After a hard days cycling we have reached Zurich, 404km from Frankfurt in a straight line. Honestly, it really is called Zurich. It is near to the top of Friesland about 2km North East from the afsluitdijk and sits just inside the seadike. 
This is the most northerly that we'll go. Tomorrows mission is to go over the afsluitdijk. A 32km dike that keeps the sea out of a very large part of the Netherlands. As my Oma warned, it is unlikely to be very picturesque, a long, straight road on top of a dike, with water either side. We want to cross early tomorrow to reduce the chances of headwinds, things usually get windier after 10am. There must be several hundred modern electricity generating windmills in this area, so it is obviously a windy spot. Some of these windmills are literally at the backdoor of the farm building - this wouldn't be allowed in NZ! How on earth do the occupants put up with the hum and flikker of the blades??
Today we've had heaps of fun with bridges and watching boats, especially around the Giethorn and Sneek areas. For a while nearly every bridge we got to was either open, or just about to open to let boats through. Mostly pleasure craft, but on the bigger waterways also commercial barges. We've been quite amazed at the size of some of the boats, and how they manage to squeeze through the narrow openings under the bridge. Mostly the bridges are cleverly counterweighted and hinged on one wall, and lifted with a single or double ratched mechanism. On the larger waterways the bridges seem to be controlled remotely, but in smaller places each bridge has an attendant (brugwachter). Some of the bridges were open more than lowered, so lots of waiting cars and busses. We thought it would be really mean to just leave the bridge halfway up so that no boats could go through, and no vehicles could cross over, and then the bridgekeeper could go and get a cuppa and watch disaster unfold! 
They don't only have boats going under bridges and cars over the top, they also build aquaducts with the road diving underneath the canal. We're talking large rivers here, not just a stream or so, and commercial barges sailing overhead as you cycle beneath. Water levels are strictly controlled here, you can cycle along a road and the water in the canal on one side can be several metres higher than on the other side. Some of the roads must just about be floating. Would be interesting to find out how they are built. Another odd one was a large pleasure boat on a truck, driving over the top of a dike - we've seen boats in every possible situation today.
This week is Sneek week, meaning racing with traditional fishing sailing boats (think metal barges with rounded ends and a mast to hoist a sail). The news highlight is that somebody got plucked off a boat by the bowsprit of the following boat. Had to hang on for dear life before they managed to drag him on board of the following boat. Nasty damage to his head requiring an operation and plenty of stitches. Strangley, he didn't enjoy the excitement.
The area around Giethorn is a mixture of farmed areas and nature reserves. It was lovely cycling through that area. We've seen quite a few storks (including three wandering around a paddock where the farmer was spreading cow effluent), grey herons, kieviet (heaps of those on freshly mowed paddocks), fuut with half-grown chicks, lots of cootjes, a buzzard that buzzed off when we kept taking more photos, a fox scurried across one cycleway, and the hares do more than 30km an hour, George couldn't keep up. The many lakes in this area are mostly excavated peatbogs. We saw lots of very small houses -only two or three rooms. We said we must take a photo of such a house, but we didn't realised that we'd just cycled past the last one! The area has lots of houses with private boat mooring in the backgarden. Would be a perfect place to have a boat called the Kameleon (a Dutch series about twins and their adventures, George and I both read these books as kids).
It is full-on festival season in this area. There was a fair going in Sneek (complete with scary houses, scary rides, and a carouselle) as part of Sneek-week and the crowds were huge. We had lunch in Sneek and the foot and bike traffic going past was non-stop and rather overwhelming coming from NZ. Not sure what other festivities are planned for Sneek, but it is obviously very popular. In Scheerwolde the entire town was draped in bunting and flags, all the gardens were freshly weeded and groomed, and cutout guitars were everywhere. One street had dressed up in a 1960's music theme. Yet another carnival was setting up, this one with a music theme.
My fitness it improving and George is not having to wait so much for me to catch up. We've changed tactics, and we now each go at a speed that we are comfortable with, which usually means I lag behind somewhat. George will wait for me at the next intersection unless the route is pretty obviously straight on. I've been very impressed with the general fitness of the Dutch cyclists. In Germany, even when I wasn't that fit, we regularly overtook other people on bikes. Here in Netherland we often struggle to real them in. Yesterday I was going as fast as I could through a town, when a lady wearing a white and red flowered skirt, red shoes and her grey hair in a bun, pulled in from a cross-street. She was riding what looked to be a traditional Dutch bike and was sitting beautifully upright. There was absolutely no way that I could keep up with her even though she was pedalling quite slowly. She then burned off George also, which had me chuckling to myself. Mind you she did have one of those hybrid electric bicycles, so maybe not a fair fight. But then we've also seen two teenage girls on one bike (the baggage carrier is only supposed to carry 25kg, but she was definitely heavier than that), both of them smoking, and even they were hard to get past. I managed it going up a bridge ramp, but it would have been a struggle on the flat! Just proves that cycling is good for you!
This is an electric bicyle!The provice of Friesland has it's own recognised language, best described as a Welch version of Nederlands. Some of the place names we've cycled past are totally unpronouncible by the uneducated non-Friesian. The local TV station is fun to watch, mostly we can follow it but when it comes to technical discussions about boat racing we loose the plot. They may have their own breed of horses too, black workhorses, we've seen seen several paddocks full. Nice looking animals. The traditional farm buildings are interesting - the houses and barn are one large building. The roofing tiles on the house part are often black, those over the animal stalls are orange. Not sure why yet, maybe to help keep the house warm? Cows give up enough warmth to heat the rest of the place. More tomorrow.
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