Spring sprung

Spring has sprung and I am back 'Walking the Netherlands', after a long break. Today from Swolgen to Grubbenvorst (just north of Venlo)- a short hike (12km) to test my capacity and willingness. Warm enough to walk in a tee shirt today - even before spring 'officially' begins. More text to follow (maybe) - but my supper is cooked and getting cold. .

Walking the Netherlands -review 1

This summer I managed to do a few stages of my cross-Netherlands walk. In spring I did a stage of the Lingepad across the Betuwe - timing it to perfection for when the fruit trees were in blossom.

Later in the summer I went off with a friend and walked a delightful stage of the Oeverloperpad - which mostly followed the River Rotte around the northern side of Rotterdam and out to Zevenhuizen.

Along the way we found ourselves climbing the highest 'mountain' in Holland (nb not the Netherlands)- a man made mountain built of landfill that serves as a ski run, a mountain bike track and offers a panorama of views to Rotterdam, Delft and the characteristic towers of Den Haag (some 30km away - seen below) and Zoetermeer to the north. Such a view is a rare treat in such a flat country.



I enjoyed two other unlikely and quite spectacular views this summer. While cycling around Richmond Park (one of my favourite places on the planet) - I stopped on top of Richmond Hill and gazed back to London (shades of Wordsworth here - except he never contemplated the view from a mountain bike) and had a view all the way to St. Paul's Cathedral and the towers of Canary Wharf.

I also did a small cycle trip with a friend that we had plotted for more than a year - but never got around to doing. Rhenen is the next town along from Wageningen - a small town but with an improbably large and impressive church tower.

We were there a winter ago - but the tower is only open to visitors in the summer months (one guided tour a day). We made it for the last week of opening and had the guide all to ourselves - learning much about the history of Rhenen (in the middle ages Rhennen and Wageningen were frontier towns between two different dukedoms - separated by a few kilometres and a stretch of marshland) and about Cunera, the English saint to whom the church is dedicated. There is a lovely story about her (perhaps another day) but Catholic.org/saints doubts its credibility. Her entry on the saints website baldly states "a British virgin venerated in Germany. Her traditions are untrustworthy."

I will confess to a mild sense of vertigo as we got towards the top of the tower.
. There was also a sense of dislocation - of gazing down at a small settlement that dates back to medieval times - but which never really expanded. From the top of the tower you see more fields and flood plain than settlement.

The centres of power and communication shifted. The Rhine once flowed immediately below the city walls and the town was an important trading (and taxation) centre. Now it flows some 200-300 metres south of the town and all that cargo just passes right by.

Walking the Netherlands

Tiel to Dodewaard / Hemmen NS (24km)

The next weekend I decide to take on the next leg of the Lingepad.
Crossing the Rhine on one of these floating bridges - on a summer day it always feels like the start of a holiday - even if it's just a day trip. My car had been parked under a cherry tree for a week and was covered in blossom which flew off in different directions with every gust of wind - as if I had just been to a wedding. And the sun brings out some wonderful blossoms - this one simultaneoulsy demonstrating two great Dutch passions - for bikes and gardens

It was hot (I mean hot) leaving town, so I packed sunscreen and 2 litres of water. But two hours into the walk the sky became cloudy and hazy and the wind got up - but these guys still seemed to enjoy themselves, the more so with a force 6-7 wind.

And here a little house that looked so dilapidated, with cracks in the plaster, a decaying thatched roof and blistered paintwork work that I had to pinch myself to realise I wasn't in France or somewhere in Southern Europe
The Dutch love their livestock - even if cutenesss is it's only redeeming factor

All day long there is a a parade of hyper-modern and extremely ancient farm machinery along the dyke. I suspect that there must be a local show planned somewhere. Here are 15 children in a gypsy caravan being towed by what I guess is a 10 hp tractor.

Lest we forget the church has always been strong here - for good or for ill. Here on a sunny day one sees the positive side.

Five and a half hours - 24K - not bad going for my first serious walk of the year (at least for a fifty year old chain smoker ). The last four k hurt a bit but this year I plan to get out to the mountains much more and a bit of flat level walking is useful training.

Walking the Netherlands - Day 8

Day 2 on the Lingepad: Geldermaslen to Tiel - 22KM

This area - the Betuwe - which lies between the Waal and Rhine rivers is famous for its fruit trees - so what better time to visit than in spring when the blossom is out?



A few shots from Buren, a historic walled town half way along the route. The flags are out in preparation for Queen's Day - the biggest national holiday here.





A shot of the chateau at Soeren near the end of the walk.

'The Betuwe line' - a controversial multi million euro rail project that cuts across the Betuwe and was intended to link Rotterdam with North Rhine Westphalia. Although officially opened it has not much used as the German side of the line has not yet be built/upgraded. The power lines stand like a gigantic whale skeleton along the side of the A15 - a monument to international non-cooperation? This line is not on the map in my walking guide, nor the road realignments that accompanied it - so I had to wing the last 2km into Tiel using instinct rather than the guidebook



View Larger Map

Walking the Netherlands - Day 7.

Picking up the western leg of my trans-Netherlands walk again after some 15 months. Its the first day of summer time - but to look at the grey sky you wouldn't know it. At least it's not snowing this weekend. But there is a persistent drizzle when I set out on the train from Schiedam to Delft, I'm hoping it's going to clear. If not I figure I can do a few tourist sites in Delft and head back to Rotterdam. And it does. Game on! After a quick trip of the canals and bridges of Delft I take the bus out to Schipluiden - a beautiful little village and reconnect with the Oeverloperapad - the start of one of Europe's long distance footpaths -running from Hoek van Holland to Nice (I think there's a British section too). I'm kind of hoping to do it all - but at the rate I'm going it will be 2014 before I finish the Dutch section.

The skies are grey - I spend all day between 2 and 5.5 metres below sea level -combined that's a pretty accurate emotional barometer. But it's nice to be out in the wind, to talk to myself and take a rain check about what's going on (or not going on) in my life. I'm glad to be out by myself today. I invited a friend but she had other priorities and its good to be alone in the landscape. To deal with existential problems - like do I do turn South before or after that bridge? And why is there is a mismatch between the map - which shows no housing- and the path - where the housing is 100m north of the path I am following? And I chuckle at the metaphor - why does the reality of my life not match the map that I drew a few years ago?

The rain holds off - but the grey and flat landscape doesn't lend itself to photos today - so today's photos (see last blog) are mostly of birds and bridges. The first half of the walk takes me across a polder that separates Delft from Rotterdam. There's a story about how this is still here, at least still unspoilt . I only know half of it. Some years ago there were plans to build a motorway link across the middle of this polder. They built the infrastructure -a bank that it is now a cycle path - but the the environmental argument prevailed and the motorway extension was never completed. As a former anti-roads campaigner that gave me a warm glow in my heart.

The second half is spent skirting around the northern perimeter of Rotterdam. I love these peri-urban environments where almost every step is imbued with history. They are so much more interesting than city centres with their chain stores and malls and public images. (I once met a great guy in Copenhagen - who was offering cycling tours around the lesser known quarters of the city - unfortunately his publicity spoke of visiting the backside of the city and he didn't attract the client base he was looking for).

At the end of the day I've done nearly 20K and am tired so I misread the (Dutch) route instructions and instead of ending at a NS station find myself at the close-by "Melancholy weg" tram and metro stop. Now how appropriate is that? (But why are they not piping Leonard Cohen songs?).

Back to my friend's flat. She makes me a huge mug of tea - with biscuits- and we talk about each others days' - and how our lovers' fucked us up and hurt us - and we play each other our favourite sad love songs and I remember how important friends are. We run around the planet (in however large or small circles) looking for love - (well at least I do). Ultimately it's our friends who guide, shield, protect and inspire us.

Walking the Netherlands Day 7

Schipluiden -Overschie- Rotterdam (Melanchthonweg)- 17.5km.

Grotere kaart weergeven

On a Golden Autumn Day

Day 6: Pieterpad: Gennep- Vierlingsbeek 18.5 km

Normally there's an accompanying text with the photos - but this week my writing efforts are directed elsewhere. It was a gorgeous autumnn day - let's hope it wasn't the last one of the year.

Walking the Netherlands

Day 5: Pieterpad: Groesbeek- Gennep 14.5 km.

Today's trip requires some planning - neither town is on the rail network anymore - although Groesbeek still has a defunct railway line which we walked along some months ago - and Gennep was once on the main London - Berlin route. Both towns have a regular bus service to Nijmegen - but we anticipate the town being in chaos after the end of the vierdaagse and parking spaces to be in short supply. So we opt for the unecological option - take two cars and park one at each end. And just to make life more complicated why not take a friend's dog too?

Groesbeek has traditionally been quite geographically isolated - surrounded by hills and forests it occupies what must be a unique topography for the Netherlands, it is situated at an elevation of c. 40m, but lies in basin in a glacial moraine (the most southerly in the Netherlands) and surrounded by hills that rises to 70m or so. The town was also one of the major centres for the parachute drops that preceded Operation Market Garden and the liberation of the Netherlands. The town itself was almost completely destroyed during the fighting and memories of the time can be found in street names like parachutist street, a museum and a large war cemetry.

From the town centre we head out almost immediately into forest. Yesterday's rain was the heaviest of the year and the forest floor has been virtually swept clean of all it's detritus leaving an absolutely clear and clean soil surface. One can still the paths where the water flowed and little mounds of twigs that got stranded on the slightly higher patches of soil. Emerging from the forest we come across a vineyard (three farmers in the region are now turning their hand to growing grapes and wine production) and some maizes field surrounded by metre wide borders of planted wild flowers. Farmers have now come to see the benefits of planting borders of wild flowers beside their crops (and are being encouraged to do so) to attract insects and other predators and so reduce pest damage and/or pesticide usage. They are also very pretty so it is a win / win situation and the small strips lost to production are more than made up for by less expenditure on pesticides.

After a short spell of open countryside the path takes us back into woodland - this time the St. Jansberg Nature Reserve. Here we enjoy a 4km or so stretch of rugged wooded walking - with views opening up on both the south and north and where one feels part of the landscape. There are deep gullies and ravines, paths that drop off at really sharp angles - it is a mountain bikers paradise. Bella dog finds a pond that looks just the place for a cooling dip but when she gets there she finds herself up to her haunches in a thick porridge of mud and has to really struggle to pull herself out - before coming and shaking herself all over us! This is the edge of the moraine and falls away quite spectacularly to the plain below and to the Province of Limburg. It is quite an unexpected pleasure to enjoy such a steep and lengthy walk downhill.

The last stretch of the walk takes us along the Grensweg - quite literally the border between Germany and the Netherlands and then along a small country lane running directly south across a rather boring stretch of flat country. Here the architecture and breeds of cattle bear some Germanic influence. Halfway to Gennep a bull takes great offence at seeing a dog so close to his herd and lowers and brays at us until we are safely past his field. Bella dog to her credit pays not the slightest heed - neither responding nor cowering. parked on the northern edge of Gennep we don't get the chance to see the town - something to look forward on our next day's outing.

Picture 3 in this series, courtesy of RetArt Productions

Walking the Netherlands

Day 4
Nijmegen - Beek - Groesbeek 17 km.
For days (if not weeks) I have been excited about the next section of the walk. If I were doing this walk sequentially east to west it would be the first time in some 200km that I would encounter anything that vaguely resembles a contour line. Even so I can't but get excited looking at the map and longingly trace my fingers over the curving russet lines on the map that indicate the existence of hills and valleys. These are the very same hills we saw on our way back from a trip to Germany two or three weeks ago and in the mist from the northern banks of the river last winter.

Finally a window of good weather appears amidst all the rainy days and we drive to Nijmegen for what is essentially a hybrid walk: one that joins the last few kilometres of the Lingepad to the first few kilometres of the Pieterpad south of Duivelsberg. The logic lie in the public transport links: Groesbeek – the destination - has good bus links back to Nijmegen. There are few train lines /stations along this section of the Pieterpad and organising day trips here will involve some ingenuity.


Heading east away from Nijmegen one immediately goes up a bank onto a glacial moraine overlooking the Meertje, a small river that separates the floodplains of theWaal from the higher ground. This is where the great and good of the city live – large Victorian-era mansions, with extensive gardens and equally extensive views. Our route takes us from these pleasant suburbs to areas with a more distinctive village feel– but which still rank highly on the des-res scale. These are hand designed houses, with follies and turrets and in one case a sweeping staircase running through a bank of rhododendrons. Soon we leave the houses behind and are trailing through a patchwork of deciduous woodland interspersed with small meadows. Being Sunday the path is busy, mostly with dog walkers and joggers and sometimes people combing the two.

Beek is the only village on the route. Formerly a washing community that took in Nijmegen’s laundry, it has rebuilt the public wash houses where the women folk used to earn their money. From Beek we go up and down a bewildering maze of paths and logs staircases, passing an old border post that once defined the German Dutch border. Shortly after we arrive at Duivelsberg, (Devil’s Mountain), used as a hill fort during the 11th century.


It is an impressive hill but the Dutch habit of referring to any elevated piece of land as a mountain still grates. I refer to them as bergjes, using the very common Dutch practice of suffixing a ‘je’ to the end of a word to make it diminutive (classically as in a biertje – which is what you get – a small beer). There is hardly a noun in Dutch that is not subject to this process – but my play on words however is rarely appreciated, possibly the Dutch are sensitive about the size of their proturberances and don’t like to see them diminished in status.

We enjoy a cold drink at the extremely busy pancake house and continue to wend our way through a mosaic of woodland and pasture towards Groesbeek. Only when we get back on the bus does it briefly start to rain

Walking the Netherlands - Prologue

(20th November 2006)
Some months ago I realised that I needed a hobby. Hobbies have always seemed a strange concept to me - I always look askance at people who ask what my hobbies are. It always makes me think of stamp collectors, train spotters and amateur dramatics. All worthwhile pursuits - but I always felt too busy to have a hobby. Being an environmental campaigner and writing a PhD don’t leave much time for hobbies. But right then (and now) a hobby is what I need. Something that takes me away from a keyboard and a screen (more perceptive readers will spot the irony here).

The obvious choice seemed to rekindle my long dormant habit of long distance walking. It's healthy, gets you outdoors, is cheap, and is something you can either do by yourself or in a group. It is something that can be done spontaneously by looking at the weather - rather than consulting one's diary and making plan x weeks in advance. But there are not many Munroes to bag in Holland (nor many Marilyns or Marshes either) and full blown alpinism involves too much travel and offers a very small seasonal window of opportunity. So I would have to start appreciating less elevated pathways.

I first thought of setting out to walk across the Netherlands while we were staying in a friend’s apartment in the picturesque village of Pitres. We had planned to do some walking. But we went there with bad doses of flu and it rained nearly everyday- (so much so that Malaga was flooded out). The most walking we did was between showers to neighbouring villages to find restaurants and enjoy long lunches. In the long evenings by the log burning stove I studied the map of the Alpurrajas and saw reference to the ER footpath that links the south of Spain to Finland (via the Czech Republic). A bit impractical for weekends away when you live in the Netherlands but it did remind me that the long distance European footpath network also runs through northern Europe: making day and weekend trips in and around the Netherlands and possibly, further afield, a real possibility.

So the next weekend I was down at my local specialist travel bookstore (thank goodness for specialist shops and the owners who know their stock- they deserve free plugs) rummaging through the long distance footpaths that run across the Netherlands. My first idea was to follow the Dutch portion of the ER2 , which starts from Hoek van Holland and runs down to the Mediterranean. There was also a symbolic reason to choose to start from Hoek van Holland as it was where I disembarked when I arrived in the Netherlands five years ago. So it would relate to an unfinished journey, maybe even help me rediscover my bearings. Practical considerations also played a role. If I could follow a line east-west across the Netherlands towards Nijmegen and then turn South and follow the Maas towards Maastricht I could make the best use of my position on the Dutch train network to make the comings and goings easier.

So I asked the owner if he had a map of the Dutch section of the ER2 – which he located in less than two minutes. Unfortunately it didn’t fit my expectations. Instead of running E-W across the country and then south it headed due south along the Zeeland coast and then cut across Belgium to Maastricht. Lovely to walk barefoot along the dunes in summer– but probably not the best walking to be do in the middle of winter, against a gale force SW wind. So I reconsidered the options and looked through all the alternatives in the long distance footpath section and within about half an hour cobbled together my own trans-Netherlands long distance footpath. Starting from Hoek van Holland it would follow the Oeverlopad to Leerdam, and from there the Lingepad to just west of Nijmegen and then the southern half of the Pieterspad from there to Maastricht. After that I could continue south along the Meuze (Maas) to pick up the ER2 to Nice, turn left and follow the ER8 to the East of Europe or go right and follow the path back across Belgium back to the Hoek, enjoying some fine Belgian beers and the chance to speak French along the way. What a great feeling to have the whole of Europe at my feet. But for the moment lest concentrate on things closer to home. I chose the first two books, which would guide me through to Nijmegen. The owner looked at me askance as if I had been wasting his time asking for the first book – and I tried to explain in my poor Dutch that the route along the coast wasn’t very attractive in winter time, nor practical for public transport links. I felt a bit like someone going into a butchers wanting lamb but coming out with pork. But as I also bought a Times World Atlas and a wallmap of Europe , I was probably one of his best customers of the day.

So the very same evening I started planning the trip – looking at the maps, the feasible distances to cover in a day, comparing them to a larger scale map for orientation and working out the public transport links. I got thoroughly lost in planning the trip. What a wondrous thing to be an armchair traveller. One big decision was whether to take route a starting by Hoek van Holland and skirting round the north side of Rotterdam, or route b starting at Europoort and going round the south and including a stretch along the world-famous Kinderdijk, a series of twelve or so old fashioned windmills, which I have still never seen. In the end practice considerations won the day – the train links were better and more direct on the northern side and I have two friends on that side of the river to call on along the way. Within a day of buying the books I had first four-five days walking planned. After that the public transport planning would become more complex. But I finally had a hobby and within a couple of days had already made plans to go to visit my German photographer friend living near Rotterdam.

New toy

Last week I was playing with Google maps - and succeeded in capturing a route map of one of my Dutch walks - see Walking the NL for this link.

I later went back and captured two maps of my adopted home town, Wageningen - one shows how beautifully located the town is - sitting between the only two susbstantial bits of forest in the Netherlands and adjacent to the Rhine. The other shows a closer view of the town and surrounding countryside.
New toys, new joys.

Walking the Netherlands

Part 3 Leerdam to Geldermalsen (21.5km)
(Parts one and two were walked some time ago, prior to this blog, and have not been posted yet).

The day did not start well. At the train station the clock said four minutes after my train. I wasn't (the clock was wrong) but panicked anyway (hourly service) and then the ticket machine wouldn't accept my card - so I had to ride the first stage to Tiel without a ticket. When I got to Leerdam, I realised I had no map/guidebook and no tobacco. Both were sitting on the front seat of my car, forgotten when I shifted my attention to checking the time instead of checking the contents of my day bag. Not the best way to start a day: mapless and smokeless in a strange town.

Fortunately I found the local tourist office- explained my sitaution and got a description of the walk and large scale tourist cycle map that covered broadly the same route. Thrown in at the deep end. Normally when walking in the NL, I read the map and don't pay much attention to the Dutch text. Today I have to pay attention to the linksaf, rechtsaf and rechtdoor (left right and straight on).

Most of the day is spent walking along dikes, following the line of the Linge from west to east. (Route map here) These dikes were built as defense against flooding and have houses built into the sides of them for the same reason. One of the beauties of walking these dikes is that you are 5 or 10 metres above the surrounding land - so can enjoy relatively extensive views over a landscape which is a mixture of water, flood plains and orchards . The flood plains are mostly used for cultivating willows and alders, which are widely used for thatch on the local houses.

Highlights of the day include strolling though four lovely villages. Asperen (below) with its fortifications and complex of sluices and locks. Acquoy, strung like a necklace along a kilometre or so of dyke - and boasts a leaning church tower. Rumpt, another attractive village strung out along the dike 's walls, where they were hanging out the flags for the annual village party and Beesd - a town with larger, more commanding, buildings that speak of a more Southern European influence and some historic aspirations towards grandeur . Imposing churches stand at either end of the high street, with lines of neatly pollarded (lime?) trees running the whole length of the street. Glimpses between gaps in the houses show the orchards running right to the edge of the back gardens. Here is a different Netherlands, far removed from (though doubtless dependent on) modernity. It is one that is rural in its outlook and whose architecture epitomises the Dutch concept of 'gezellig'. The last stretch of the day from Beesd to Geldermalsen includes a decent stretch along a length of dyke lined on both sides by apple trees. Surely worth a revisiting in springtime when the blossoms are fully out.











I made it all the way from Leerdam to Geldermalsen working from a Dutch text and a Mickey Mouse map without getting lost once. A small victory for my Dutch, combined with the very well positioned red and white stripes marking the route. There was just one boring stretch of road (less than a kilometre) in the whole day. Here I found one of those little snack bar so loved by the Dutch in the middle of nowhere, arriving there just as the thunder started to pressage a heavy rainfall. It offered me shelter, chips and coffee while the storm passed.

On the way home both the train connections worked well, taking me back to Zetten in just over an hour (these things still impress an Englishman). On the drive home I buy a half a kilo of beautiful plum-purple Betuwse cherries from a farm gate stall, as a treat for supper.