Saturday morning I started off at around 09:40 to walk the Aeën en Dieën route , my starting point was Schellingwoude. About 20minutes walk and you really start hitting the gorgeous country side. The entire walk is on a Cycle path , so from time to time you just have to watch out for the Race cycles.
It was so beautiful, the first village I really loved was Zunderdorp. It’s all you imagine from a Dutch village, farms selling fresh milk and breakfast (Stupid as I am, I didn’t take any cash with me, only my bank pass) it was awesome and really reminded me of back home in Austria. I felt some nostalgia creeping up on me.
I am a country pumpkin by nature but totally forgot that people there seriously act different. I was greeted by people sitting in their garden, driving past in their cars – it made me smile big time.
The walk up to Zeedijk, where you can see the village of Markem in the distance was good and not too heavy. I started feeling my legs a bit but not too crazy. Thankfully the nature kept me busy, there was so much to see so I just decided to focus on that.
Saturday was a pretty sunny day, I didn’t take a baseball cap with me either (2nd time stupid) and the sun quickly got to me. Thankfully I had enough water with me, but once I had to leave the Uitdammerdijk to walk to the village of Ransdorp, I got more and more tired. My feet and legs started aching and for the first time, I realised how rubbish it is if you don’t have anybody to talk to. I couldn’t listen to music since this was killing my Iphone battery real fast and the sun just really kicked my butt.
Walking to Ransdorp really felt like the longest walk. Once I reached the village, gosh I was happy the next focus was getting to Durgerdam. I knew from there it was around 3km to get back to the car.
I sat down for a moment just before entering Durgerdam, I received some motivating text messages and tweets as support and that really gave me the kick to walk on.
There was a brief confusion after Durgerdam with regards to the Cycle path and where my map said I had to go, so I just went with the google map on the iphone and literally started counting down the km.
Keys in my hands I walked towards where I thought my car was. You have no idea how freaked out I was when the car wasn’t where I thought it was. I just pressed the button on my keys like a manic but nada… So I had to walk further and there Oh HOOOORAAAYYY I saw the lights of the car. It was 16:02pm.
The moment I sat down, all the pain was forgotten and I was just really happy that I managed it.
A cold beer at home, a hot shower and foot bath later, I started to feel better and most important I hardly had any muscle pain the next day. And this is what I call awesome good news!!
For the avid cyclist I can only recommend this route, it is really truly stunning. You see beautiful little villages and nature. There are funny little houses to see ( like Foot massage in the middle of nowhere and a Thai massage place in an area you really wouldn’t expect) But also if you enjoy walking, do it, it is worth it!
