THE JOURNEY BEGINS

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We are having dificulties in publishing our blogs. Due to old age probably. So this is a further Trial Blog. Hope it works. Possibly no pictures but lets get the text right first. God bless you all!



PRELUDE



Amsterdam was the beginning. But not really. There had been a year of planning. But even before this Prue had graciously and kindly agreed to consider travelling to Europe one more time. But no bikes please!

But we must remember that bikes and the Haute Alpes were the catalyst for our late-in-life Europe adventures. We met Peter and Renate cycling in France. They live in Setzingen near Ulm in Germany and we stayed in their home and they stayed at our farm and we are so glad of the happy times we have shared with them.

We met Daphne and Hans (her late husband) in an internet cafe in the Alpes. Actually, their daughter Jurine was there too. Their hospitality at their alpine holiday home was a lesson to us and there was very special fellowship within this. The internet has linked us strongly since, and now we know Daphne from within her home in Zeeland, Holland. Daphne is the reason why we began in Amsterdam.

A camp ground in Tannam Sands, Queensland was our divine appointment with Leopoldine who was on a bus tour. She came to NZ and we enjoyed her company at our
Jurine
farm and at our retirement village in Tauranga. She lives downtown in Munich and has offered us her apartment.

Maik and Janine linked with us in an unlikely spot. It was at a camp ground on Mahia Peninsular during our Golden Wedding celebration tour last year. They slept in a van and we slept in a motel unit. The facilities were simply awful and so we offered to show them real NZ hospitality and gave them directions to find our farm and our apartment. We are so glad they did! Now we are living for a few days in their home in the countryside 50km east of Berlin. And what is more, Janine is on track to deliver her first born son Tom in just 4 weeks. We are honoured because Tom will be our honorary grandson.

Melina is our honorary grand daughter. She was recommended by Peter and Renate to look us up as she travelled through NZ. So we met her off the InterCity bus at Ohingaiti and we are so glad we did. She stayed several days with us at the farm. We love her dearly, and we are about to embrace her again (and
Janine, Maik and Prue
her partner Silvio) when we travel next week to Ulm.

Then there is Frank. Big Frank! He is big in both heart and body. A one-time political prisoner in East Berlin, we discovered him setting up his tent in the Mangaweka camp ground only 20km from our farm. He was cycling from Auckland to Bluff (he said it was to shed a bit of weight). We invited him home and he stayed 3 nights and he came on to Tauranga too.

We all seemed to tick each other's boxes as we partook of very special friendship and hospitality. We actually want to invent a familial relationship into which all of these lovely people fit. Meanwhile, we will embrace them as pure family and we wonder at the miracle of these random contacts becoming relationships as as deep as family. We hope that ultimately, it will be more than “till death do us part” and that we will share our love together through eternity. This is our constant prayer and great hope.

So these lovely friendships are the fundamental reason for our visit to Europe. Not the tulips and windmills. Nor the German sausage and the brilliant all-yellow
Leo of Munich
rapeseed fields. Not the sunflowers of France, nor the artworks in Florence. These are simply beautiful sideshows by comparison.

SCHIPOL AIRPORT

Daphne and Bob are both pretty relaxed. Daphne more so in fact. She says by way of a new proverb she coined, “we go to the end of the street and then we decide which way to go” This is her way of indicating that when we hop in the car to go somewhere together, that our being together is more important than which way around the world we travel. But when it comes to meeting people at Schipol airport, Amsterdam, Daphne is a past master and armed with our flight number and the name of the carrier she asked KLMInformation which Arrivals terminal to find us. Well, two hours later, while Prue was sitting on the baggage and Bob was wandering the acres of Schipol, he heard, “Bob!” Daphne and Bob had almost collided. She had been given wrong Information by Information. Never mind! We hugged and Daphne gripped my arm and it was all joy as we almost danced to the patiently waiting Prue. Then it was more joy and our week in Holland hosted
Melina of Ulm
by Daphne had begun.

TULIPS

We had been singing “Tulips in Amsterdam” for several days in the knowledge that this place on the globe above all others exhibit gloriously the glories of tulip gardens. In particular the world famous KeukenhofGarden just outside of Amsterdam. We had also carefully planned the date of our arrival in the hope that the tulip blooms would be peaking at this time. But the peak blossom time is a movable feast. Sometimes mid May and sometimes mid April. We chose midway 4^th May and it was all over bar the shouting. As we approached the K Gardens we were aware of the huge crowds that were converging on the place. There were literally scores of buses and hundreds of cars in acres and acres of parking fields and people were streaming towards the gates with hundreds of metres to walk. Daphne had faithfully delivered us to the precincts of the K Gardens since we had expressed our hope of experiencing them. But it was evident that (a) the tulip season was past the peak and (b) the gardens would be totally overcrowded with people and (c) it just was not our style and
Prue and Frank
not worth what was a pretty high cost for our group.

So we dawdled through some nice suburbs and around the huge fields in which tulips are grown for the world and present the famous scenes of endless discrete arrays of colour. But, the 2014 tulip show was over, and all that remained was bare earth and the struggling remnants. We thought, “Isn't it wonderful that we can open the computer and see the spectacle of K Gardens and the tulip fields on Google.” Actually, our day of arrival was overcast and so the Google photos would be so much better. (see pic from GoogleImages blog by Abbey)

BIKES

Bikes are part of the heritage of most elderly New Zealanders and one yellow racing bike continues to play a large part in the life of Bob especially and Prue too. It would be fair to say also, that this yellow bike is a thorn in the side of the administrators of the Greenwood Park Village in Tauranga where Bob alone amongst all the 330 residents is to be seen riding his bike daily. While the residents in general prefer to walk or to take their car or
Tulip Fields credit Abbey blog
mobility scooter, Bob finds the bike to be a very efficient way to get around the village.

What a contrast in Holland where possibly the entire population rides a bike regularly. Old, young, fast, slow. Whole families. Children on the front. Children on the back. Children in “boxes” back or front. In the rain. In the wind. Going to work. Couples, old and young riding for pleasure. Almost no-one wears a crash helmet.

There are even traffic lights for bikes. There are nice smooth bike lanes everywhere separate from the roads. The bike parks are huge. There is a multi storey bike park in Amsterdam with capacity for 2500 bikes.

Bikes are mostly heavy and high and look like a slightly larger model than my grandparents rode when they were first married.

The level of fitness induced in the population by the bike culture in Holland must be several points higher than in NZ where the culture is averse to cycling. When one first sees an eighty year old Dutch lady pushing hard on the pedals between villages 5km apart, one is almost startled. But, it is the norm. They have probably been pushing the pedals
Amsterdam Bikes
along those same paths since they were 8 years old.

We suspect that even though the land is flat in the Netherlands, if there were hills, the people would still ride their bikes. In fact, now we are in Germany, we see the bike culture is here too despite the hills.

In Greenwood Park, they say “Why don't you walk like everyone else Bob?” We wish they could enjoy a bike as much as the old folks in Holland.



Next Blog posting -- As soon as we can. We plan to write about a working windmill and the huge Delta Works made to protect the Netherlands from the invading sea. Will also write about our camping experiences in the German forests. Also we saw some original Rembrandts we can write about. Wheee! Bye for now

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Comments

[Ross McPherson]

Travel news at last!
Great to hear from you and that the natives are friendly! Sharing the world and ourselves with others definitely makes the world a better place in so many ways although I hasten to add there is a price with our carbon footprint! Get on your bikes!! Enjoy the time as I know you will. Keep up the good work. Ross and Val

[Joseph Amundrud]

Wonderful blog!
Greetings Bob and Prue. We will be reading with alacrity of your adventures. We adore the colourful photos. Blessings!