We have augmented Frodo with a pair of e-bikes [shock, horror]. On Sunday we would meet Antonio again but today we were on our own. Just as well ‘cos we needed some more shopping. With Frodo comfortable pitched, out came our e-bikes for their first serious task, a shopping trip. Francine’s bike has some very clever panniers from Decathlon that zip together to form a rucksack – neat. I just have my regular shopping rucksack. We set off in reasonable weather.
We suffer from a lack of language in the Netherlands. Most of our travels are in countries where we have at least some rudimentary ability to communicate; we have decent French with a smattering of Spanish and German thrown in. Here, we are reliant on the Dutch speaking English which, happily, most of them do better than the majority of the British.
That doesn’t help with signage, though. We’d been seeing numerous signs along the way saying “Fietspad”. Hmmm, that looks and sounds a bit like footpath, we thought in our ignorance. Wrong! Fiets (pl. fietsen) is Dutch for bicycle; these were bike tracks.
Incidentally, an announcement on the ferry at disembarkation reminded the many cyclists aboard that it is illegal in the Netherlands to cycle on the road unless absolutely necessary; you must use the cycle tracks which are, of course, legion.
Fietsen are also legion in the Netherlands and most of them seemed to be parked outside the AH supermarket. Nonetheless we found a vacant bike stand to lock our e-steeds to. In we popped to decipher more Dutch food packaging. Helpfully, much of the labels come complete with pictures so you can workout that Kip is chicken, for example.
Deciphering and purchasing complete we exited AH to a downpour. “Bother”, said Pooh, irritatedly. A fellow Dutch cyclist beside us remarked, “that’s a shame”; how understated.
We took shelter until the opened heavens saw fit to close once again, then unlocked and hopped on our fietsen to return to Jelly’s Hoeve with our purchases.
Francine had spotted a couple of water bodies in Havelte so, after lunch, we hopped back on our fietsen and went to investigate.
The first was very close to the AH supermarket. It turned out to be a rather small pond surrounded by a triangle of roads and houses. As well as some local youth, there were a few dragonflies, about five species, but the most intriguing thing was a very large floating structure, buoyed up on about 16 oil drums, built largely of what we former boy scouts might call pioneering poles. The structure was tall, say 3 metres, square and about a quarter the size of the pond. We just couldn’t figure out what it might be for. Neither could Antonio, when I showed him. Answers on a post card to …
Recent Comments