A Week in Terschelling, North Holland.

Having had a few hours to recover from our trip over to England, Paul and I unpacked and repacked for the week ahead:  Paul was on a course for the coming week, in the north of Holland.

We also loaded our folding bicycles in the car and set off towards the town of Harlingen where we parked up near the ferry terminal, offloaded our bicycles and luggage and caught a ferry across to the island, a 2 hour ferry trip between the Terschelling and the mainland.

The island is inhabited but it also has a large nature reserve.  There are plenty of walking trails and bicycle paths throughout the island so one doesn't have to get in a car to see it.  It's a matter of getting your boots on or getting on your bicycle - and getting out there.

Mock-up bridge and navigation instruments/panel during Paul's course.

It was dark when we arrived but fortunately we had bicycle lights.  Paul's was brighter than mine so I relied upon him, and his sat nav, to get us to where we were going.

The hotel we stayed in (Westcord Hotel Schylge) was nice and spacious; the hotel lobby/hallway was open from ground floor to the roof with all the bedrooms around the central courtyard/hallway.  Each room's door was named after a bird and had the photograph of a bird on it.  Lovely.

I rested quite a bit during the week while Paul was on his ice navigation course.


On one of the days I took a bicycle ride around the island to clear my head.
Unfortunately I have deleted photographs that I took during our stay on the island and so the photographs I have included are from the internet - to give you an idea of what the island looks like.

I ended up cycling around the whole island, keeping to the coast to my right all the time, and staying on hard paths - tar, brick and stone paths.  If a hard path stopped at a soft path I turned around and rode back until I found another hard path or road going off towards the coast.  Some of the paths that I cycled on, initially, were over dykes, other paths I took went through marshland, moorlands, sand dunes and forest.  Being autumn, trees in the forest were taking on a golden hue, lining the paths like a carpet.  It was beautiful.  I stopped to speak to three horses and made friends with the one which nuzzled me gently and allowed me to stroke him. The other two horses were shyer - happy to watch but not be touched.  My arse and legs ached before I got back to the hotel and so I cycled slower and slower.  I ended up taking some Ibuprofen and having a nice soak in a hot bath to ease the muscles.


On another day I took a bicycle ride into the village and had a wander around, then spent the rest of the day reading and doing some magazine puzzles.

On the last day of Paul's course we checked out of the hotel at breakfast time and I sat in the hotel lobby/lounge/reception area reading until Paul came back from his course.  It was quite a long day for me but I managed.

We cycled with our luggage into town and found a place to have a bite to eat before we caught the ferry to the mainland, offloaded our luggage and folded up our bicycles then headed to Rijsbergen.

Over the weekend it was a matter of repacking and doing some laundry.