Tag: Camping in The Netherlands

Winter Camping NL- Part Two

The Cedar Journal January 8, 2020

Ahhh…The start of a New Year, an escape to nature. We had planned for weeks to escape the fireworks in our part of The Netherlands to a nice quiet location in the eastern woods of Drenthe.

Our New Year here at The Cedar Journal has finally started and with a huge bang. As promised we headed to our scheduled escape from the yearly fireworks of New Years Eve. I visited the last of the 12 provinces on my Dutch “must do” list with this camping adventure to Drenthe.

With about everything except the kitchen sink, we loaded our VW Caddy and set out on our two hour drive across the country towards the German border.

On the Road to Lauwersmeer

The Cedar Journal August 25, 2019

So we packed, double checked our list, found enough room in and on the car for everything. Then on the road heading towards our destination. As in most places the summer vacation is almost over.

We saw the effects of that as we headed through and then out of Amsterdam. There was more than 10km of standstill traffic going into Amsterdam. We saw many caravans, campers, and cars loaded with gear we suspect heading home from a vacation.

We were speeding along in our fully packed car towards the afsluitdijk, a 30 km dike built to keep the sea out and connecting North Holland to Friesland. An engineering marvel and an incredible accomplishment.

We stopped at the halfway point and took pictures, drank a cup of coffee and then headed on our route towards our camping location for the next seven days.

Judging The Netherlands by only visiting Amsterdam is sad as this land has so much to experience. This drive to the North was filled with flat country landscapes, dairy and sheep farms. Farmers harvesting crops like hay and cauliflower. Small villages dot the landscapes with houses that look so different from the ones close to Amsterdam.

Soon we were across another dike and lock system into the area where we have rented a cabin for a week.

The cabin sits in the National Park Lauwersmeer. A major bird migration route with that plenty of canoe water to explore.

Our first day we just settled into our lodging and enjoyed the views.

Spring Prep and Flowers

The Cedar Journal March 15, 2019

The tulips are about three weeks early with the warm spell we had two weeks ago.

The Second Weerribben Canoe Paddle, 10KM, NL

The Cedar Journal September 24, 2018

We could really feel the remoteness of the area standing alone on the marsh and feeling the wind rolling across the flat land.

Dutch Open Canoe Festival 2018

The Cedar Journal September 9, 2018

We are now at the end of our vacation and sadly at the end of the Dutch Open Canoe Festival 2018.

We made new friends, saw old friends, learned new things and learned a bit about how “Cedar” was built. Plus we paddled a good about of kilometers for us.

Here are three pictures of today more to follow with our follow up blog on the event.