Far East, then Far West

Updated map -->HERE<-- (100kB). The new trips are in red, previous ones in black.

"Far" is, of course, a relative term in the Netherlands. Still, I rode the train east on Saturday and west on Sunday, and the weather could not have been more perfect. This account of my weekend may seem a bit obsessive, but the weather calendar is definitely running out here--and evening rides during the week are already out, as dark is coming on just too early now.

Saturday came early, and noisily. Working on Saturday?--this was unexpected...though if anything would get a Dutch city employee to work weekends, it would be cleanliness--schoonheid.
 

A quick train ride east to Harderwijk, the same station from which I started last weekend. A stop at the same stainless-steel Swiss-bank-vault toilet. Rather than pull my stuff out of the bags, lock the bike, etc etc etc, I just rolled the bike into the room with me. Some odd looks after, when the bike clicked back out the vault doorway but hey, I had paid my 50 Eurocents. And it's not like my bike used the toilet.

Harderwijk has a very nice harbor and city center. The dome behind the docks is the Dolfinarium. I thought: dolfins this far inland? But (slap on the side of my head) this used to be a salt-water port.
 

Just north of Harderwijk on the Veluwemeer. You never know what these people will be up to.
 

A charming little peninsula into the Veluwemeer channel made for a nice lunch spot. Most of the schippers (from whence the English word skipper) greeted me the same way: "Hooi" (from whence Ahoy).
 

And the rest of Saturday was spent pedaling northeast to the Kampen bridge, over which from Flevoland to the mainland, and meandering along the Veluwemeer "coast" to the Nunspeet train station. Typical Dutch countryside, very easy to get used to.

But I'm saving your time and attention for Sunday's ride--an eventful day, almost the perfect day.

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From the start, everything was going my way on Sunday. The plan was a good one--on the train just 12 km to Weesp and pedaling along the canals and through a corner of Amsterdam, then north along the old Zuider Zee as far as I felt like, then whenever I got tired, cut away from the coast to the nearest train station. The forecast was for sun, 20C, a slight breeze from the south (watch out for Dutch weather forecasts--a "north wind" is a wind out of the south towards the north).

Along the canal north out of Weesp, I really wish I'd worn gloves. But soon the canals into Amsterdam were just gorgeous, and some seriously luxurious boats were plowing it in both directions. It took several bridges to get past Amsterdam's less elegant sections, and at the far end of the last drawbridge, I was dumped unceremoniously onto the coastal road I wanted. Within 5 minutes I was in Durgerdam.

Durgerdam, looking to the north. A hidden, unexpected pleasure, and yet a completely ordinary Dutch seaside village. This is the upside of Dutch life.
 

From about the same spot in Durgerdam, but looking south. An example of the Dutch downside: industry is never very far from view. Power lines run across the canals and over the bucolic polders and above the weird, to-all-appearances stoned sheep that graze while laying on their sides. And always a lattice of jet trails overhead. You are always--but always, whether indoors or out, city or countryside, day or night--within hearing of automobiles. All the modern tall white windmills are pleasant in their way, but for every windmill there are hundreds of metal towers to transport their power. Face it--the Netherlands by its very location and how it came to be is, and always will be a High Maintenance society.
 

To become more unphotographable than it is, Uitdyk would simply have to move underground. Blocking our view here is the old, in fact by now the ancient Zuiderzeedijk which keeps the Zuider Zee (at right) from inundating well-below-sea-level North Holland (at left). Now, Uitdyk houses had to be built with this dike rising at the back doorstep--literally within a meter from their foundations--and with the 300-year-old highway running at their front door. You step through the front door, your third step puts you in the path of cars, trucks, and worse, bicycles. There is hardly room before the front door for a mat. On the bright side, some kid has the World's Easiest Newspaper Route.
 

Dutch don't need encouragement to put litter in its place, but it never hurts to make a game out of it.
 

OK. This is the part where you turn green with envy. Look...I'm sure you had a very nice last Sunday, wherever you were--but this is where I read a few pages of Pascal and watched sailboats meander in and out of Marken harbor.

Sorry.
 

Marken used to be an island in the Zuider Zee, and now is joined to North Holland's mainland by a modern causeway. And from the north end of Marken projects a 2-kilometer long jetty to protect all the expensive boats and houses behind it. (If you're following on the bike map -->HERE<-- (100kB), it is the projection pointing at Edam.) I looked for a bike path to follow it out into the sea, thinking that would be fun. Ha.

They say "Never say never." And in fact there are very few things I can say I will never do again. I will never go to my high school graduation again (OK, it's true I missed my first one). I will never asparagus to my lips again or kiss ******* ****** again. But most of all, I will do my best never to even accidentally find myself following the Markendyk bike path again. Pictured is said path. Lovely? Perhaps, but what you cannot see are the flying insects. I wondered why I was the only biker out there. And the trail was hell on the bike's wheels, and grass and thorns whipped both legs the entire length. But I admit--the visuals were fantastic.
 

My stubborn streak took me to the jetty's end.
 

And down on the rocks at the very end of the massive breakwater I finally found a place away from the insects. I rested, regained my balance, caught up on water consumption, and watched dozens of boats gracefully rounding the jetty. Beyond them lies the town of Volendam.
 

Back down the jetty to Marken proper was into the wind, so the insects were even worse. I had to ride slowly enough to keep enough breath to keep my mouth closed--or else. And it was into the sun. And across the sunlit path ahead of me glistened hundreds of threads, every few centimeters, for the whole 2000 meters' ride back. The pilot filaments of spiders' webs, and every one had to be new, as I had just cut them all 20 minutes ago. And you should have seen the bike's front.

Riding inland, riding up the Gouwzee coast, rounding the bend back east, I was getting roasted. All I remember of that area is its having all the shade of the Sahara. It had just occurred to me that I had gone beyond wanting a rest to needing a rest, when an elderly lady riding in the opposite direction shouted something including the word "ongeval"--accident. Immediately a blaring ambulance passed, and just ahead, the police had the road blocked where it turned sharply, closed it even to bicycles, an extraordinary measure. I faced either 10 extra kilometers under the blazing sun, or pushing the bike up the steep edge of the dike and following its crest until I could get beyond and back down to the road. So up the dike it was. Seaward, a beautiful view of the Marker jetty whose I had just cruised; but inland, across the road and well below me, two terrible signs. A yellow medical helicopter, and a hundred meters beyond the corner in the road, stopped only by the rise of the solid dike, was what used to be a motorcycle.

Below me in the polder, the helicopter wound up and the blades whipped faster and faster, and in the rich green grass below it a disc of wavy disturbance expanded and expanded more. The machine struggled into the air, lifted over the dike and out over the water, and was gone.

I never saw any accident participants or such, and I didn't seek them out. I probably could have done. But this is not that kind of blog, and I am not that kind of photographer. The camera stayed in the bag. I followed the dike around its corner, well above the abandoned motorcycle. I was rewarded by a wonderful chair-shaped rock...IN THE SHADE. Karma! Half a liter of water, 1000 calories of trail mix, and thirty minutes' shade and breeze later, I was a new man. But still there was fatigue from yesterday's ride, and the nearest train station was not close. Nothing to do for it but get started. An hour later I coasted up the ramp of a train station with the unlikely, even un-Earthly name of Purmerend Overwhere. I had no sooner bought my one-way tickey back to Naarden-Bussum than bells clanged booms dropped and the train squealed up. Someone even pushed the "Deur Openen" button for me. Karma.
 

The ride was long. Almost every evening it's getting dark perceptibly earlier, and at some point the air cools abuptly, like opening a refrigerator door. My favorite chair sits by the window and I fall into it. Sunday is a big night for billiards across the street, and someone over there is a David Bowie fan. Maybe it's just that I'm just weary, but warm coffee seems to soothe the muscles of my legs.