Day 117: Zierikzee to Groede, Netherlands: A Day of Serendipity

September 13, 2012

The night brought heavy rain and lightening so bright it totally lit the tent. Then shortly thereafter, the frightening crash of thunder. At least that’s Dodie’s report – I slept through the whole thing. I the morning, though, the fly was naturally soaked – outside from rain and inside from condensation. Our tent floor also has a magical ability to attract water, despite the footprint being in place. The wet floor then spreads to the whole tent one packed. Ugh.

We again commandeered a ladies washroom to cook breakfast. Fortunately we are normally up and turning the place into a disaster well before anyone else is around.

Heading out from the farm type "mini-camping" near Zierikzee

We went back into Zierikzee just for a peek, and hit our first bit of serendipity for the day – there was a market in progress. The Dutch markets we have hit have not matched the German ones, but any market is fun. This one, happily, had a bakery and no fish. The bakery, though, was as we have come to say just ok.

The market, with the church tower in the background

Dutch churches are usually very plain, but the towers - like this one - can be quite decorated

Bread at the market, looks ok but is not super

In this town as in most in Europe, houses are right on the street. But here, the sideqalk seems to belong to the house, and is gated off.

Our next stop, aside from marvelling at the many buildings that stand out of true, was the giant tower in the centre of town. This tower is the Sint-Lievensmonstertoren, built to its present height of 62 meters from 1454 to 1510. The tower was supposed to be much higher, but as everybody knows there was an economic collapse here in 1510, and funding dried up.

For 2 euros you can climb to the top of the tower and see all the town and surrounding countryside. We might have hesitated, but in walked Danny Wong. Danny is an electrical engineer from Calgary, who had attended a conference in Paris, and then dropped in to Amsterdam and this area as a visitor. We found Danny’s enthusiasm endearing, and he said “C’mon up, I need you to take my picture!”. So the day’s second bit of serendipity put us on top of a medieval tower, marvelling at the layout of the town, at the sight of the 10 km long bridge to the next island, and at all the surrounding countryside. And so, dany got his photo.

The bridge to the next island can be seen in the distance

There was some local artwork on display in the tower. This is by Eef de Graaf

Our next step was to cross that bridge, which is called the Zeelandbrug, over the Oosterschelde. It truly is at least 10km long, making it Europe’s second longest bridge. Thank goodness we had a tail wind, so we just blasted across it. The other way would have been quite a struggle.

On the other side we slowly made our way along the dike on the north coast of Noord Beveland, and eventually made our way to the town of Kamperland. This is near the dock for the short ferry to Veere, on the next island. We arrived at the dock to find the next ferry would only be in an hour, but there was the captain of a moderately large tour boat, and he said “Come with us, we will get to Veere before the next ferry”. So we just jumped onto this miscellaneous boat. I then asked about where we were going, and the answer was down the lake and back.

There we a dozen other people on board, and I have no idea where they came from or why they chose this ride. The lake was lovely, because it is water, and we like water. But the shoreline was pretty much just flat fields. Nevertheless there was a lively commentary in Dutch, French, English, and German. Because of the accents and the acoustics, we understood very little of it. Dodie observed that the other dozen people listened during the Dutch and nattered during the English, and we thought about doing the reverse. Of course as Canadians we are too polite to ever go through with such a radical plan!

The boat arrived at Veere in due course. There is a carillon at Veere, and the captain’s little dog, whose seat in by a window in the wheelhouse, howled in response.

Veere is also a picturesque town. Though not drop dead gorgeous like many German and Austrian towns, Dutch towns are extremely charming.

We headed out to Middelberg, though, since we always seem to want to keep moving. A random turn in Middelberg, then, brought us with serendipity to the Oostkerk, dating from 1647. This church has a dome shape, that produced a quite unique photo for me, when I shot straight up.

The main pedestrian street in Middelberg was again interesting, but we soon shot out of there, and onto the fast ferry from Vlissingen to our next island. Here we were crossing a genuine inlet of the sea, and watched a huge boat named the Montreal Express head off without us!

At the terminal on the other side, construction had done its customary work of fouling up the cycle route signs, but we eventually made our way toward several campings that were marked on our map. At the first, most everything was closed, but we did learn the cost was about 17 euros and 20 euros for wifi (sure, it covers 4 days – great). We moved on, but did not find more camping as evening started to approach.

I went into a café and asked about one we had seen on a sign. Well, the owners of the camping were sitting in the café! From then on things went great, as one of the owners guided us to a site, and we returned to the café for sate and schnitzel. The fact that I am sitting in a toilet stall finishing this up does not detract from the fact that this was a good day, with some nice finds that we hadn’t expected.

Tomorrow…Belgium!

A windmill over the bridge in NoordBeveland

You can find the spots we were at after crossing the big bridge on this map

Our bikes were stashed easily on board the tour boat, for a ride around the huge artificial lake

The lake is a bit unremarkable. We did learn that for reasons we could not make out, it has been returned to almost the same salinity as the North Sea, so that makes it kind of an inland sea.

The election results. Although a coalition will be needed (as usual) it seems the pro EU parties have won.

The round Oostkerk in Middleburg. We just happened on it.

Lineup of bikes at a light. The girls were bad drivers and shortly cut us off with sudden right turns

It's getting late and we are looking for camping. Being out by this lighthouse is not helping.

Today's ride: 65 km (40 miles)
Total: 6,161 km (3,826 miles)

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