Tag: hiking

Floris V Pad – Dordrecht -Part One

The Cedar Journal August 16, 2021

I am now more than half way complete with this Floris V Pad hike to my endpoint of Bergen op Zoom. I started this 19 km section from the train station Sliedrecht Baanhoek making it a slightly longer hike. My last hike went into Papendrecht and ended at the former apartment of my in-laws. (here).

The Hubby was my transport to and from this section of my hiking experience. The Hubby deserves a very special accommodation for all the extra out of the way trips he has made for me during this trek to finish the Floris V Pad. Maybe a nice dinner?😊

I am using AllTrails app to track my routes recently.

This hike was one of my personal best for distance as I hiked 15 km. Mostly I am only able to hike 10 km. I also didn’t have many options of trail exit if my body decided to stop my hike early. I know many of my readers think I am endlessly adventurous and that I must be in great shape. The reality is much different. My body has suffered many injuries from my old professional career that can make it a challenge some days to complete my adventures. Yet, I keep pushing on.

My start on a bike path. This path goes over the Beneden Merwede River.

Looking back at Papendrecht from the bridge as I cross the Beneden Merwede River

Getting from my start point in Sliedrecht to the Dordrecht start point on the other side of the Wantij River I had to cross a train/bike bridge over the Beneden Merwede River. When I started up this long bike path/train bridge I forgot about the train also shared the bridge. As I was taking the above picture of Papendrecht, my heart rate was accelerated several beats (I am sure those were hearts beats I should be saving) as a train suddenly zoomed by!

After regaining a normal heart rate (this took less time than I thought it would) I continued to hike towards the next bridge. First, I was entertained by the early morning golfing community as the trail skirted a huge golf course. I could hear the chink of golf balls being hit and the collective “ahhh” and “ohhh no!” of the golfers. I kept my eyes peeled for any golf ball that would hit me on my hiking path. Luckily I was saved from such an experience.

I came to the bridge that would finally get me to the start point.

The blue bike bridge over the Wantij River

Once again I am amazed by the amount of information at these crossings. Count the number of signs. This is the start point for the Dordrecht Floris V Pad section.

Now I was on a high dike that protects the entire river island of Dordrecht. Actually, there are a series of dikes that protect this area that has maintained a respectful ages old symbiosis with the intersections of the three main rivers that head towards the North Sea. The Oude Maas, Beneden Merwede, and the Nieuwe Merwede.

The landscape inside the Dordrecht dike system from the top of the dike.

Once again on this hike I took a detour (which was longer) as I headed off the dike and into the farmland. The shade of the large trees and the views of the large farms were worth the extra kilometers I walked.

I very welcoming table at a farm along my new route.

I was almost to the water ferry boat that takes people across the Nieuw Merwede River to the Biesbosch National Park. The sun was starting to heat things up and I was glad to have the nice shade.

Almost to the ferry boat landing. These beautiful trees provided a nice shade for walking.

I stopped at the picnic tables at the ferry boat landing and pulled out my thermos of hot water for coffee. I sat and watched as the crowd of bikes and autos gathered to wait for the ferry. Many of the cyclists were on vacation and were loaded with all their gear and talking to each other about their recent adventures.

The ferry boat heading towards the landing to pick up more autos and cycling vacationers.

One of my fellow bloggers asked me recently if I ever see any other hikers on my hikes. That was a great question! Thanks “B”!

Yes, I often see other people mostly out for a short walk on the trail, but seldom do I see anyone hiking the entire Floris V Pad or hiking it in sections like I am doing. I have only met two people hiking the entire Floris V Pad since I started in 2018. Both have been recently.

I do not take pictures of people hiking as I want to respect their privacy.

On this hike, I met Floris V Pad section hiker, Jan. I passed Jan (Jan is a common male Dutch name) as I started my hike on the dike. I saw he had the tell tale Floris V Pad book in his hands. A great opening for starting a conversation, so I asked if he was hiking it.

“Yes” he answered. He was heading to the 19km end point for this section at the Dordrecht Kilt tunnel.

Not wanting to hold him up or interfere with his hike I wished him luck as I quickly went in my way.

I stopped to make my decision to take a different path and saw that Jan went in the opposite direction, along the dike. As he had told me where his end point goal for the day would be I knew I might meet him again along the way.

As I sat at the ferry launch drinking my coffee, I looked to see if he would pass me. I didn’t see him.

I started my journey once again as the path skirts the river. A huge dike was on my right that was also a sheep pasture.

The Floris V Pad route along the river with the dike/sheep pasture on the right.

This ewe came to see if I had a bucket of feed. I admit…I made her think I was a farmer with a feed bucket.

These pasture sheep were not fooled by my calling them to the fence for a treat. The lead ewe informed the others I was just another whacked out hiker.

This part of the trail has several alternative routes into the marshy woods that run along the river. As I stepped off the bike path to take the alternate route I saw that the recent rains had made the path more of a challenge. I wasn’t up for the muddy hiker experience and turned back to the bike trail.

As I did, I saw Jan lumbering down the trail in front of me. Now I put it in my head to hike faster and pass him again. The trail turned slightly to the left and I lost Jan. The trail was empty and my sudden motivation to walk faster now disappeared. It wasn’t long before I found what happened to Jan. He was sitting on a bench off to the side when I finally caught up to him. I stopped and talked to him about his hiking experience. I really enjoyed the short exchange of about on our time on this trail. We also exchanged information about other trails we have hiked or are on our “to do lists”.

The funny thing is, he seemed very happy just relaxing and I wanted to get moving as I knew my body was already close to calling it a day. That was about the 11.5 km point in my hike.

I said my good bye to Jan and started moving towards what my new end point for the day would be. A small restaurant.

The dike now separated me from the river as the trail headed back towards Dordrecht.

The middle of the day heat was starting to break me down as I walked along the now flat and open pasture/farmfield land. I looked behind me and saw that Jan was not far behind on the trail. I put it in my head to keep going and to keep ahead of him.

I got to a good point on the trail close to the restaurant and checked my map. As I looked back to the trail I just walked Jan was just a few feet behind me. He came up alongside and confirmed that the trail went to the left. I admitted that I was going straight to the restaurant along the road to have lunch and get a ride.

I watched as he entered a wooded area and disappeared and wondered if I would see him again and concluded I most likely would not. It was nice to have met another section hiker, but as in life, we pass through sometimes only to be encouraged or to encourage others along our journey and then move on down the trail.

The Hubby came to the restaurant and we had a nice lunch and then headed off to complete the number of other tasks in our personal lives that day.

Floris V Pad – Schoonhoven to Huize Maria

The Cedar Journal July 19, 2021

I was happy to receive a ride to Schoonhoven by the Hubby as he was spending the day cleaning out his mother’s house. By 7:30am under overcast skies I started hiking in Alblasserwaard. Limburg was just starting to get the rain that was already causing issues as it dumped on the region, two days later making the International news with the devastating flood waters.

This nice footpath was a wonderful start to the day.

The start of the trail was the bike path that comes off the water ferry boat from Schoonhoven.

Then the path turns to the right. I was now walking on a footpath between two canals. This nicely mowed path seemed isolated. Willow trees lined the trail. A street on the left and industrial area of on the right.

This part of the Floris V Pad route runs along the Lek River as it heads down stream towards Rotterdam. The towns located along this part of the river are old industrial trading towns. Old flat farmland outside the towns. Groot-Ammers was the first town I came along today but not before experiencing a few surprises.

As I was hiking, I suddenly saw a fire truck come by with sirens on. It turned in front of me further up the trail and went into the industrial area on my right. I looked for smoke, nope, no smoke. Then came a helicopter that landed in the industrial area on the right.

“Ok, there is something seriously going on.” I thought.

As I approached the road where I had seen the firetruck turn there came a another firetruck, then a police car all blazing the sirens. I quickly texted the Hubby that my day was already in the “strange” category.

First the firetruck

Then the police! Now I think it might be safe to cross the road…

Not more than 100 meters down the trail from the commotion in the industrial area, I heard a very familiar sound, a milking machine.

I looked around and saw that across the road there was a field where the milk cows were lined up waiting to enter a small mobile milking building. I laughed out loud at the well trained cows waiting patiently for the farmer to move the milking machine from one cow to the next in line.

Cows waiting to be milked at a mobile milking station.

The morning was going to continue being “strange”. As I approached the town of Groot-Ammers I couldn’t find the trail sign. The little hiking inner voice kept telling me to stop and check the map and gps, the stubborn hiking self continued to hike! Finally, my stubborn self gave in and stopped, checked the map and the gps and had to concede my faults of not trusting to my inner voice. I quickly chose an alternate route through town. Walking through neighborhoods of well groomed front gardens and passing school children that were all very happy that they were in the final days before summer vacation.

The trail through Groot-Ammers towards the church.

This route was now providing me with several additions to my “hummm July file”. More to follow on those “hummm” at the end of the month.

Outside of Groot-Ammers I took my first rest. Sitting on a bench overlooking the Lek River, I watched barges moving freight up and down the river.

The wind seems to blow constantly on this flat landscape of the Alblasserwaard, with the sky threatening to rain I got back on the trail heading towards Nieuw Lekkerland.

As I approached the turn in the trail heading into the flat farm area I was happy to see this sign.

This was a real treat of the trail! A small road that wound on the backside of houses that are built on the Lek River dike. Most of these houses had long yards with beautiful gardens or buildings that had farm animals. The sounds of farmland quiet surrounding me. This area filled me with memories of my younger self growing up in the Minnesota farm country as I hiked along.

Soon the paved small road turned into a gravel road. These are not very common here in The Netherlands anymore so I was excited to be hiking on one.

The gravel road on the Floris V Pad passing between a dairy farm on the right and the pasture on the left.

This road was devoid of any activity other than the ducks in the canal and the birds, cows, and sheep in the pastures. The only sounds, the occasional farm tractor and the endless wind.

After walking for a distance, I crossed a very busy paved road and continued along the gravel on the other side.

The trail now is marked that it turns into a farmers field.

The welcome sign with instructions for hikers

At this point it was clear that the trail went through the farm field but the “welcome” I was greeted with was a bit unexpected.

The “welcome” in the field was newly mulched pasture of cow crap!

Now, being raised on a farm, I was not a bit put off from that sort of “welcome” from the local farmer. In fact, I was always taught that if you smelled manure it was the smell of money. I walked the entire field of money and even had to scrape some money from my hiking boots at the end of the field. I figured it was best to leave as much money as possible for the farmer.

Now, I came to a gate and had an audience of young cattle as I tried to figure the safest way to negotiate the rather unstable and baler twine secured gate. I could almost hear the cattle discussing the last poor hiker that had come this way and ended up falling into the canal, or the pile of “welcome”. I was not providing any such entertainment to the cattle audience! I threw my backpack over the gate, rounded the end of the gate where it sat next to the canal bridge deck, stood the gate up straighter and flater against the fence post which gave me just enough room to squeeze through the gap between gate and bridge deck. I picked up my backpack placed the gate back the way it was prior to my squeezing through and tip toed around several cow paddy “welcome” mats.

The cattle at this point seemed very impressed and started mooing at me. They even followed me down the pasture sharing their comments as I hiked.

The cattle following me on my hike.

The path now follows a paved road lined with large farms.

At the end of this pasture I had another gate to climb, this time I just climbed right over the top and dropped onto a paved bike path.

As I walked past a large chicken farm I stopped to check out their automatic egg store.

You can purchase just about any amount of eggs here at this automatic egg store. Farm fresh!

I came to where the trail headed back towards the Lek River dike. Now I stopped for a cup of coffee and a snack bar out of my backpack. I listened to the wind wiping through the flat expanses of farmland.

A check of the map and the gps showed that I was at the half way point to Nieuw Lekkerland. I checked the bus schedule at the nearest bus halt and saw I had less than 20 minutes to make it to the stop.

I kicked my hiking legs into overdrive and focused on the windmill in the distance, knowing that the bus halt was close by the mill.

Suddenly out of nowhere from behind a old man on a bike passed me! Darn near scared the pants off me.

I made it to the bus halt. Even had 10 minutes to wait.

Public transport home.

This hike was 11.5 km.

Wordless Wednesday

The Cedar Journal July 14, 2021

Hiking the Floris V Pad- Haastrecht to Schoonhoven

The Cedar Journal May 3, 2021

I had planned to hike Friday but a storm blew in and pushed my plans to Saturday.

I once again had the Hubby be my transportation to and from locations. Due to another mid day appointment we started our day at 05:30. It must be a passion to get up at that hour during retirement!

It was a cool morning at 3.5 C or 38 F. I layered in my wool garments and was even to the point of being over warm by the end of my 9 km hike.

The first thing that greeted me on the trail was the songs of thousands of birds coming from the Nature Sanctuary.

Haastrecht Nature Sanctuary on 1 May 2021

I saw this seriously serious birder but he wasn’t alone as I passed several with large lens at the start of the trailhead.

A birder with sound recording equipment.

The first part of the trail was hard packed dirt that was on top of an old dike. Off to the left with a good 20 foot drop in elevation was flat green farmland, to my right the bird sanctuary. Birds kept flying overhead either leaving the protected area for the fields or returning. Each take off and landing was filled with a chorus of bird noises.

While I was hiking the Hubby tried his hand again at photographing the birds with his small lens. Here are some of his shots from his morning.

A Reed bird that waited just long enough for the Hubby to capture it’s image.

These are only a very small sample of the number of birds that were nesting in the area.

This easily could have been one of the swans I saw from the trail. This one was captured heading towards a landing spot.

After about a kilometer I hit a turn where the trail headed more South towards my destination of Schoonhoven. The rest of the hike was a hardtop access road for large farms that lined the river.

One of the large farms along the river front and opposite side of the river.

There was plenty to see in this farm country. Lambs, poultry, milk cows and beautifully groomed gardens. The sounds of chug, chug, swish,… coming from the dairy farms brought back memories from my farm life childhood. The hard work that never ends. Did the Dutch kids working this morning have big dreams of escaping to another country, or profession? I wondered as I continued hiking onward.

I passed a small family run park with an invitation to sit. I did just long enough to get a good swig of water. Making a note that this was a really cool area created by these people.

One of the stumps that was aged at 2000 to 2500 years old. That was an old tree!

This park was filled with handmade benches of all sorts and beautiful blooming apple trees, but the view of the river was breathtaking.

I didn’t have much time to get back on the trail. I kept watching the traffic on the other side of the river to see when the “pace/chase/support”Hubby vehicle would pass by. Soon I saw him and he asked how I was doing.

Now the pressure was on to get moving and stop taking so many picture stops.

How could I not stop to take this picture?

One last place before Schoonhoven caught my eye and I had to stop.

Farm fresh milk is available from this self serve machine! Awesome idea!!!

As I entered Schoonhoven I once again encountered the trail sign issue that seems common in larger towns. Not very clear what direction I should go with several trails, numbers, and directions placed on poles and mostly no indication which trail is the Floris V Pad direction.

I stopped, looked at my map, consulted my cell phone map, and at one point after going with the sign posted on a pole, got that gut feeling that I was walking in the wrong direction. Stopped again, checked again, back tracked and went the most logical way through town. That took me through the city park that was part of the old fort style city defense. These are easy to pick out on satellite photos as they look like large stars with a canal of water that separates it from the rest of the landscape.

While leaving the park I saw a group of women having an outdoor fitness class. I surprised them by stopping, dropping (with backpack still on my back) and entertaining them with four pushups. I laughed and mentioned I could do more if I hadn’t had already hiked 8kms. They all laughed and I am sure they had something to share the rest of the day of how some old American lady, fitness bombed them.😂😂