Summary:
- We’ve spent the last 12 days in The Netherlands
- Have biked a further 400kms, (a small circuit from Amsterdam-Heerhugoward-Zwolle-Apeldoorn-Utrecht-Rotterdam)
- We’ve met lots of Andy’s mum’s cousins and their parents– an awesome bunch!
- We’ve been stoked on Dutch sweet treats, the cycle path network, the “gezellig” (cosy) hospitality and sharing lots of stories from the family archives.
- From here across most of Germany by train to the South, Austria and Northern Italy….
After an amazing night with a Warm Showers
host family in Casablanca (Merci, Anthony & Sandra) we arrived to Amsterdam
Airport, found a quiet corner and set up our bikes. With our Moroccan train
experience (trying to get our bikes on) fresh in our mind, we ventured out into
the Dutch train system, bound for Heerhugoward where we had arranged to meet
Paul and Jany – cousins of Andy’s mum.
As it turned out - the Dutch train system is awesome!! We rolled our
bikes on, got whizzed away and then just rolled them out again at the other
end. Everything we had read previous to arriving had suggested that Holland was
a fantastic place to cycle tour and it certainly has been! Sweet bike paths and
networks, which mean you hardly go on a road, easy train transfers and road
rules that favour cyclists. It’s very cool!
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| Some of the bike paths we've travelled... |
Once on the road we used the Fietsplanner
website, which was awesome – essentially you enter in your start point and end
destination and it gives you the number for each cycle path intersection you
will visit along the way. So once you have a list of the numbers, you set off
and just follow the signs! No maps, GPS or compass needed! This system only let
us down on one day, when the signs weren’t quite as well placed, but in general
it was super easy to navigate around the country and even through cities.
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| The family! |
From Heerhugoward, we cycled around the
side of the Zuiderzee – a large lake, to the city of Zwolle. Then south to
Apeldoorn to the home of Andy’s Nanna’s sister and her husband which was a real
highlight. Both in their 80’s, we were fed a constant supply of food, stories
from their trips to NZ and old photographs. We were really grateful that Paul
joined us for the night to help translate, as it meant we really enjoyed
getting to know Jan and Bap. With our bags stuffed full of Apple Tart, biscuits
and an amazing lunch we headed off the next morning bound for Utrecht.
Our route took us through a national park
which was lovely, through farmland (very similar to Southland, just in
miniature) and to Utrecht, an old university town where we spent Easter Sunday.
It was incredible to spend two nights here, within a stone’s throw of the Dom –
a 13th Century Cathedral, whose bells kept us entertained all day.
Utrecht has classic canals running through it and is very picturesque – it
quickly became a favourite spot for us!
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| The classic Dutch canals... |
From here, it was 60kms into a head wind as
we headed for Rotterdam. HARD work!!! It was blow you off your bike stuff so it
was a relief to arrive into the centre of Rotterdam and know we had completed
our cycling in the Netherland and risen to the challenge!
The following day we left the bikes behind
and headed to Delft, a small town where Andy’s Grandad was born, and onto The
Hague, where we hit up the Binnenhof (Parliament) and the Peace Palace
(International Criminal Court). Pretty cool to see these spots, but the small
towns remained my favourite in terms of their cuteness, and general good vibes!
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| The Hague |
And then it was onto the train, bound for
Germany. Wow, what a privilege to have had such great people to look after us
while in Holland and to be able to spend some time here. It has been
fantastic!!
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| The Boats (just for the Wood Whanau) |
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| And just a few of us...! |
Andy’s Philosophical Musings: Where We Live & How We Live – Have we got
it right NZ?
Our experience of the housing and layout of
the cities and towns in The Netherlands and parts of Germany we’ve been in has lead me to wonder – have we got this right in NZ? There is a lot that we’ve seen
and heard here, which seems to make a whole lot of sense here! Apartments seem to be the natural living
situations for the majority of Europeans resulting in towns and cities that are
much more compact, easy to travel across, more bike friendly, efficient and
affordable.This compares to the sprawling large-homes and fenced off sections
of Urban New Zealand towns and cities, which have comparatively high rents and
house prices, require extensive car travel and can be very inefficient.
From talking to people we have stayed with
in Germany we hear that there is a completely different mentality to property
ownership and renting. We understand
that this is partly due to government controls resulting in rent prices that
are considerably lower. A weeks rent in
NZ might equate to a month’s rent in Germany(even when taking post-taxed income
into account). Property investment in
housing therefore isn’t such a lucrative option here, which leads tomuch more
affordable renting and living.
How
people live and the way they transport themselves also seem to be very positive
flow on effects of this increased density.
You can walk across the town of Bonn in less than an hour, which has a
population the size of Christchurch.
Much less of the population needs to own a car, as you can easily bike
to work or your local bakery or supermarket (which are smaller and much more
common), rather than travelling to the mega super market to load up on
groceries for the week.
This has lead us to wonder, have we got our
planning and controls for urban housing, transport and renting right in
NZ? AND what needs to happen to improve
or change this for the better? Is our NZ love of stand-alone housing the way to continue, or can we embrace the humble Apartment?
Thoughts to ponder on the road this week…
Arohanui
A & M
Thoughts to ponder on the road this week…
Arohanui
A & M
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