Blogging at 22:15 on Friday 23rd August from intended overnighting spot N 53.05197°, E 05.75378° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:53.05197%2C05.75378
First up we cycled. We're both still groggy but it was good to turn a wheel in the Netherlands. Such is the quality of the cycleways - and they are literally everywhere - that it would be a travesty not to use them.
Post ride I was allowed to visit one of Lauwesmeer's bird hides whilst Emma read. It can't be overstated just how exceptional this place is. Best sightings this morning were a whimbrel, half a dozen ruddy shelducks and - a first for me - a similar number of Caspian terns. I also saw a peregrine hunt successfully.
Once underway in earnest, we again intentionally chose tiny roads and bumbled before chancing upon a really unusual art installation. It was, at first glance, an unprepossessing bridge over a canal, but once at canal level all was revealed.
Basically, the artists had taken hundreds of small glazed tiles, each with a picture of a person along with the person's name, and had arranged them in such a way to depict a large frieze of a speed-skating scene. Under each if the named individuals was also a year, or multiple years. 1985, 1986 and 1997 appeared as a frequent combination. We guess that the people in the pictures were competitors in speed skating events held on the frozen canal in the years mentioned. There was an information panel on site but we were unable to glean anything from it. Now, we operate simply and scoff at such manifest nonsense as a banana nailed to a wall in the name of art, but this we could get behind and genuinely enjoyed. Bananas nailed to walls my arse.
The bridge seemed to be a thing, too. Whilst we lunched there at least ten other groups in cars or on bikes visited and had a mosey around.* When you do stuff...
Half an hour's drive from the bridge-of-intrigue saw us taking up position for a bid at tomorrow's parkrun. It's a lovely quiet area featuring extensive cycleways and waterways (of course), and it's proved a good area for birds, too. Nothing unusual but the abundance of birdlife here is just a great thing to witness. Every field, and I mean every field, supports some or other combination of geese, wildfowl, waders, gulls and songbirds. It's been a pleasure to sit atop the cab in the warm evening sun watching the world go by as hundreds of Dutch people of every demographic pootle along the perfectly surfaced cycleways chatting merrily: or chuntering in disgust at gringos taking up space in a garish truck.
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*Post trip, a quick internet search revealed the full story of both the artwork and the speed-skating event that it celebrates.