The processes of loading and unloading the DFDS ferry between North Shields in the north east of England and Ijmuiden in the Netherlands are not that well designed for the two-pedalled traveller. Cyclists are designated the same check-in lanes as motorists, which means passing some time in a queue of fumes. I’ve never taken the liberty of jumping to the front as the weather’s never been so disagreeable to look forward to hunkering down in the boat for longer than I have to, but the sideways glances from jumpy drivers in my vicinity in the queue would make one wary of a confrontation in any case. They glances are usually cast by drivers of faux-utilitarian all-terrain holiday vehicles covered with bumper stickers that humblebrag about all the countries they’ve conquered, so you can spot trouble a mile off. 

In addition to which, Ijmuiden port must be the only square 1/2 km in the whole of the Netherlands that does not have cycle lanes. This, and the HGVs skating around in every direction, are particularly treacherous when disembarking onto the wrong side of the road, which is of course obligatory when you’re a British citizen arriving into Europe.

But I arrive light-hearted. There’s something about arriving somewhere new, isn’t there, the endless possibilities of what might exist beyond the map. “The last time I had brought him maps, for I had heard that nothing cures melancholy like looking at maps” wrote Olga Tokarczuk in her book Flights, which is about travel, and I’ve been reading on the boat but I’m not sure I’d recommend it. Google Maps told me that my journey, from the port to Amsterdam, would be >85% off-road cycle lanes, which sounds delightful. (Mind you, this is the same Google Maps that told me the journey from Dunkeld to Bridge of Allen was mostly flat…)

But Google was right this time. There were a lot of designated cycleways, or ‘fietspads’, and they mostly really were bereft of cars – OK, there was the odd car or van in the bike lane, probably parked there by a British ex-pat – but I was surprised by the variety – nay, flamboyance! – of some of the vehicles I shared the fietspads with. Yes there were bicycles: fixies, e-bikes, swanky bikes and bikes that looked like they were fit for scrap; cargo bikes with kids in tow, cargo bikes full of art materials, bike couriers with road sense (in the northern UK cities these are on the Critically Endangered List). But also a lot of mopeds, motability scooters, and even one of those little horizontal enclosed shuttle-bike things that looks like a rocket crossed with the car Peter Perfect drives in Wacky Races. But it was the skills of some of these two-wheeler wonders that impressed me the most: so many fietsers coming often from every conceivable direction but all aware of each other and looking likely to collide at any second but impossibly all intersecting harmoniously at the junctions, even as they continued phone calls, wrote text messages – I’m not condoning phone use while pedalling, mind… – or even as they cycled two-abreast and holding hands, or even as they kissed while cycling side-by-side along a busy and cobbled touristy high street! Even as they steered an empty bicycle alongside them, even as they rummaged through a rucksack or smoked a spliff, or did a couple of the above at the same time, all while cycling… BRAVO TO THE MULTI-TASKING CYCLISTS OF THE NETHERLANDS 👏.

Lickety-split I was cruising along the cobbled streets of Haarlem, a medieval city whose name translates to ‘home on a forested dune‘ – how nice! – and the real reason for my arrival here, an OMFW and almond croissant at Mica coffee house. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.

(This is where I need to be intentional with my words. In the Netherlands, a koffiehuis (coffee house) or cafe is a place where you go to drink coffee. A coffee shop is a place where you can buy and consume cannabis and it’s tolerated (though not technically legal). While some consider the Netherlands to have some of the most relaxed drug laws in the world, I was surprised to not be overfaced with the whiff of ganga wherever I went. I think my 7:30am commute from Renfrew to Glasgow was worse.)

The forested dune in question is the Nationaal Park Zuid-Kennemerland, which is a scenic way to connect up the seaside town of Zandvoort, the town of Ijmuiden, and Haarlem. We’d cycled through this gentle reserve back in spring, back when the trees were still barren, the headwind was fierce and the waterfowl blethered reprovingly against the cold and damp. 

Meandering is part of the beauty of cycle touring, but I’m also struck by the possibility that in the Netherlands you could cycle a route to your destination that’s as direct as a car would take you. Of course if you have the time, you can dawdle along the scenic cycling nodal network, appreciating the bridges, dykes, meres and beautiful waterline houses (I’m not talking about houseboats here you understand, but actual houses, magnificent, quirky and elegant houses, that float atop pontoons in desirable suburban locations). Or you can follow the highway and rail networks, swapping real swans for regal swans as you swoop right by the entrance to a major retail outlet in the intercity badlands.

(“Yaaaaayyyy” said Hamish, my maturity-challenged 23-year-old teddy bear, as we passed a road sign for ‘Sugar City’ on the adjacent highway.)

How do Dutch cyclists cope with the rain? I found out while cycling through the Fabrique des Lumières campus in the Waterwijk district of Amsterdam. Cycling through a park filled with waterfowl, swans with young as big as them already, curious coots with weird, globular feet and Queen Nefertiti headdresses where their furrowed brows should be, and Egyptian geese within arm’s reach, clearly used to being fed – amongst all these birds a downpour ensued and I took shelter under a bridge. Some, like me, waited for the heaviest of the storm to pass. Some continued unperturbed, because they had mastered the cycling-one-handed-with-umbrella thing. Many whipped out hardcore rain jackets and waterproof trews. I stick out like a sore thumb in the UK with my waterproof trousers. They seemed more acceptable here, even when worn in combination with normal, everyday outfits, fashion jeans, Chelsea boots, espadrilles. The only one who seemed put off by the weather was the lone grey heron atop a park sign, crouched there with his shoulders hunched like the old man in Up. Mind you, herons always look grumpy, don’t they.

Just when I thought I had mastered all the directions that a cyclist might come from, I got to central Amsterdam, nearing the rail station, and everything went up a notch. There were so many bridges I wanted to cycle over that there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Amsterdam-Centraal station is bewildering in the middle of the day, yet I managed to get me and my bike on a train to Hilversum with a minimum of hassle – when did I become such an anxious traveller? – while starlings terrorised the eaves above the platform like masked hoodlums decorated with stardust hearts. 

My final destination today is Lage Vuursche forest park on the outskirts of Utrecht, a deciduous woodland that you can truly get lost in. I get lost in it so much that I barely look at my phone for the three days of my retreat, after which I learn that not only is there a huge storm heading to Scotland, but my ferry home is cancelled. It takes a while to snap out of my haze of leaves and lichens and get into troubleshooting mode, by which time the soonest I can get home is four days from now. What to fill a new void of time with?

Luckily there’s tons to do in nearby Utrecht, though by bicycle is not the best way to do it. Utrecht is a pretty compact city that it wouldn’t take you long to walk around, and the public transport network is pretty good. The Oudegracht, or old town district is/was thronging with people looking up at the majestic merchants’ buildings, or down at the subterranean canal network, and addled with road closures – I quickly picked up the words ‘wegomleiding’ (road diversion) and ‘uitzergonderd fietsers’ (except cyclists). You can’t get your bike parked for love nor money. The bike remained in the safe hands of my host at the guest house and I experienced Utrecht on foot, and by mouth (by which I mean to say I enjoyed a lot of great food and drink there). Utrecht has some really great botanical gardens, canal boat tours, a lively nightlife and some nice parks, including the Wilhelminapark, named for the coronation of queen Wilhelmina in 1898, the same year the park was opened.

On the morning of my departure from Utrecht three days later, I’m bound for Haarlem via a nip to the Amsterdam Dance Event. I’m going to hear an artist called Fatima Yamaha, who I best know by the song ‘What’s a Girl to Do’. This could be the soundtrack of my extended holiday. I sit in a cafe where the staff dress casually but it’s still upmarket and I’m aware of the veneer of sweat that’s suffusing me from my clothes. It’s three days over the trip that I packed for and I thought I’d got away with it until I sit here trying not to writhe uncomfortably while I wait for my order to be taken, and at the next table a couple of women waft by and sit down with their lovely perfume and casual but crisp, clean clothing, and proceed to exchange beautifully-wrapped gifts. I try to shrink a little, lifting my coffee cup to my mouth but my hands smell faintly vinegary from the gloves I’ve sweated into too many days in a row and I feel the grime of my bike clothes creep over me again. For all the opportunities afforded by a holiday with the bike, there’s definitely some things you need to let go of, like having well-styled hair or a fresh set of clothes to wear each day.

Not only were my breakfast pancakes a work of art, but they were also a well-balanced breakfast for a big day on the bicycle. Fats and carbohydrates, roasted and raw, apple and pear. Another flat white. I didn’t hear of many others ordering flat whites in the cafes I sat in. I feel like flat white is the new normal in the UK. In the Netherlands they don’t even give it a Dutch name, they just call it a Flat White. Perhaps flat whites are just too boring in a flat country. “I demand some topography in my coffee, goddammit!”

I rely on Google Maps for the way back too. Had I been one of those people who can plan more than one day ahead of them at a time, or if I were the measuring type, attentive to distances, FKTs and logging every mile, then I might have researched the best route and uploaded it into a bike computer. But I’m not, so I’m travelling an eclectic course of dykeways and highways, industrial estates, housing estates, rural segues and airport periphery hinterlands, not any of it unpleasant, and not all of it humdrum, never daring to dwell anywhere too long as I’m bound to forget the name of the next turn I’m looking out for, and I limit turning on the navigation and playing it through my headphones in case my battery runs flat. In any case I can’t take much of the navigation narrator’s bastardised bellowing of Dutch place names. For the last few weeks I’ve been learning Dutch for beginners with DuoLingo – the language learning platform that can boast teaching you “this rhinoceros has no tail” before if covers “can I have a black coffee, please”. Nonetheless I think my pronunciation has come on leaps and bounds, until now…

I feel like I’m getting a peek preview of the distinctions of everyday life in the Netherlands. So many homes have MOATS! Not moats in the medieval castle-dwelling sense, but human-dredged waterways running in front of all the houses on a street, so each home needs a bridge to get to the front door. So some gardens with moats, some with goats, to keep the lawn short, or some with a moat and some goats, maybe chickens too. The majority of the homes I pass seem immaculate, but I don’t see people tending to them. I ride alongside quite a few folk taking their kids for a bike ride, their hand on the child’s back for stability or grabbing onto a hood for safety as they wait at the traffic lights. Visitors pour out of a bus that stops outside a castle attraction. A fully-grown man practising fast feet on the agility ladder chalked into the soft surface of an otherwise deserted playground on the edge of a neighbourhood. The play surface reminds me of some water courses I passed earlier that were covered with duckweed, and it must be duckweed because I read somewhere that when it grows thick it’s a hazard to children, because it looks just like a solid surface. I get to Amsterdamse Bos, chosen for the big green blot it occupies on the map between Amsterdam and Schipol airport to the south. The horizon of trees in the early shades of decadent autumn decay reflected in the surface of the peaceful water was a glorious backdrop for a spot of lunch, a bike touring staple of crusty roll from the last Albert Heijn supermarket I passed, a pot of hummus, a couple of pieces of fruit and some bites of a bar of chocolate (ideally a brand you can’t get in the UK, for the novelty value).

Back via Haarlem, back through the nature park, this time feeling the lick of warm sun on my bones as the tree cover, still verdant, vivacious, made way for open grassland, weather still warm enough for lizards and snakes but offset by the groans of male deer gearing up for the rutting season. Back to the port, back to the queue, back on the boat, back into the onboard coffee bar staring into an inscrutable black americano. Postcards written but still unsent as I never got round to buying stamps. Still smelling slightly haggard in the clothes I never compelled myself to take to the launderette. Three extra days quickly filled with curious meanderings and directionless exploring.

Sunday 30 October, 2023