked these sheep with the curly horns. We have seen goats like this, but never sheep!

The river had all sorts of boats on it. Here are two quite different sailing versions:

Churches by and large are quite plain here, but the steeples can be attractive.

This wouldn't be Netherlands without windmills, and there certainly were a few along the way:

Among the cute houses were ones with really nice hedges. Hedges for some reason (along with stone walls) are something not much seen around our place. It's amazing how they get them so fine and dense here!

This house was so bold as to put the hedge in the air! (Note all the Hydrangea as well!)

Also on the nice house theme, we have the one below. I like the photo because it is self documenting about where the shot was taken.

At one spot the little ferry took us to something of an island. Dodie told the ferry man that we were heading for knopuunt 16, and he seemed to drive us along the island a bit toward that spot.

We took off along the island. I think maybe we did cross back, before running into our first big adventure of the day, at Megen. (I have almost no internet as I am writing this, and so can not check details, like even that town name.)

What we ran into was a re-enactment of a cannon firing, and also a demonstration of old time crafts, like blacksmithing and bullet making, with people in period costume, representing the time of William of Orange - 17th century. The man shown below was blocking the road, because the cannon was about to fire.

When the cannon did fire, the bang was louder than expected. Very impressive!

The cannon was actually aimed at the house of the captain of this artillery unit. Fortunately they were not adding any cannon balls, though they had one on hand!

I asked about the safety of the hundreds of years old cannon, and they admitted that while cannon are usually supposed to have a log of all firings, this had been lost to time. Even so, they had the thing tested, and using 1 kg of powder. In these demos they are only using 1/3 kilo, so it should be safe.

We should be able to take out that house!

Here comes the fife (or recorder, maybe) and drum!

This lady was trying to melt candle wax on a wood fire, but needed to blow harder.

Dodie discussed military strategy with the commander. Note the muskets at the ready!

Dodie shoots the breeze with two of the period ladies.

I made a video of the cannon going bang, but I think there is not enough internet to upload that just now. Maybe later... Ok, how about this?

After we left town, we ran into several types of livestock:

For our next adventure, at the town of Grave we passed a memorial to the battle over the nearby bridge. Paratroopers had landed here in 1944, but many missed the spot. The remainder fought for and secured the bridge. On Tuesday, we learned, a parashoot re-enactment will take place. It will be the 17th of September, the exact 80th anniversary.

The John s. Thompson Maas bridge at Grave.

In the town, a road was being blocked off by this man in yellow. The reason was that a commemorative marching band was about to pass. As we talked to the man, he stooped down to pick up a cruxifix that had fallen from a chain around his neck. He was upset to almost lose it, because he said he had had it for many years. Dodie amazingly and deftly whipped out a needle nosed pliers and said "Here, squeeze that clasp shut".

The man also told us he was actually from Yuma, Arizona, but had been here 30 or 40 years. As we can now do for so many spots, we said "Yeah, we cycled by Yuma", resulting in a discussion comparing there to here (similar in some respects!).

Here comes the band!

At Linden we spotted another of those "in the air hedges"!

At last we arrived at Cuijk, and our Hotel Taurus. It was a little after 4 p.m. We had received a message from Taurus to say that our room would be ready from 3 p.m. Dodie went in to register, and she was in a very long time. I almost went to see what happened. What had happened was that the room was not ready, not even started to be readied. Still, we dragged our stuff up to beside the room, to be ready when it would be ready. Yet the man who was supposed to be working on it did not show up, for a while. When he did show up, he said he was busy and would get to it pretty soon. Dodie lost her cool and told him not good enough. He lost his cool, and said fine, then he wouldn't do it at all.

Our stuff waits by the room door, for no cleaning staff to come.

Consequently we flounced off - to another place in town. This of course triggered lots of frustrating interaction with Booking.com about the necessary refund. (Actually the Taurus handed our money back in cash - what we need is the cost difference between that and the new place we found.)

Cuijk is still a cute place. Not so cute was the Taurus, its only (sort of) hotel. We landed in a nice BnB instead.

Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 1,750 km (1,087 miles)

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Gregory GarceauI've seen a couple cannon demonstrations and have always wondered why it takes so long to fire off a shot. Hopefully the original militiamen were a little faster--especially if an invading army was quickly moving in.
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3 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Gregory GarceauCannon loading was probably always a slow process, although the loaders probably improved with practice (if they didn't get blown up first). The noise was incredible. We can only imagine the horror of a battlefield with these things being fired off from both sides.
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3 months ago

Bill ShaneyfeltBeing a retired explosives safety guy, the cannon firing brought back memories! "Fire in the hole!" is yelled front, then back, then left then right, or whatever order just before touching it off.
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2 months ago