No Highland Games for the Trail marker

[Lodrorigdzin]

Soooo, last weekend was to be the weekend of two Highland Games events. One in Wijhe, in the East and the other one, on sunday, the Dutch finals in Hank, to the south. And then B. called and told me that the person slated to check the long distance path past the IJsselmeer was otherwise occupied due to family circumstances and could I fill in and check his section. Choices choices. It is a beautiful stretch of coast and an area where I love to walk. And I could combine it with several fun things: a visit to the Zuiderzee Museum in Enkhuizen, a ferry trip across the IJsselmeer to the old Hanseatic city of Stavoren and a beautiful walk. And oh yes, making sure the trail's markings were all in good order. What a hard life!

It was an early trip to the station early on saturday morning, and because copper thieves had put sections of the line out of order around Schiphol airport lots of trains were being rerouted. Two hours later and I was in Enkhuizen, just in time for the museum's opening.

Waiting for the ferry to the museum, I noticed the old Friesland in the harbor, formerly on the Harlingen to Terschelling line. The present ferry is also a Friesland


The Zuiderzee Museum was begun in the 1930s, when it became apparent that the old ways of the fishing communities and trading ports on the shores of the Zuiderzee were rapidly vanishing because the former sea had been enclosed and had now become a lake. At first the museum was fairly conventional and known for its beautiful ship's hall, that held a representational collection of fishing and trading vessels. Amongst those is one that used to be in my family, the Frisian yacht that belonged to my great grandfather (oer-pake). As a family we used to go on annual pilgrimages to see it in Enkhuizen.

The Buitenmuseum was built in the 1990s as a piece of living history, with re-enactors on hand to tell the story of the Zuiderzee communities. There's a fishing village, that's reminiscent of the island of Urk (that still exists), there's a "city", that is like many trading towns around the IJsselmeer, even today. And there's a wharf, with a beautiful collection of flat bottomed fishing vessels.

In "Urk" it was washing day



But I had to hurry, because my ferry left at 12.30

The IJsselmeer is one of the largest fresh water lakes in Europe and to many people still a "sea". Large fishing vessels are sometimes wrecked on it, because it has a number of notorious shallows. Enkhuizen was a bunkering station to the East Indies fleet and was at the entry to Amsterdam in the 17th century and grew exceedingly rich because of that. There used to be numerous ferries before the second world war. The Lemmer boat, from Lemmer to Amsterdam was the most famous. Now, two ferry lines have been recreated, one from Enkhuizen to Urk and one to Stavoren and I was on that one. It was a calm day, sunny and warm, so I could relax and watch the yachting traffic.



Those in the know can see I was wearing a kilt. I carried full camping complement. It always strikes me how practical a kilt is for walking and camping and how it simplifies a man's walking and camping wardrobe. And I was very glad not to have to sport the "outdoorsy cargo pants look".

We reached Stavoren, and there was time for a little walkabout and I spotted that there too, people were a fan of my favorite maxim and signature phrase



Stavoren used to be in the Hanseatic league in medieval times and grew rich from the grain trade. But the harbour silted up and the city was frozen in time. It is one of the yachting centers on the eastern shore of the IJsselmeer, and this has caused many people to buy summer houses there, pushing out the local inhabitants. Fortunately it is still served by the railways, but these towns have a precarious existence.



I had to push on, as I was to camp at a farm near Workum to start my trail marking walk on sunday. Lots of kite surfers around there, who played the guitar in a rather melancholy fashion. The grass really was that green.

Next morning after breakfast. It was a shortish walk to Workum, after which the trail followed the old sea wall, meandering inland past the villages of Gaast and Piaam, and ending up at Makkum, another city frozen in time. Lots of cyclists about, motorcycle clubs out for a tour and sometimes the occasional walker.

In Workum I happened upon the old jewish cemetery. It is the oldest in Friesland and still holds a number of gravestones. But by the 1920s, jewish life in this part of Friesland had already so declined that a decade later, re-burials were taking place in the province's capital, Leeuwarden. Still cemeteries such as these are a potent reminder that in the late nineteenth century there was jewish life all over the Netherlands, even in far away towns such as these.




The trail was impeccably marked still, so I only had to do the paper work to confirm that it was so. I love this landscape. I walked with my "musical doping" on the ipod: scottish regimental marches. Nothing quite like it to get into the groove. One more photo: view of Workum from the west:



The rest of the day were spent having lunch in Makkum and walking to the Afsluitdijk headland, from where I took the bus to Alkmaar station and so home by train.
A wonderful weekend, everything happened by chance, I got to walk a lot and in beautiful surroundings. The Highland Games were elsewhere...