This week we have made slow progress up the Ijssel River which flows through some lovely
countryside from near the Lek River (one of the names of the Dutch Rhine) to Gouda and then to near Rotterdam. The weather has been grey with frequent showers. In England they say August has been one of the worst since 1912 and that is probably true for Holland as well. Luckily we have been far far to the East for most of the summer.
Our first stop was the lovely old town of Montfoort. We had a great mooring in the heart of the town, just 100m from a large supermarket. We wandered around the town and when got back there was a knock on the window and a lady introduced herself to us as Petra. She was intrigued to see a NZ boat in the town as she had never seen one before. Her daughter lives in Wanganui and she and her husband spend 6 months every year there and have applied for permanent residence in NZ. She invited us over to dinner the following night. And then by a strange coincidence later that day a man stopped to chat with us and said his 3 kids had been born in NZ and he had spent may years there in Papakura and would we like to see his photos of the snapper he has caught.
The next day we watched alot of BBC TV in the afternoon and around 5pm we were picked up and driven to their lovely house on the outskirts of Montfoort. We had a lovely 3 course fish dinner and whilst we were on our main she received a text from NZers who were due to stay with them the following night asking if it was alright if they came that day as the weather was not great and they couldn't find anywhere suitable to stay. Soon John Newton and his partner Lauren arrived. John is (or was?) the TV One reporter for Wanganui. He seemed familiar, and they had just been on a hire boat on the Canal du Midi for a week with 6 others.
Next day we continued down the Ijssel for 10km to another even more lovely village called Oudewater.
The weekly market was on that day and we wandered around looking at the cheese stalls, and even tried the local speciality of Stroop Waffle which is two large thin waffles 'glued' together with a lovely caramel syrup. Both Montfoort and Oudewater have lovely churches with a carillion of bells on the hour.
Next day we arrived in the centre of Gouda and tied up. Gouda is a lovel ancient old Dutch town famous for its cheese.
We wandered around the old streets, saw the windmills and had a lovely meal out at Brunel Restaurant. We could walk everywhere and the town centre is only 5 mins walk away, with its beautiful Stadhuis (town hall) and cathedral.
Yesterday we went for a very long bike ride to the Reeuwijk Lakes which we circumnavigated admiring the beautifully manicured thatched houses along the shore. The sun came out for the rest of the day (but sadly disappeared for today) and it was like a chocolate box scene around every corner.
It has been raining today so we have stayed on board watching Scrapheap Challenge on BBC2 (except for a long walk in a brief respite to get the Sunday Times). We have free electricity and water in Gouda and mooring is very cheap at just 4 euros per night.
This week we head to Amsterdam and the forecast is a bit more cheery than last week (or so we hope)
