Holland Adventure Part Three...................

Thankfully, after a second pretty wet and windy night north of Leiden, we woke to a dry tent, eternally grateful once again that the rain seems to stay off whilst we pack up as I’m not looking forward to our first wet morning. After breakfasting like kings, the weather didn’t look too hot, so we set off fairly sharpish. Waving goodbye to Leiden, we decided to circuit round Den Hague in search of quieter places, and Delft seemed like a good idea. A bit of a windy day, with a fairly stiff headwind, provided us with the first real chance to use the waterproofs which performed admirably and we were dry as a bone underneath. We don’t yet have overshoes, so slightly damp feet were the only issue particularly when these are the only ones, being clipped in, that we can cycle in.

Arriving in Delft, we quickly decided to stock up on food for tea, and beer of course ( can’t forget the beer! ) and made the decision to head for our next campsite on the other side of town.  A lovely cycle through some woods brought us to the site down a farm track beyond the farm in a field next to a small canal. When we arrived there as no one there to sign in with, this being our first naturecamp, so we found a nice spot in the empty field beyond the showers and loos and got pitched and organised in the usual 15 minutes – getting good at this. The campsite consisted of a small orchard, a couple of fields for camping, and a fairly nice building containing the showers, loos, washing up area and ‘wet weather room’. 


Washing done and tea made, we managed to eat outside as the skies had cleared, and we even managed to enjoy some evening sun before turning in to sleep like logs once again.

Come morning, the folk who run the camp had arrived back and we managed to get paid up for a couple of nights. The site is run by volunteers who take turns to stay for two or three weeks ( presumably free ), take payments and keep the place clean and tidy. The retired couple who were there were in charge for a month, and were living in a little Eriba caravan with awning, my heart’s desire when I get too old or stiff to go camping any more. Eriba’s are really for people who used to camp but don’t like the thought of graduating to a travelling bungalow complete with flocked wallpaper and curtains! Made in Germany, they’re beautifully made, simple, and fitted with every little gadget, nook and cranny you need for travelling life. If IKEA made caravans, they’d look like this. Most people who own one live for the most part outside them, but they do provide that little bit of extra comfort, and would extend the possibilities for travelling in the spring and autumn, especially in Scotland when it can be too bloody cold to camp. It was a nice surprise to only be charged a flat rate of about 12Euros per night, with free solar heated showers which thankfully never seemed to run out of hot water.

We headed back through the woods into Delft for the day to have a look about town. On our way there we had to negotiate some canal works ( which involved people in wetsuits! ) and, approaching a sign which said ‘Fietsers Anstappen’ , which means ‘get aff yer bike!’ I decided it looked fairly safe and carried on at the risk of Al calling me a wuss. Big mistake! As I rode over the metal plates over the canal, my wheels caught on the edge of one and skidded out from under me, landing me unceremoniously on the ground. It all happened in a flash, and I had no time to unclip, so by the time Al had reached me I was jumping about on the path clutching my leg and shouting out all manner of bad words. Luckily, cycling gloves and helmet protected my hands and head, and  I suffered no more than a badly bruised leg and a slightly bashed ego. I’ve learned my lesson though that the Dutch know more about this than I do, and I’ll be obeying the signs from now on!

Reaching the river, we followed it into the town centre, parked up our bikes on the edge of the town square in one of the only free available spaces, and went for a stroll round the town, which is very pretty even in the rain. Our day consisted mainly of eating and drinking, using this as an excuse to shelter from the rain! The market stalls in the square were selling fishy snacks in the form of raw herring (!) and kibbeling. The Dutch seem to love their herring, much like the Scandinavians, and have a rather seagull like technique for eating this. The head is simply thrown back and the whole fish dropped in rather like a sword swallower. They also sell a really basic snack which seems really popular and is just a bit of herring in a white roll - Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall would be proud! 


Much as I like herring, usually pickled in the form of rollmops mind you, we decided to pass and went for the kibbeling instead. This is just smallish chunks of deep fried battered fish which comes with a choice of mayonnaise...we went for the garlic version, yum!


Our campsite for this couple of nights was great, with only one real fault, in that the grass badly needed a cut. It was so damp it was hard to keep feet dry. When we arrived back we had a new neighbour, Ole from Denmark via Hull where he had been based as a fisherman for most of his working life. In his late sixties or early seventies, Ole had been on a three month trip back to Denmark and was well set up with all the gear you'd really need and had a pretty cool Hileberg tent that could have slept about four people. Needless to say he pulled a small trailer behind his bike, something I don't fancy myself, but we had to admire the guy.


Al insisted that we move the tent as the previous night had been a little lumpy for him. We both sleep on Thermarest mats, and as Al's is a little older than my version, and a little heavier we had agreed to swap. I had bought a ladies version, pretty much the lightest I could find, but in hindsight carrying a few extra ounces would have made for a much better night's sleep. I suppose you get used to the mats after a while, but I woke each morning well rested but stiff as a board. Thankfully Al had been a true gent and agreed to swap with me, but the bump had to be dealt with so we carefully lifted the tent onto flatter ground. Dinner was served that night on the covered balcony of the shared room, in complete silence, with only the patter of the rain on the roof to be heard.

Our Holland Adventure......Part Two

Fired up by tales of other intrepid cycle tourers, who were making their way round Europe, or even round the world, our original plan was to do a grand tour of Holland in two weeks. The distances involved suggested this would be perfectly feasible, and finding accommodation along the way wouldn't be difficult, so how hard could it be? Once reality kicked in however, we soon realised that, in order to do this we would have to cycle roughly 50 miles per day ( as the crow flies ), and do this every day for two weeks, leaving us no time to actually enjoy the places we were passing through. This was no race, and we had nothing booked, so deciding to have a holiday rather than killing ourselves simply trying to cover an impressive mileage we set off south from Ijmuiden towards Haarlem for our first night.

Instantly on car free cycle paths, we were soon relishing the pleasure that is cycling in Holland. Although very densely populated, there are a fantastic number of wooded places, and thankfully the cycle network takes you on a meandering route through some of the nicest scenery on offer. Huge beech woods, with trees only just thinking about autumn, led us onto green pasture where this part of Holland seemed to enjoy everything equestrian, and a coffee and cake stop, the first of many.

I must admit I had had a bit of a nervous start in Ijmuiden, with a fully laden bike that I wasn't quite used to yet. Strangely though, after a couple of hours you seemed to forget that you were so heavy, and we seemed to be flying along! Our route followed LF1, the North Sea Route, and took us through the northern fringes of the Zuid Kennermerland National Park. Characterised by sand dunes and sparse forest, this park stretches from Haarlem down the coast for around 15 miles and is a haven for wildlife. Heading for one of several campsites indicated on the map, we eventually settled on one which looked basic but tidy, about 5km along the coast road out of Haarlem. 

Unfortunately there were no Nature Campsites in this area, so we had no choice but to go for one of the more touristy ones, catering primarily for caravans. The first shocker was the price - 14 Euros per night, not including your showers for which you had to pay a Euro a pop. So 18 Euros down, we set off in search of the tent area to pitch up. If the campsite had been dirt cheap then I wouldn't have minded the fact that the grass was not really grass, but bumpy scrubby ground not really ideal for pitching a tent on ( well actually that's a lie as decent grass to pitch on is to my mind a minimum in any campsite, but more about grass later ), but we only intended to stay one night so it was bearable enough. 

Our arrival at the campsite was pretty early, having only covered about 21 miles, so we set off for Haarlem with lightened loads for some food and a search for a supermarket. Despite the fairly dismal forecast, the sun was shining and we spent a lovely afternoon wandering round the small and compact city after leaving our bikes somewhat nervously in the market square. I say this as our bikes stand out like sore thumbs in Holland. Nearly everyone rides 'sit up and beg' Dutch style big bikes with satchel type panniers or baskets on handlebars, so our mountain bike and hybrid looked very odd locked up next to all of these. We worked on the premise that everyone owns a bike so no one would steal ours, although we had heard that risking this in Amsterdam or Rotterdam could result in a nicked bike within about ten minutes! Being our mode of transport this would be a real disaster.

Haarlem is a beautiful city, the capital of the province of Noord Holland and known also as 'Bloemenstad' due to it's importance as the main hub or centre of the tulip bulb growing industry. A long and rich history, dating back to pre-medieval times, is reflected in the architecture, with the city shaped by siege, the Black Death, fire, trade and war amongst other events. We found a lovely little pub (Proeflokaal In den Uiver) and sampled a couple of the local Jopen beers, eventually ending up eating chips and sauce outside a tiny little frite shop on one of the narrow pedestrianised streets.

So a really healthy start to our holiday!

A quick trip to the tourist information began to confirm what we thought we knew already, that maps were prohibitively expensive (particularly given the rotten Sterling exchange rate), and that the Rough Guide that we had was actually quite good. As usual they were about to close, and so we left to search for Albert Hein on our bikes before heading back to the campsite. Albert Hein - or Calvin Klein as it became known - is a fairly 'up market' supermarket found in certain parts of the country. The great thing about food shopping in Holland as a camper is that everything from meat to cheese to ready made salads is conveniently packed in handy portion sizes. Perfect for us, as we'd probably have to do shopping most days to avoid carrying more weight. We also discovered, after paying up to 4 Euros in the bar for a small beer, that they sell for about a third of that price in the supermarket, and the range is pretty good. So several bottles of beer were duly added to the basket and we set off back to camp.

Blessed with a lovely evening we ate outside the tent and enjoyed a stroll before turning in. One of the slightly disappointing things about camping in Holland is that, no matter where you are, you are never far from a road which is so different from camping in Scotland where the silence at night is deafening. That said we slept like logs and woke ready to really set off on the adventure.

Now don't ask me, or even Al for that matter, why we decided to continue our cycle south down the coast into an oncoming wind threatening to gust to 60mph. Neither of us can remember agreeing to this madness, when common sense would tell you that going north would be the sensible idea! We had spent time in Friesland to the north previously, so perhaps wanting to explore new pastures was the reason, but neither of us will admit suggesting this.​

We continued our route out to the coast road, where we were met with pretty ferocious winds as we turned south. Luckily it was dry, but there really was no escape from the wind, and we averaged about 6kmph for a good few hours. The first stretch of coastline is populated by pretty soul-less modern holiday resorts, which offered few sheltered places to stop for coffee, so we continued down the straight wind battered road towards Zandvoort before the path headed off once more into the sand dunes. These offered a bit of respite from the wind in places but it was heavy going. Elegant elderly ladies, on their way to do their shopping sailed past us in the northerly direction and we cursed ourselves for being this crazy. The route was fairly quiet, with everyone being sensible enough to stay in that day, however the cyclists we did pass were always going with great ease in the opposite direction.

Eventually, having crossed into Zuid Holland,  we reached a little beachside oasis where we filled our tummies with soup, sandwiches and coffee and rested tired legs. Thankfully after this point the path headed inland, so we got a little break from the wind, and we found ourselves cycling through endless bulb fields as we headed for Leiden. Unfortunately most of these were no longer in bloom, but it must be a spectacular sight to see in high summer as the ones which were still flowering were vivid and packed with rows and rows of flower heads. 

​It turned out to be a lovely site - with lovely grass! - and cheaper than the first one. The owner showed us to a specially selected pitch out of the wind, and slightly elevated in case it rained again, and apart from a couple of caravans were the only people there, perfect. We were offered  the use of a table and chairs, so felt really set up, and after a quick trip back to Calvin Klein managed to have our dinner and a couple of beers in the evening sun before turning in. Bedtime for the majority of our trip was once it got dark, roughly 9.30pm at a push. One of the downsides of camping in the autumn.

Rather than staying in Leiden itself, we had located a small village called Warmond to the north next to a lake which seemed to offer plenty of campsite options. We had encountered a pretty heavy shower on the way, which meant the first chance to test out the waterproofs, and were keen to get somewhere to stay as soon as possible. Again no Nature Campsites were on offer so we went against all of Al's principles and asked the nice lady at the VVV if she could find us somewhere. She immediately called her friend and announced after a short conversation that her friend would be expecting us! We had no idea at this point as to whether this would be the kind of place right for us, or how expensive it was going to be, but felt it impolite not to turn up so off we went in search of the site about a mile and a half out of town.

The weather didn't really improve that evening, and the rain looked pretty set. Once we got back to the campsite it was fairly obvious that tea outdoors was out of the question. The only dry place we could cook was in the ladies shower block, which was also the dishwashing area ( a bit sexist if you ask me having this in the ladies! ), so we prepared our dinner and made the mad dash back to the tent with pots in hand. Our tent (a Macpac Minaret) is high enough to sit up in, so we arranged our Thermarest chairs - great inventions - and had our tea in relative comfort whilst listening to the rain on the tent outside. After wrestling into our sleeping bags, which nicely warms you up for the night, sleep came easily once again...................

The forecast for the next day was pretty rough, so we decided on staying another night and taking the chance to explore the nearby University town of Leiden. The birthplace of Rembrandt, Leiden again has a long history stretching back to Roman times. Packed full of museums and intersting architecture, it was a good place to spend a pretty awful rainy day. We dodged showers in between climbing to the castle, searching out windmills and walking along canals absorbing the traditional buildings. What surprised, or occurred to us as we people watched from a cafe, is how the Dutch take the weather in their stride much more than we do. They don't seem to mind the rain, and simply get on the waterproofs, stick their hoods up, and keep cycling. You don't see crowds of people running from the rain or sheltering in doorways, and their attitude seems to be 'Hey it's only water!'

Day 1 - Ijmuiden to Haarlem (21 miles)

Day 2 - Haarlem to Worden (26.5 miles)

Day 3 - Around Leiden (9.8 miles)

Our Holland Adventure - Part One......

We planned our first two week cycle tour to Holland for a number of reasons. Firstly, in two weeks you can only travel so far, and we wanted to have a holiday as well as testing out whether we could actually do this, or would actually enjoy it. Secondly, making arrangements to travel from Glasgow, we needed to cross the North Sea simply to get to our starting point, a journey which would knock off at least three days of our holiday before we’d even started. Finally and perhaps most importantly, both of us had cycled in Holland before and knew that the infrastructure for cyclists in the Netherlands was virtually perfect for our needs. Was there a need to look any further for our first trip? We thought not, so Holland it was!

With the North Sea crossing from Rosyth outside Edinburgh unfortunately no longer operating      ( hopefully someone will get this up and running again in the future ) our best option seemed to sail overnight with DFDS from Newcastle to Ijmuiden. We caught the train from Glasgow on the Saturday morning, and had already established that there was a dedicated cycle route from Newcastle Central to the ferry terminal about ten miles away. All bikes have to be booked onto the train to ensure you will get them on and luckily we managed to get tickets for ours at relatively short notice. There were more tickets for the bikes than for us and we were thankful that we had done this in advance as the cycle facilities on Virgin trains are mot great to say the least, Whoever designed the cycle racks on these trains obviously didn’t design them for our bikes as it was a struggle to get them into the woefully small area available. All panniers and attachments taken off we managed, just, but anyone else turning up to use the last remaining space would have had no chance of fitting their bike in!

Arriving in Newcastle we had plenty of time to head down to the waterfront, grab a relaxed lunch, and find the cycle route we needed. A fairly relaxed cycle of about 90 minutes got us safely to the ferry terminal on pretty good paths and we arrived with loads of time to spare. Queuing up behind the other cyclists and motorbikes we had plenty of time to compare gear and check out everyone else’s kit while we waited to get on the boat. There was a group of young German cyclists in front of us travelling with quite a lot of kit on rear panniers, and we wondered how they had got on in the UK with our not so cycle friendly roads. Thankfully it was dry as there was no where to wait under cover, as we waited for a good hour before going through passport control etc. Eventually, after loading quite a lot of cars and caravans, we were ushered onto the ferry’s upper deck, where we had to strap our bikes to a railing – quite difficult with a heavy bike on a sloping platform! – and eventually lugged all our panniers upstairs to our cabin.

After a good night’s sleep and a fantastic buffet feed, we arrived in windy but dry Ijmuiden at 9am the next morning. Doing the whole process in reverse we made it safely off the boat and, after remembering to cycle on the right, made our way out of the ferry terminal where we found our reassuring first cycle signs pretty quickly.

Being in Holland as a cyclist is pretty blissful on the whole. You can travel almost anywhere you like on dedicated separate cycle routes with their own signs and even traffic lights. All cars in Holland give way to bikes, which takes a bit of getting used to as it feels scary simply to cross the road and hope they’ll let you pass at first! During our whole trip we only found ourselves on the roads a couple of times, twice when we weren’t meant to be there and had cars flashing their lights at us an hitting their horns ( generally we hadn’t followed the signs and had missed the path and these were 60km/h roads where bikes are strictly NOT allowed! ). Everyone in Holland cycles, and I mean everyone, so there are bikes everywhere which also means you have to look out for them as well and not get in the way with your big tank of a touring bike! I personally found this a bit daunting for the first day or so, before I settled into the way of things, and being on car free routes meant we could really relax and enjoy the scenery around us.

Before we had set off, the weather forecast hadn’t looked too great, so we had prepared ourselves for staying in a mix of campsites, hostels and B&Bs along the way. Our research had thrown up three main options –

Nature Campsites (http://www.natuurkampeerterreinen.nl )

We aren’t into big sites with loads of facilities and ‘entertainment’, preferring to stick to more basic quieter sites. We had discovered a network of 140 small basic 'nature camping' sites, ( not to be confused with naturist sites, of which there are quite a few in the Netherlands! )offering the chance to get away from the more organised kind, in rural areas out of town. They were generally a lot cheaper then the more formal advertised ones, and seemed to be just what we were looking for. Ideal for cyclists, most are situated on or near cycle routes, and are generally in areas of natural beauty away from the main towns. To stay in these sites you need to pay a fee of 15 Euros for a card and ( v small  and compact) guide book, which you can easily buy at your first stop. Charges are per tent/caravan and then per person, and we generally found ourselves paying in the region of 11-15 Euros a night which was pretty reasonable given that we also got free hot showers when the larger more formal sites charge for these or require you to buy tokens.

Hostels ( http://stayokay.com )

Holland’s answer to the Youth Hostel, Stay Okay operates 28 hostels throughout the country, offering dorm or group accommodation. A bit more pricey than UK hostels ( anything up to 28 Euros pp per night ), the other downside is that they don’t offer facilities for cooking your own food, but we though this was an option if things got too bad weather wise, or if we just fancied a night in a proper bed!

B&B ( http://vriedenopdefeits.nl )  

The “Vrienden op de Fiets" guide for 2011 contains nearly four thousand addresses throughout Holland and Belgium. These addresses provide bed and breakfast for cyclist and hikers only, with the nightly cost not exceeding 19 Euros per person. We had sent off for the book online before we left the UK. Once again an option for us if the weather go too wet.

Holland is conveniently covered by a vast network of cycle routes, with a wide variety to choose from. To be honest you could land in the country without any map and pretty easily find your way around using the local ‘red signage’, routes that point you in the direction of a nearby town. These are easy to follow and we used them several times on our rest days to navigate about. Alternatively there are long distance routes, or those taking you on specific routes of natural or historical interest in specific areas. Lastly there are the ‘nodes’, a vast network of numbered signs, linking up in a huge web across the whole country, allowing you to plan your route more accurately, and this seemed perfect for us although locals don’t seem to use these at all. Maps showing all the nodes are readily available on line or at book stores or Tourist Information shops ( VVV ), however, like Ordinance Survey maps in the UK, you require quite a number at 8Euros a time to cover the whole country. We had downloaded an Android App for our phones called ‘Bikenode’ before we left, which shows you all the nodes on a google map, and distances between each node, so we thought we rely on this to plan our routes as we went along.  Bikenode shows all the available routes, long distance, local and the node network, and also allows you handy views of each node point in Google Earth which is handy is you get lost and want to check where you should be.

( https://market.android.com/details?id=nl.rulex.bikenode&hl=en )

Generally it worked very well. At the start of each day we’d check the map and plan our route, writing down the list of numbers or nodes we’d have to follow to get to our destination. At pretty much every second node there is a map where you can check that you’re on the right track, and for the most part the nodes are quite easily spotted once your eye is trained to look out for the small but regular green and white signs.

‘Bikenode’ served us well, although we did miss out on a couple of nodes every now and then, and learned to check the maps at the nodes pretty regularly in case we took a wrong turn. The nodes are pretty easy to spot and follow when in the countryside, but less so in towns, where we got lost a couple of times. Generally however the only times we got well and truly lost was where there were roadworks or diversions, however a bit of common sense ( and a compass ) soon put us on the right track again.  Friendly locals were quick to stop and try to help us out, but seemed a bit flummoxed with the nodes as they don't really use them much to get about. Asking them ‘Can you tell us which way to get to number 47?’  didn’t get us far most of the time, but we managed fairly well for the most part.

To be fair some people like having a map in front of them, and if you haven’t got a phone able to download ‘Bikenode’ or similar, you would certainly need one, but we opted for the free version and didn’t get lost all that often….but hey isn’t getting lost on holiday meant to be half the fun?