Twente

After yesterday's struggle through flat, artificial, west-Dutch Europoort, it was time for the opposite extreme--hilly, all-natural, German-border Twente. And SOON. Well, the very next day turned out to be fine.

Again with the iffy weather forecasts. I've learned that a "20-30%" chance of rain here means it will mist for 20 minutes and be fine the rest of the day. I launch, haul the bike out at Hardenberg, where last weekend I watched the Asians applaud each others' ticket purchases. The German border was only 15 minutes' ride away, and I follow the border, safely inside the Netherlands, south into the Twente.

The eastern border of the Netherlands has three bulges: the northernmost and largest is Groningen province, which I followed from lonely Nieuweschans south to Coevorden. The middle one, smaller, is the Twente, and that's what we're following today. (The southernmost and smallest--the residents there would say coziest--is the Achterhoek, the "back corner", which will wait for another day.)

Yes, yes--I'm working on an expanded, detailed bike map. You map freaks out there: the new map will make your socks roll up and down.

Today I make a game out of following the German border as closely as possible without going over it and without letting the game get fractal on me...that is, without riding 1000 kilometers to do 50 km of border. I really want to make Enschede station today; any other station is either too far, or requires too much backtracking and after yesterday I've had quite enough of backtracking, thank you.

Quite soon I find my self in the little forest between Bruinehaar (brown hair) and Vasse. I ride around on the packed sand, and in a little corner of the Netherlands, I stop for a bite to eat and to "let the bike rest."
 

 
 

This little forest (the Streu) is remarkably beautiful. At one point, I just stopped where I happened to be, and simply pointed the camera down.
 

OK, I admit it--I cropped the above picture. Here is what the camera actually saw:

I mean, here I try to be nice and spare you the horror of my foot, but no--certain people always want the original photos...
 

In the very corner of this bit of the Twente, I look to exactly where the usually-infallible ANWB map marks an observation tower to be. It should be right in the middle of the little clearing. The tower is just not there. There is a guy standing next to his bike in Germany, 50 steps to my left, and he is looking into the field, too. It's just not there. I shrug and turn south to Vasse...
 

Vasse has a tiny central plaza (it is only 30 steps across). I wonder if this guy might have the right idea.
 

Tiny as Vasse is, it will be the largest town I will see, almost until I finish up today in Enschede. I get silly and follow the border north and then south again, around the peninsula into Germany known as the Bergvennen, follow the border farther down the Twente border through the surprisingly dark Lutterzand forest.

At the south end of the Lutterzand, on the Dinkel river, is the Molter Heune, listed on the map as Natuurmonumenten. I find the idea of a monument to Nature an affecting and attractive one. What on the planet is more monumental, yet so deserving of a monument?
 

The bicycle paths all day are like this one. After a few hours of riding like this, you start to imagine that the whole world could be this fine. That is an stabilizing impression to have, once in a while.
 

For you large-format types, HERE is a 1000x698 (296kB) of the preceding image.

I wonder through Losser and Overdinkel, always within 2 km of the German border, and for a few hundred meters on the German side. I can see Gronau. In one stretch, the bike path is in Germany but the road next to it is in the Netherlands. I cross the east-west tracks at Glanerbrug, where they are building startling row after row of American-style suburbia, very large houses of bleached brick with garages out front and no trees. Expensive but still just awful. What a waste. And along the Aamsveenweg, a road so impressively situated on the map but so modest in reality.

And into Enschede and the station. These bike expedition are turning into a southward tracing of the Dutch border, and one end of the next day's segment will be at station Enschede, either to it or away from it, depending on the day's wind direction. The train ride home is eventless. The exhaustion that night is relentless.