The Netherlands shares a similar climate to where I'm from in the States: the Pacific Northwest. June is a difficult month for PNW'ers because, after a long soggy winter that melts into a long soggy spring, people are ready for more than the same-old same-old: grey skies and drizzle. Sun and warmth! It rarely happens. Hence, people from this region generally refer to June as Junuary (pronounced Joon-uary) because even though the days are long and the flowers are pervasive, the sky is still grey, we're still in bulky sweaters, and our humor is not in tact. It's more grit than grins this time of year.

Seattle and Amsterdam share a similar latitude (47.6° and 52.4°, respectively) and thus a similar climate. I don't know how Dutch people feel about the weather in June (flowers are even more abundant than in the PNW and it stays light till 11pm) but I imagine, like PNW'ers, they're used to the temperamental nature of the summer season. It's a bit of a tease, really.

Our splendid shorts and t-shirt weather over the weekend takes a quick nose-dive and by 9am Monday -- just in time for breakfast on the terrace -- the skies are grey, a chill has descended, and big splots of rain begin to fall. By the time we're on our bikes at 10am it's raining steadily. We put on our rain gear and worry about the susceptibility of our panniers to the wet. But there's nothing to be done but carry on.

And it's actually quite nice, cycling in the rain. My socks and shoes and gloves are sodden by the time we stop for a morning coffee break in Otterlo, but the fresh smells of the wet forest and heide have been delightful. Today is our last day cycling through these rich and wild forest lands and I will miss them. I have gained such an appreciation for Holland's natural spaces this past week. Having spent previous visits in the heavily industrialized southwest corner of the country, I didn't imagine that the Netherlands had such beautiful open spaces.

Our B&B is in a small village outside of Rhenen (Achterberg). It's a large apartment over an old barn, with plenty of light, a view of the farm fields and the only (small) hill I've ever seen in Holland, and a small kitchenette with cooking facilities. Eating out has its benefits, but too much of it gets tiring. We're both craving a home-cooked meal. So we cycle into Rhenen -- just as another rain shower starts -- and pick up ingredients for a pasta meal.

You've got nice curls, Henk says the day we wandered the heide after our late lunch at their place. My typically fly-away hair is unbound by the usual hair band, held in place instead by a cap on a windless afternoon. It flows a handswidth down my upper back. And yes, it's curly. Many hairdressers over the years have fallen in love with my curls, though my intention in coming to see them is to have them taken off. Wild curls. Unruly. Tiresome.

I grew it long six or seven years ago as a last play with youthful exuberance. It was meant to last only a year or two. But for several years now, I've suffered the long-hair/short-hair debate that plagues not a few post-menopausal women as they watch their youth wither and fade like the proverbial late-autumn rose. I grow weary of the battle...even more so the challenge of managing long hair on a road trip. Most days it's stuffed under a hat or helmet and comes out looking like squashed spaghetti.

So as we round the corner of the street where our B&B resides I note the inconspicuous hair salon. Not your usual inner city style salon with their glitzy promises of Hollywood hair, but the corner shop. Where mom and grandma go to get their monthly 'do done. I'm getting it cut, I announce, impetuous but determined. Johan, my faithful interpreter, follows me in to organize an appointment. Which is today at 10:30am. It's a hot day, with nothing else planned, so first up is taking Sui's curls to the chopping block.

Only the friendly young hairdresser, chatty but too shy to speak English, tells Johan, who tells me, that she might recommend a bit longer than the short pixi cut I show her on Google Images ("Best Haircuts for Women Over 60"). She loves my curls. It's not what I want but my conviction falters. What if a pixi ends up with me looking like every other beleaguered 60+ woman out there? Fed up with looking cute, just give me something easy and practical. I relent.

She snips and cuts, scrunches and fluffs and I walk out the door with a head of mini curls and a bag of products to help maintain the wild-curl-girl look she's created. Johan's been a gem of support. But with my new look, his scruffy beard just doesn't cut it. I insist on some reciprocal action and we head into the $5/beard-trimming barber we passed last night. Time to get Johan's beard into shape. The surly Kurdish barber -- thick neck, fierce military hair, an arm's length of tattoos -- assigns the beard job to his young apprentice, who spends 20 minutes in deep concentration on Johan's face. A menagerie of sculpting tools is used to get every out-of-place hair -- from neck, ears, nose, and eyebrow -- removed. The surly boss calls out something that sounds like a reprimand, but his face breaks out in a broad grin and he repeats in broken English, "Ten years younger!" We all laugh. Ten Euros and Johan's face is spick and spam. We celebrate our shorn looks with cappuccinos and carrot cake at a nearby coffee house.

Holland is not known for its heat. Especially in June. But it is known for its high humidity. So when the unusual heat spike meets the typical moist air, the result is two sweaty bodies. In Australia I always say 28°C (82°F) is my ideal temperature. But when Apeldoorn hits the mark I'm a mess, sweat dripping every which way, landing me in a puddle of misery.

After a stroll through the Saturday markets, we dive into the cool spaces of the CODA Museum, unexpectedly free on this particular Saturday, and enjoy its Inside the Outside exhibition of nature photography. Later we sit under the shade of a massive oak on the cool grass in the Oranjepark and talk about what to do with the rest of our day.  We buy online tickets to a concert at the Orpheus Theatre, just opened for the season this weekend. Then we head to Buddha's Garden for an early dinner of Thai food.

The concert is by a popular Dutch duo, Nick and Simon, who play both original compositions and remakes of Simon and Garfunkel songs. It's not our preferred style, but no other music events are showing up on a Google search. Turns out, however, the music is great: two top entertainers with amazing voices, diction, and stage presence. And they jive really well together. It's an amazing concert and we're glad we went.

I wonder how many bicycle accidents there are every day in Holland, I muse. We're sitting at a corner cafe in Elspeet, a steady stream of bicyclists going by. Three young girls sail into the scene, casual as three puppies, an ice cream in one hand, chatting aimlessly. They round the corner like a flight of swallows, uniform in their nonchalance. But something happens and one of the girls is on the ground, her bike skidding sideways across the pavement. The scene momentarily freezes, a split in time as onlookers wait to rush in. But seamlessly she stands, popcicle still in hand, grabs her bike with the other and is off with her friends, who barely register her mishap. Hardly a blip in a casual schoolgirls' day.

Google tells us the Netherlands has the fewest bicycle fatalities per square kilometre than any other European country. Which is probably good news given that they most likely have the most bicycles per square kilometre than any country in the world. Or so it appears. The bad news is that bicycle fatalities have risen sharply in the last ten years. Why? Perhaps the new prevalence of e-bikes, which has put the aging generation back on two-wheels. Pedal assist has increased the average speed of e-bikers, who easily sit on 20 km/hr on flat turf. Perhaps it's also the prevalence of the new racing generation -- slick gear, helmeted and gloved, svelte bodies hunched over their ram-horn handlebars -- speeding past the ancient upright riders with an air of petulance, impatience.

The Dutch seem about as concerned with these statistics as they are with their government's daily reminder of Covid infections. Not interested. No masks. No helmets. Life is just too cruisy to care.

Not a few times we've been told what a privileged positions bicycles have in this country. If an accident occurs, the onus is usually on the driver. So bicycles swing and sway along the streets with only casual backward glances to see what cars are up to. They know they have the power. And the car drivers know it too, continually making way for the two-wheelers. As an Australian-American, I find this difficult. The car is king where I come from and bike-riders are tolerated at best, scorned and tormented when drivers grumpy. It's hard to drop my defenses and go with the two-wheeler flow.

And then there's the ubiquitous bicycle path, the fietspad. Even in the back country (if Holland can be said to have such a thing), when car roads turn to dirt and gravel, the fietspad is almost always paved. It shrinks to just shy of a meter wide, making two-way passing unnerving to the uninitiated. (The mind fills with potential disasters -- misjudged distances resulting in side-swipes and calamitous crashes.) One learns to keep eyes on the thin space in front of the front wheel and forego the usual "Hoi!" to passersby, hoping for the best as we slide past within an inch of each other.

We ride into Apeldoorn in the early afternoon. It's a good thing that we've only a short ride today: forecast is for a hot weekend and already it's sweaty on the bike. We park the bikes at the Paleis Het Loo, a previous residence of Dutch royalty, now a museum. It would be interesting to learn some of its history, but the €19.50 admission price puts us off. Instead we call our B&B to find out if we can check in early. Sure, no problem. It's not only an elegantly appointed residence, but it's the first accommodation we've had that has air conditioning -- and the first time on this trip we've needed it.

Apeldoorn is a mid-size modern Dutch city with winding tree-lined streets of stately houses. Bicycles aren't allowed to park in the central area, keeping it free for pedestrians, but the city offers a large building where bikes can park, for free, which includes electrical outlets for ebikes, a pumping station, and someone on guard to watch over things. By late afternoon the line of outdoor eateries are filling up with Friday afternoon drinkers, especially enticing on a sunny hot day. After a couple of pints, we find a quiet lane with a trail of outdoor restaurants and park ourselves at a trattoria -- one of us is craving Italian tonight. The night is still warm and we take our sticky bodies back to our room, watch Netflix in cool comfort.

There's something about the visage of bicycles, usually in pairs, gliding seamlessly across the Dutch landscape, smooth as swans, that evokes a sense of calm. Happy enjoyment, pleasant past-time, slow and easy living. Multiply that by dozens -- there's hardly a time, as you cast your eyes across the land, that you don't see these gliding bodies sitting upright on their tweewielers -- and you get an overall sense that Holland is a happy place to be. Copacetic.

That's how it felt as we wound our way through the Koninklijke Houtvesterij Het Loo, one of the largest forested nature reserves in the Netherlands. And a popular destination for tourists, mostly Dutch, and at this time of year, before school ends, mostly retired folk. We take it easy, stop for the requisite mid-morning coffee and appelgebak met slagroom (yummy apple cake with whipped cream) at an outdoor cafe, ubiquitous in most towns, slow down for interpretive signs and dismount for photo ops. It's a cruisy life.

But deeper into the forest, another, darker story emerges. We stop at a picnic bench for lunch at an intersection of fietspaden where a number of bicyclists have dismounted and are huddled around a large sign. It must be an interesting sign because they stand there for quite some time reading. Then they get the pooch, panting in his basket on the front end of a bicycle, clip on a leash and take off into the forest just behind us.

We finish our lunch and amble over to the sign. "Het Verscholen Dorp" it reads, "The Secret Village." The sign tells the story of the 80 refugees, Jews, British airmen and German deserters, who went into hiding in this forest toward the end of WWII. Local villagers built underground huts to shelter and hide the refugees from the Nazi occupiers. It all went well until the end of October 1944 when two Nazi soldiers discovered the encampment, rounded up the residence, killing 9 of them, and destroyed the huts. This event took place in the exact location where we're happily, obliviously eating our picnic lunch. To commemorate the people who lost their lives, and the brave Dutch people who helped them, five huts have been reconstructed in the forest behind us to replicate those that stood originally in this "secret village" hidden deep in the forest.

Now this forest is a happy recreation place for pleasure- and leisure-seekers. How strange are the stories, continuously changing, that shape our evolving history!

The bos (woods) have also been ravaged since the war days, logged for wood and re-planted with imported pine, which, as in so many places that have converted forests to pine plantations, are looking meagre and sad -- spindly trunks, dead branches, and little undergrowth. But other parts of the bos are beautiful, left to their native splendour, towering beech, oak and maple that create a translucent green tunnel over our heads. The forest then opens into a heide (heathlands), vast meadows of heath that grow on low-nutrient sand hills. We park our bikes and take a walk to take a break from riding and get a sense of this new and unusual landscape.

One thing we discuss whilst reviewing our trip ahead is the difference between a 25km day and a 65km day. The former allows for more site-seeing, which was particularly nice in the early days with the many picturesque Dutch villages and their long history. The east side of Holland seems to have fewer of these quaint historical towns; perhaps modernity has necessitated letting go of the old ways to a greater degree here than in the west?

In any event, I'm missing some of the exploration and learning we enjoyed in the early 25km days, in the many villages that lined the IJsselmeer north of Amsterdam. And I'm feeling exhausted towards the end of a long day on the fietspad. We can slow down a bit, but if we're going to complete the circle of Holland we'd originally planned, we'll have to keep up at least 40-50km days.

The first half of today is a delightful swing through high canopies of beech forests where we're surprised by the sudden appearance of old Dutch villages and impressive 17th century estates that once belonged to the old world aristocracy.
Later in the day we return to the vast farmlands, fields of grass and corn and occassionaly wheat. It's nice, but a bit boring after too much of the same same.

Two highlights are crossing rivers: one small "canal" outside of Ommen where a fully automated electric bike ferry that glides across the still waters with quiet ease. A gaggle of ducks slides by unperturbed by this strange human invention. Later in the day we take a car and bike ferry across the IJssel River just outside of Wijhe. It's also guided by a large steel cable sunk deep into the water, but its diesel engine cuts into the silence with a determination and grit the other, softer ferry lacked.

We arrive mid-afternoon at our B&B in the countryside outside of Veesson, a lovely quiet space with a terrace that looks out over cow paddocks, the steeple of the Wijhe church behind.

Het is alweer even geleden dat ík de enige van de ideeën die soms boven komen drijven terwijl wij door Nederland fietsen heb beschreven. Al fietsend komen gedachten en herinneringen op maar bij de tijd dat we op onze volgende overnachtingsplaats zijn aangeland zijn die ideeën alweer wat vervaagd. Maar een van de herinneringen die zich een aantal dagen geleden bij mij aanmelde was het woord “schermbloemige.” We reden door de lage landen van Noord Holland en daar was het: schermbloemige. Langs de kant van het pad groeide een wilde en welige onkruidtuin. Een van de vele bloemen soorten had de vorm van een scherm, een soort parachute, vandaar de naam. Ma Vellekoop vertelde me dit eens als kleine jongen. Maar ik wist meer! Wat was dat ook weer? Je kon fluiten maken van de stelen hetgeen ik vroeger deed. Ah ja, de naam van deze schermbloemige is Fluitekruid! De nu heldere herinnering verbaasde me en ik stopte op het midden van het fietspad om deze zoete gedachten met Sui te delen.
 
Vandaag reden we door Drentse en Gelderse bossen met hier en daar de zo populaire kampeerplaatsen. Nu nog redelijk stil en verlaten maar spoedig zullen ze vol zitten met tenten, caravans en hun vele bewoners. Herinneringen! Wij als familie met een tent op een van deze campings; ma, pa, m’n zus en haar beste vriendin en m’n twee broers. Eerst een “grote” tent, later een extra kleine tent er bij. Alles werd meegenomen: dozen met groente en een grote zak aardappelen, speelgoed, een schep om heuvels rond de tent te graven zodat als het regende de tent vloer hopelijk droog bleef. Eens bracht een vriend van mijn ouders ons weg met zijn auto. Jammer genoeg kreeg hij pech met zijn oude auto toen hij terug reed. Meestal gingen we op de fiets. Alhoewel het vakantie was moesten we toch helpen met aardappelen schillen en de afwas doen. Dat was natuurlijk wel redelijk want onze moeder wilde toch ook een beetje vakantie hebben.
 
Eens gingen Marjo zoals hij toen nog heette, Marinus noemde hij zich later, en ik er op uit op mijn fiets, de bossen in. Marjo zat op de bagagedrager.Na een tijdje fietsen was het tijd om terug te keren maar ik, grote broer, was de weg kwijt. We waren allebei moe dus zei ik tegen hem dat hij moest blijven waar hij was terwijl ik het pad verder op zou fietste naar de volgende paddestoel - de richtingaanwijzer voor fietsers. Ik zou dan weten of we inderdaad die richting op moesten of juist de andere kant uit. Maar toen ik terug kwam was Marjo verdwenen. Wat nu? Wat kon er gebeurt zijn? Ik had uitgevonden in welke richting de camping lag dus als  een razende fietste ik met een hevig hart daarheen. Pa en ma waren natuurlijk totaal van streek toen ik alleen terug kwam. Ik weet niet meer de fijnere details of hoe Marjo weer bij ons terugkwam. Wel herinner ik me het verhaal dat een echtpaar langs kwam fietsen en deze kleine jongen in z’n eentje op het pad zag. Zij namen hem mee naar hun huis of misschien naar hun tent en zullen toen misschien de politie ingeschakeld hebben. Ik denk niet dat ik ooit zo blij met m’n kleine broertje ben geweest.

English translation:

It has been a while since I wrote down some of the ideas that come to mind while we cycle through the Netherlands. Thoughts and memories surface but by the time that we arrive at our next overnight destination often those ideas have already faded somewhat… One such memory, and one that I keep thinking about happened a few days ago. The word "schermbloemige” appeared. We were riding through the low countries of North Holland and there it was: schermbloemige. Along the side of the bike path grew a lush and wild weed garden, purposefully not mown so that the native vegetation had free play. One of the many flower species had the shape of a screen, a kind of parachute, hence the name schermbloemige, translated to English as umbellate. Ma Vellekoop once told me this as a little boy. But I knew more! What was that again? You could make whistles out of the stems which I used to do. Ah yes, the name of this schermbloemige is Fluitekruid which translate literally as Flute Weed! In English it’s known as Cow Parsley which doesn’t make much sense to me. How long since I heard Ma Vellekoop tell me this?! I stopped in the middle of the bike path to share this sweet memory with Sui.
 
Today we rode through the woods of Drenthe and Gelderland with here and there the so popular camping places. Now still fairly quiet and deserted but soon they will be full of tents, caravans and their many inhabitants. Memories! We as a family with our tent on one of these campsites; mom, dad, my sister and her best friend and my two brothers. First a "big" tent, later an additional smaller tent. We brought everything with us: boxes of vegetables and a large bag of potatoes, toys, a shovel to dig ditches around the tent so that when it rained the tent floor hopefully stayed dry. Once a friend of my parents brought us with his car. Unfortunately, the old car broke down on his way back. Most of the time we went by bike.
 
Although it was a holiday we still had to help peel potatoes and do the dishes. That was reasonable of course because our mother also wanted to have a little holiday.
 
Once Marjo as he was still called at the time, Marinus he later called himself, and I went exploring on my bike into the woods. After cycling for a while it was time to return but I, big brother, had lost my way. We were both tired so I told Marjo to stay where he was while I cycled further up the path to the next “mushroom” sign, the direction indicator for cyclists. But when I came back Marjo was gone! What now? What could’ve happened? I had figured out in which direction the campsite was so like a madman I cycled back with a fearful and heavy heart. Mom and Dad were totally upset of course when I came back alone. I don't remember the finer details of how Marjo came back to us. I do remember the story that a couple came by riding their bikes and they saw this little boy all by himself on the path. They took him with them to their house or perhaps to their tent and they probably called the police. I don't think I've ever been so happy seeing my little brother again.

As we planned for this trip, months ago, it felt clear that two aging bodies, not in the best of shape, may not fare too well riding long distances each day. So we planned to start out with 20-25km rides for at least the first week. This proved a good plan as it gave us time to take in the sites, visit museums and places of interest, and not overtax our bodies.

Two weeks in, despite the regular use of pedal assist, our bodies are stronger, which makes the prospect of putting in a few more miles each day a viable option. Today our plan is to ride 65kms, our longest day yet.

The absolute delight of bike-riding in Holland is the endless maze of bicycle paths, connected with more precision than the US Mail, and capable of taking you virtually anywhere you want to go in the Netherlands. By now, we're in our stride and easily pedal the paths, barely slowing as we sink into the curves and clip the corners of right angles as we take a new direction. Johan's Fietsknoop app allows him to chart out the path before we take off each day. Then he attaches the phone to a carrier on his handlebars where he can easily follow the route, while GPS tracks our progress. With his technical mind, it's a delight to work it all out with such precision. With my love of whimsy, I'm in heaven winding along behind him, carefree as the wind.

Late morning, we take a break in Hardenberg for a coffee, a stop at a bike shop to pick up two soft seat covers (the bodies may be hardening, but the butt-muscles are still sore!), and an opportunity to do the laundry. After an afternoon of winding our way through forestland and fields, we turn up at our next B&B, just outside of Ommen. I'm definitely spent and eager for a rest. We dine at a restaurant in Ommen's town square and map out our remaining two weeks.

Not every town in Holland wins the Tidy Town Award, though most of them are good contenders.  The larger cities are diverse with complicated social structures and layers of history. Tourists pretty much take to the centers, where the old stuff is, vibrant town squares and outdoor cafes overlooking picturesque canals and brugs -- bridges monitored by a bruggewachter, bridge-keepers who take them up and down, continuously, for the daily drone of boat traffic. Some have tolls, €2-3, which the bruggewachter collects by swinging a small bag attached to a long poll out to the waiting boatman (usually a woman, the wife of the man steering the boat) who deposits the coins in the bag and sends it swinging back to the man (always a man) on the bridge. A well-choreographed canal-bridge dance.

Tiny tidy towns are fun to pass through. Big cities can be a challenge. Hoogeveen isn't exactly big, but it outsizes anything we've been through on our journey thus far, aside from Amsterdam. It's Sunday and the streets are swarming with people in sports gear wearing numbered flags on their chest. The closer to the city center we ride the greater the swell of people and activity. We round a bend to find a crowd of people lining the streets, looks of eager anticipation lighting up their faces, while a deep-barrelled man's voice booms over a loudspeaker. Music blares through the PA and on cue the excited onlookers start to wiggle and prance, dancing to the tunes while the tension builds. The baritone voice returns and begins a countdown: tien, negen, acht, zeven, zes, vijf, drie, twee (drumroll), één -- and POP! a gunshot and a host of runners break onto the scene amongst cheers and claps from the onlookers. The runners are not amateur athletes, as we've seen ambling through the streets, but what could be the amateur equivalent of paralympians, members of the community with a variety of disabilities. The crowd goes wild cheering them on.

It's a bit of Sunday fun in an otherwise uninspiring city. We weave through flavorless suburbs lined with identical housing or towering tenement buildings that look cramped and oppressive. Perhaps the homes of the many refugees and immigrants that come to Holland's cities in search of a better life.

Our B&B on the outskirts of Hollandscheveld (a village just east of Hoogeveen) is a lovely oasis from the bland urban sprawl. Most B&Bs are lovely, inspired by (mostly) women who love to decorate and create an "experience" -- an exceptional value to the sanitized uniformity of the more expensive hotels. Hettie, our host, a plus-size woman with a deep tan, plenty of make-up, and dressed in colourful and skimpy summer attire, keeps an immaculate garden and decorates her B&B cottage with butterflies and local art. It's a very copacetic setting.

 Henk (Johan's brother) and Margreet (Henk's partner) bicycle down to meet us. We last saw them in France four years ago, not long after they became a couple. They are fun and funny, quirky and warm-hearted people and we spend a delight-filled afternoon and evening in their lush backyard, snuggled in one of the many verdant forest landscapes of Drenthe. Though it's hardly noticeable, we've ascended to the part of Holland that is above sea level -- by roughly 10 metres. There is less water, but more trees. A tree-lover's delight.

We plan a picnic for the next day, a ride deep into one of the nearby forests. But my attempt to get in a couple hours of work before we play is stymied by my delinquent laptop, which has been growing more cantankerous and slow the past few weeks. After several attempts to administer the "how to make your computer run faster" suggestions, the computer freezes up and no attempts to shut-down-and-restart make it overcome whatever's bothering it.

We cycle into Hoogeveen to find some help at a local computer shop. Egged on by the locals' thumbs-down opinion of the city, the experience of cycling through the light industrial suburbs and then through the grubby central mall reaffirms for us that this is not a nice place to visit. And the computer guys are no help. And we're hungry (well past picnic-time. We both feel a grump coming on.

We give up on the computer situation and ride to Henk and Margreet's, arriving well after picnic lunch time. But these two are the hallmarks of the "let it be" life philosophy and, amazingly, are not miffed at all that their planned-for picnic now has to be altered. Three backpacks full of a novelty of foods -- all wrapped in various second-hand containers, including a cylinder marked "Vit C - 1000mg" filled with Jägermeister (a German digestif made with 56 herbs and spices -- delicious!) -- are brought forth onto the backyard table and we feast on a late-afternoon lunch in their beautiful garden. Later we take a walk through the nearby natuurlandschappen, an open area of moors surrounded by forests of birch and conifers.

Our time together has seemed too short. But by 9pm it's time to cycle the 10kms back to our B&B to get a good rest for our long ride south tomorrow.

"IJs!" Johan calls out. Pronounced "ice," it's an important word to keep an eye out for while pedaling through Holland. For addicts, it's essential. We've been meandering through fields of dairy cows, with their acrid bovine scent, when this white shed appears right next to the fietspad, decorated with colourful signs and surrounded by two sets of chairs with small tables. A delightful setting but as an ice cream addict and connoisseur -- only the best gelato, if i can help it -- I'm skeptical. "Could be just cheap commercial stuff," I say, ready to head on. But the shed is a self-serve honor system, €2.30 for a small tub and it's time for a break off the saddle, so we give it try.

Before I'm halfway through the tub of cherry frozen yoghurt I'm already dreaming of my second tub. Dream cream! Divine bovine. The best ice cream I've ever eaten, I'm sure of it (though I've been known to say this whenever I'm having a particularly bonus hit). But I can't talk Johan into a sharing a second round -- it'll wreck my savoring of this one, he says, ever the exemplar of forbearance. So I let prudence win the day and forego a second helping.

A sign tells the story of the local farmers who produce this blissful concoction and I get out my phone to let Google Translate turn it into English. It talks about some sort of robotics on the farm and that we're welcome to go through the black shed door to the right and have a look. Indeed, a small sign, "Melk-robot," points in the direction of the strong-smelling cow shed. We peer over the iron bars and sure enough, a squat little machine is pacing up and down the concrete floors where the cows are hanging out, cleaning up their shit. Really! It heads straight towards a big swampy pile of the stuff, runs right over it, and out the other side the floor is clean. Amazing! The Melk-robot just gobbled up the cow shit!

But that's not actually the Melk-robot, we soon discover. Curious Johan, always not-shy about exploring further into what I think are people's private spaces, calls out to come look at this. Through another damp gate (is it water or cow piss?), he points to a big mama cow who's just entered a restricted pen area -- seemingly on her own volition as there aren't any farmers in the shed telling the cows what to do. A big orange machine stands vertical on our side of the pen with a small monitor that pings and lights up as we're watching. Suddenly a robotic arm from underneath the machine extends out towards the cow's underside, two bristle brushes pop up and somehow, knowingly, make their way over to the cow's udder, where four low-hanging nipples are cleaned by the twirling brushes. As they retreat another arm extends from the machine and four cylinders pop upright and somehow, knowingly, find their way to the four nipples and clamp on. A whirring noise starts and soon we can see white fluid passing through the clear pipes into another machine, the milk vat. While the cow patiently stands there and the machine does it's milking thing, the brushes are sprayed with some sort of disinfecting solution, waiting for the next mama cow to come along. After a few minutes, one by one the sucking tubes disengage from the cow's teats and when it's all over, a gate automatically slides open and, released of her heavy burden, the cow slowly prances away. Another ambles in, but the machine does nothing to register her presence. The gate slides open again, so she just passes through, udder still heavy. This happens for the next 3 or 4 cows -- for some reason the Melk-robot has had enough and doesn't want to engage any further.

We feel fully educated on the true source of our delicious ice cream as we remount our bikes and ride off through the smelly bovine countryside.

Prior to our milky adventure we took a delightful ride through the Weerribben-Wieden National Park, a lush tributary with forests and canal homes.

As we wave goodbye to Hindleloopen we also farewell the IJsellmeer and its vast shining waters. Most of the rest of our trip will now be exploring the inland regions of north, east and south Holland. We meander through some heavily forested areas that remind us of Denmark, thick clumps of towering greenery that provides a welcome relief from the monotony of farmland.

We pull over at an open green area that looks like a nature reserve. It has an intriguing metal sculpture at its entrance. Interpretive signs tell us this is an ancient garden, built in the late 17th century as part of a vast estate. The building no longer exists but the square garden, surrounding a tear-drop shape pond full of rushes and croaking frogs, retains the original design, based on an English garden. A path, straight as a ruler, extends into a medieval looking forest. Indeed, more signs tell us these forests were used for hunting and wandering, and were considered to be populated with spirits that could either help you (if you were a good person) or hurt you (if you were bad). The towering birch trees could well be over 300 hundred years old and indeed look very haunting.

We take a break in Lemmer with its lively town square (and excellent ice cream shop) before heading on to our next destination, Delfstrahuizen, on the south end of the Tjeukameer.