From Antwerp it was only a skip and a hop to cross the border into the Netherlands. This was extra exciting for me as before this we had been going to new towns (and revisiting some old ones) but until then we hadn't been to any new countries. This felt like the beginning of the real adventure!
The Netherlands is known for good cheese and good beer. Both are true, but what people don't mention is how kind everyone is!! I can happily say Holland was the friendliest and nicest place I'd ever travelled to, bar Greece which it was probably on par with.
Our first stop was in the provence of Zeeland, which we had purposefully gone to due to it's roots back home to us. The reason for New Zealand's name is actually not as obvious as it would at first seem; Abel Tasmin sighted New Zealand in 1642, and supposing it was part of the tip of South America, gave it the same name as was held there at the time - Staten Landt. He was never able to set foot on this land however as upon approaching they had an altercation with the Maori natives leading to the deaths of a couple of members of his crew. Naming this place 'Murderers Bay' they sailed away, never to return. By 1645 it was known that this land was in fact its own landmass, and it catographers began to refer to it as 'Nova Zeelandia' - however why it was named after Zeeland appears to be strangely unknown.
We weren't expecting much and were more going for the name, however we were pleasantly suprised; we stopped in the town of Middelburg where we were met by a network of pretty waterways around the countryside and one of the nicest camp grounds we had been to, quiet, grassy, wifi everywhere, sinks to do dishes and the bathrooms even had toilet paper and soap!!
We went to the town in the morning and were happy to find a farmers market on. Here we bought bags of berries and fruit, a delicious herb cheese that tasted almost like eating focaccia bread, salami and a lovely dark and nutty bread from a bakery. Best lunch ever.
Just when we didn't think it could get any better, it did. As we wandered towards the centre of the town carrying our supplies, we began to hear the distinctive clip of horses. Oh dear, we thought, it's more touristy than we expected and there are those annoying horse and carts carrying tourists who charge exorbitant fees of forty euros an hour and smelling terrible as they go by (often leaving little parcels behind too). However the sight that met our eyes was a far different one than expected: set up around the central church was a race track, different horses with riders dressed in traditional garb galloped by, snatching rings hanging from banners above their heads (you can just see the tool used for this in the woman's hand pictured below) and flinging them on the ground -it seemed to be a score thing of how many rings you could flick off.
After our unexpectedly enjoyable morning, we set off upwards heading for an area called Kinderdijk. While this may sound like your typical difficult-to-pronounce Dutch name, it had a History. Long before the windmills were built, in 1471 the Saint Elizabeth Flood swept across this area. After the storm was over, someone went to see what damage had been done and while doing so, spotted a cradle floating in the distance. As he drew closer, he noticed a cat in the cradle trying to keep any water from getting in by jumping from side to side of the cradle to keep it in balance. The baby was kept dry and safe, and thus the name Kinderdijk (meaning child's dyke) arose, and with it the English folktale of "the cat and the cradle".
The windmills themselves came much later, in 1740 19 of these majestic buildings were erected to keep the river from flooding again, and a couple of them are still used to this day (although diesel pumping stations have taken over their job of draining the river).
There were many tourists on the walking track but if we wandered out a little past the first few windmills the crowds evaporated. Many people were biking and stopping for picnics which seemed like a nice idea as it was a boiling hot day for once - I enjoyed the sunshine as we walked. Yannick took pictures of bees. Overall it was a good day.
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