Holland Bike Trip – Day 3
This is long…
Am at Port Zelande, a small island in the southwest of Holland. Yesterday I got pretty far and could have made it all the way here. But I wanted to make the most of this campground so I stopped early yesterday. It has a water park that’s mostly indoors. Was supposed to have hot tubs, and I’ve got saddle soreness so I was looking forward to that. The hot tubs are really just warm tubs though.
The most interesting part is their lazy river. It is kinda like a lazy river / waterfalls / waterslide combination and the water is really warm. Brady would love it here. They also have an outdoor rock climbing structure and a ramp for launching bikes into the water (flips) and buggies powered by sails or kites. Not enough wind or I’d go try the buggies.
Yesterday I reached the coast and started heading south. There was a ferry near a town called Rozenburg. There was a huge crowd waiting, and when the ferry docked, a lot of people were cheering as a bunch of bicyclists were getting off the ferry. Apparently there was a bike race in or from Spain. (My bike nut co-worker Dan told me it was a grand tour of some kind – not a race per se) I just happened to show up when 50+ riders were arriving. It took forever for them to clear out so we could board the ferry.
Yesterday’s campground was honking huge. It even had its own restaurant. My neighbor at the campsite was an electrician for the infrastructure – locks, bridges and such. He works 40 hour weeks but was on an employer sponsored weekend trip – he’s on call if something breaks. I told him I’ve only seen the locks at the Chicago river and upper Michigan – Sault St Marie. He told me in this small area alone, there’s 7 locks.
The way it works is there is a huge canal network. There’s many roads and even more bike paths (fietspads) that follow the canals. The farmers can tap into the canals to irrigate their fields. But the canal is about 6-9 feet above everything else. So boats have to be raised/lowered. There’s also drawbridges everywhere. The smallest canal requires a drawbridge for all crossings.
He came back over to lend me an adapter for the outdoor outlet. Their electric outlets are normally 2 prong and I have an adapter for that. But the 3 prong was new to me.
Gotta go my laundry is dry. I’m typing/sending this on the 4th (my birthday) but the internet is about $8 an hour – no thanks.