Rivers, lakes and islands – the many faces of the Netherlands

Hello and welcome to the latest blog from The Olivia Rose Diaries on May 17^th 2024.

We cruised through two very different areas of the Netherlands this week, beginning with the lovely River Vecht, and then moving on to the Randmeren lakes. Each of them represents a different facet of this fascinating country, one that has been tamed and the other much wilder.

For those of you who were following this blog last year you may remember the Vecht as we spent some time on it during the summer. The Dutch are very proud of this river, proclaiming it the most beautiful in the country, and it is indeed a lovely stretch of water. It also showcases many exclusive properties, elegant mansions with landscaped gardens, as well as more modest terraced houses. Everywhere is immaculate and well-kept, nothing out of place, a well-known Dutch trait.

Leaving the river behind we cruised out to the Randmeren. The name means ‘peripheral lakes’ and they run for 79 km. One hundred years ago this vast expanse of water used to be the sea but then Flevoland was constructed during the mid 1900’s and now this is an inland water, free from the ravages of the wild and unpredictable North Sea.

The land certainly gives some shelter from the sea, but these lakes at their widest points are large expanses of water and have their own weather systems to be aware of.

We are travelling in an east and northerly direction and on our starboard side (right) we pass the old sea ports of Spakenburg, Harderwijk and the gloriously pretty town of Elburg. On our port side (left) are the modern towns and harbours of Flevoland, the largest artificial island by land reclamation in the world, 2,412 square metres in size which is similar to the country of Luxembourg. To put it in simple terms, although this doesn’t begin to convey the scale of what the Dutch have achieved, they built a huge bank or dyke around the area and then pumped all the sea water away. Once the sea bed was completely dry they had a clean slate on which to build new cities and towns and the infra-structure to support them. We travelled along the inland canals of Flevoland last year and I never quite shook off a sense of unease at being six metres below sea level.

One of the delights of cruising through these lakes is that you can moor up on many of the islands. It’s not free, but at a modest 11.70€ we weren’t complaining.

Occasionally paradise has a sting in the tail. On one of the prettiest moorings we found ourselves besieged by a plague of insects. They covered the decks and the windows, landed on our food as we tried to eat and eventually drove us indoors, the last place we wanted to be as it was hot. Our final unwanted guest was a queen hornet, an absolutely massive one, who was determined to find a nook or cranny in the boat to build her nest. She came in and out several times, and whilst we are used to hornets as we have many of them around Le Shack, they are not welcome indoors and definitely not in the confined space of a small boat. Each time she came in, I made a hasty exit out of the other door, leaving Michael to see if he could waft her out again. In the end we pulled down the insect screens, which obviously irritated her no end as she tried to headbutt her way through for the next half an hour or so. Eventually she gave up and moved on to the tarpaulin covering our bikes on deck, thinking she might find a nice dark space inside.

The insects were too much for us and so sadly we moved on the next day. We tentatively checked around the bikes before we left to make sure the queen wasn’t hitching a ride.

Next week we go into new territory, Friesland, which has the most water of any of the Dutch provinces and is heaven for those who love messing about in boats. We didn’t have the time to explore here last year and so are looking forward to what we might see.

This last picture shows a posy of wildflowers. Michael went out for a walk this morning and came back with them.

See you soon.

MJ