An adventure into the Dutch Wilderness by foot and bus

Wifi is a lot more localised than we had realised. We found it in the bar downstairs and I spent the morning uploading the last two days blogs as well as catching up on emails. My article I’d been asked to rush off for Playmarket magazine has been edited down a bit (so that it will fit on the two pages the editor Mark has available) but it looks fine. Kirsty is looking forward to seeing us in the Lake District and has suggested we take a very scenic route from Edinburgh rather than the highway. It all sounds quite sensible and interesting.

We thought this morning we would find a map of the area and do a bit of exploring. There are two women who work at the desk- the short and tall one. The short one directed us to a pile of black folders sitting on a table in the lobby. None of them made much sense, unfortunately as they were all in Dutch. On our return to the desk for more help, we were greeted by the tall woman, who was much more helpful. There’s a map we could have, she told us, and asked what we might be interested in doing.

I wasn’t going to submit S to any more cycling, so we agreed on taking a bus to the town of Harderwijk which had, according to the tall one, a waterside promenade full of restaurants. It sounded interesting and involved only two bus rides and a bit of walking. The first bus took us to the town of Putan where the bus driver told us to cross the road and catch our connection to . Unfortunately we had missed that connection by one minute and the next one was not for an hour. We settled on walking for a bit. It turned out to be a nice walk, and there was plenty to see and talk about. We came to the outskirts of town with 15 minutes and a very long cycle track ahead of us promised there must be a bus stop somewhere along the route. 

                                     This is NOT us on bicycles

We passed one which we think had been made obsolete, and continued for a further 30 minutes beside the forest to a bus stop with a cycle underpass and loads of empty cycle racks (it is the holidays for many, after all). The bus arrived a wee while later, and we were pleased we hadn’t kept walking as the bus came to the next town very quickly and made a lot of strange turns through a maze of streets which soon turned into Haderwijk, we were looking for. And what a maze of streets! For quite a while, we wondered where the bus was taking us and there wasn’t much that we could see that was appealing (mostly housing estates); however, we were soon to be pleasantly surprised once we were dropped at our destination to find a collection of narrow streets full of market stalls and the cutest houses you could find. 

We wandered for a while and found the pier as well as an old city wall. This town must have been another of those that was seriously bombed in the war because sitting on its nose with its tail in the air was an iron statue…the picture will tell the rest.

We ventured back to the bus stop and found we had just missed a bus (again!) so headed back into the market square and settled for a beer. We had a short wander around the market stalls and met a man who knew a man in a bay with whales in Wellington (you get that when people find you are from New Zealand) and found some tasty salami and cheese to snack on tomorrow.

We finally caught the bus and made the connection in good time. We’d discovered that Garderen was actually within walking distance from the hotel, so decided to take a chance and find a restaurant to eat our dinner. The one we chose was a great choice, with a table right next to book shelf. Next to us was an elderly gentleman with a lap dog (you can do that as well). He was very proud of his pet he’d only had for four days and the dog was, as a consequence, very well behaved. We found out his previous dog had had a heart attack and this was a replacement dog (a six year old terrier of some sort).

The food was delicious. Fresh cod baked in crushed almonds with a sauce of mustard and dill. We had sides of broad beans, tiny new potatoes, and salad. Interestingly as well, the plate came with a small salad topped with a slice of watermelon and we were offered a rhubarb sauce as well.

S took some passion fruit ice cream for dessert. Nothing like NZ ice cream which is quite sweet; this was fully fruity and also very delicious (Yes, I snuck a few mouthfuls).

Our walk back along the country road beside a cornfield, and then forest took us about half an hour. Despite the missed buses, this had been another great day.