Winter 1995-1996 This has been a real winter! ! There were at least three periods with natural ice, so we could skate as much as we wished. Because of all fuss about it, I even started thinking about an "Eleven Cities Tour" with my skate-mates. The most famous Dutch (Frisian) skate tour existing. But chances to get one are smaller than those to get a close encounter with an UFO.
Of course this season the tour wasn't held. The management doesn't "walk over only one-night ice", as we say. That's why many illustrious skating cracks (like Van Benthem, Angenent, Van Zwieten and Sonneveld) tried the parcours on their own, illegally.

I was ill, during one of the frosty periods. So when all the others were riding the stars from the sky, I had to stay in bed, only listening to their skaty-tales... For me only some small Rotte (a nearby recreation creek after which Rotterdam was called) tours were left, together with my German girl-friend Kerstin, who specially came over to skate some tours here.

Clubhuis KV Natsec Vlaardingen
45 km plm 4 hour
1 february 1996
solo

eat & drink:

• Cafe Vlietzicht, Vlaardingsekade 60 Schipluiden
  
• Cafe Wapen van Maasland, Kerkweg 42 Maasland
  
• Cafe De Bonte Haas, Dorpskade 79 Wateringen

I had never known before about a canoe club called "Natsec" in my former school town of Vlaardingen. But today I discovered what a beautiful starting point it is to reach one of the most magnificent pieces of the frozen Vlaardingse Vaart polder-canal. Skating on the Vlaardingse Vaart! A boy's dream that came true in the end. A real goal of life! It's probably the reason it was chosen as a departure point for the fabulous Westlandtocht. A tour along the greenhouses between The Hague and Rotterdam. Most of the fruit and flowers for Western European and US markets are grown here. Most years this tour cannot be held, because the warm effluent from the greenhouses prevents ice forming.

A "T" and a star, both 15 km long, can be skated separately or combined, single and double. That makes tours of 15, 30, 45 and 60 km.

I decide to go for 60, but the Vlaardingen kilometers turn out to be quite long. The "T", via Maasland to Schipluiden, takes me an hour. This is too much time for only 15 km, even in my velocity, and considering the bad ice-quality and whirling wind.

Now I am returning to these places of my youth again. It used to plod along in those days, wearing too thick socks inside oversized ice-hockey skates. Blisters on my feet. Feeling so proud of completing only a short 200 meter lap over the small Beatrixpark ponds, and distracted by the presence of all those very attractive schoolgirls on the ice......
Hunting for their attention.
Both in skating and in hunting I couldn't glory in impressive results....

The places you find here along this polder-canal, look totally different from a skater's perspective, compared to the safe embankment viewpoint I remember as a kid growing up in the nearby Kethel village. That was the first time we came here, to go rowing with my friend, starting at the waterside café, where the Tweede Veen ("Second Moor") country road meets the Boonervliet canal, with only the Vlaardingse Vaart in between. The inn, called "Vlietzicht" ("Canal-vue") still exists and is frequented by ice-lovers now. Male and female. The rowing-boats stay unused now, frozen in the water.

The times have changed. Now I wrestle myself a track over the bad ice on the canals described in Maarten 't Hart's books. With his excellent observations of the calvinist athmosphere I remember so well from my own youth. I can also identify so very well with his wearisome experiences with female attention.
My Viking skates squeeze and pinch my feet, but that's why they invented "Compeed". Not so many opportunities for women-hunting any more. The only chase is for shining honorary metal now.

The tour organizers have laid out a real obstacle course. Beside skating you have to perform exercises in skill, when approaching the checkpoints where you get your control-card stamped. You have to climb on quay walls near Maasland village. Slide off dikes and reclimb them (Schipluiden village). Walk enormous distances on skates across industrial sites in Honselersdijk. And wrestle yourself inside the Rabobank office in De Lier, via a walking-ramp through the waterside-window. It should be clear that these exercises don't contribute to the sharpness of both skater and his blades. Is it the reason the ice looks so hard to skate on?

After leaving Schipluiden the landscape character changes. The wide polders with broad waters give way to narrow canals between the greenhouses. The high-rise blocks of Vlaardingen, Delft, and the Honselersdijk auction-office loom on the horizon. Near Honselersdijk, you have to take the long-distance walk, far away from the ice, to get your checkpoint stamp. Without it you certainly won't get your medal at the finish.

W hen I return to the ice, there's yet another obstacle in front of me. A large unfrozen area, where you can't pass by on your way to De Lier, without leaving the ice. Many splashing water-birds are gathered together, enjoying the only open water for miles around. A 30 cm wide strip of ice along the embankment seems passable, I conclude, observing so many skate-tracks there. Despite my diagnosis, the local ice-controller considered it more safe to block the way off with ribbons, to force imprudent skaters off the ice. It might be dangerous. But, with the long Honseler skate-walk still fresh in my mind (and legs) I choose the easy way. Despite all warnings.
Under the ribbon. I'll be careful.
The ducks observe the reckless skater, intruding into their domain. Only three meters I cover before destiny hits out. An mini-hole, camouflaged with ice-scratch and about the size of a skate-blade, consumes my right leg within a fraction of a second. I tumble down on the wet ice. Am I wrong, or is there a slight mocking in the background quacking?

"Westlandtocht finished, the party is over".
Surveying the damage, I learn that three of the four limbs, and half of my jacket, are still dry. Moreover, my Chrysler is parked all the way down at Natsec in Vlaardingen.
"Natsec"...
Consisting of the words "nat" (Dutch for "wet") and "sec" (French for "dry").
"What's in a name...."
So I'am continuing on to De Lier! Wet Viking skates don't perform any worse than dry ones, and the skating cadance is back soon. Returning to Schipluiden again, only 25 km have been passed under my skates! Really not enough!
As everything has dried out so well now, I decide to do the fatal lap again. In the reverse direction this time. As I approach the disaster site for the second time, I make a big detour, skatewalking around the calamity zone with the ducks. There's another daredevil in the area now, two walking skate ladies taunt him loudly from the embankment. He's luckier than me, and keeps his feet dry. The water-birds have to do without another spectacle this time.

Two "stars" and one "T" later my energy reserves are totally gone. Down the dike, at my thirth Schipluiden café visit, I get myself a Mars bar (brimfull with dextrose), and think over the possible scenarios. It's almost half past four now, only a half hour before closing-time. Most of the arriving skaters are gratefully accepting their well-deserved medals from the smiling ladies behind the long table in the billiard lounge. Sixty kilometers are a bit too far for me today...

I decide to brake off and return to Vlaardingen, with my last ounce of energy. The dextrose doesn't really work "Just slowly skate on", my friend Anton always says in such cases, "never stop and sit down". Around five o'clock there are still quite a lot of people on the ice as I enter the Holywijk-suburb in Vlaardingen again. Returning to the start of this expedition.
Unfortunately, all the " Royal Dutch Skaters Union"-volunteers, with their control stamps and victory medals, have gone long before. The Natsec-manager has closed up his joint, and he doesn't like conversations with overtime skaters at all.
So in order to get my hard-won 45 km-medal, I must return to Vlaardingen again by car the next morning, skidding over ice frozen on the streets.....

Windmill-tour Alblasserwaard-polder.

"De Molenhoek" cafe Kinderdijk
75 km 6 hour
3 february 1996
solo

T his exciting tour is called the mother of all South-Holland skating-tours!
Even if you think of yourself as a novice skater, you should try this royal class tour once.
Every ice-season usually starts with rumours that one or more of the "core-team"-members already already have picked a short Alblasserwaard tour, while the ducks are still splashing around in the pond near my front door. Without exception this rumours go together with heroic stories afterwards.

There's only one problem. Day after day I check videotext side 448, my guide and shield during glacial periods, usually doesn't show any tours near the Alblasserwaard's "Graafstroom" creek. So the tales I've heard probably only speak about unauthorized, not KNSB (Royal Dutch Skaters Union) supported excursions.

But then, suddenly, comes that memorable saturday morning, when the "Molentocht Alblasserwaard" appears in the videotext annals!
I can't be kept quiet now any more. With or without skating-friend Anton, it's all up with this now! "This tour is for the pussycat", as we sayin Dutch. "Deze is voor de poes."

A nd so it is without Anton, that I drive past the crowded Alblasserdam, capital of the polder. There are already special windmill-tour signs to be seen. At an even more crowded Kinderdijk (well known by foreign tourists because of its windmills) I deftly tuck the Chrysler into a place where that might be prohibited. But the police turns a blind eye on skaters, as I find out later.

An idyllic site with all those windmills. I was here once before, as a tourist together with the French famille Lussiez. Now the Dutch winter scene is really completed with us, tour skaters.

On the advice of experienced Waard-skaters you should skate the course counterclockwise. That means, the first interval you encounter the headwind, following the sheltered Graafstroom creek, to return on wings later, via the endless Boezem polder-canal, with the wind at your back.

Snow starts falling, and as the experts know, that increases the risks. You can't see bumps, cracks or weak spots in the ice any more. In such cases Anton always breaks off his skate-fun immediately. I don't see any danger, and decide to continue. Arriving on the Graafstroom (here still called Alblas) my reward awaits in the form of a fantastic winter wonderland (of love). People on skates and sleighs everywhere. A meandering path paved with ice and decorated with trees, farms and country houses. It feels like a real Elfsteden (11 cities tour) atmosphere. Vogel's bakery offers free currant-buns near the checkpoint where you have to stamp your tourcard. Ice quality is excellent, though I miss a clean swept trail. I pass the villages of Bleskens- and Molenaarsgraaf without pain, and glide into the Vuilendam neighbourhood. Didn't the popgroup "Amazing Stroopwafels" declare independence here once in one of their songs? "Vuilendam free!"

It turns out to have a skate-walk now, and a long one. The whole neighbourhood seems to be built right on top of the Graafstroom here. Farmers are making money to compensate their European Community dung-levy byrunning a cart shuttle-service for 25 cents a skater. All the cheapskate skaters, including myself, fight their way through the mud instead. Eventually you even get mud behind your ears. Why should this place be called "Vuilendam" ("Dirty dam")?
Finishing this tour on ice also means finishing it on mud", as a fellow female skater tells me. My encounter with the nice woman unfortunately is a short one. She continues on the short route of 50 km. I prefer to spend every ounce of my energy, and turn in the opposite direction. The complete 75 km route (actually, it turns out to be 82 km, after measuring the distance on the map later) leads through open polder landscape to the photogenic Giessen river on the horizon.
"I'm a poor lonesome skater, and a long way from home."
Lonely in the polder, between hundreds of other skaters. Away from the shelter of the trees, the kilometers and the wind really count now. It stops snowing. Quite tired already I decide to take a short brake in Giessenburg.

My friend Jan's hypothesis about the wind direction turns out to be wrong, at least today. It is blowing against me awfully on the pittoresque Giessendam water-road. It should be a superfluous part in the route. But you have to visit the checkpoint at the very end, if you want to collect all your route-stamps. On my way I observe a bungalow, designed by myself long ago. Further on there's an unreliable patch of ice where you have to get off and walk along the shore. A "kluunplek", as we say in Dutch. Later I pass the same place in the reverse direction. Apparantly without reason, a calamity fence blocks the ice here. Together with a hand-lettered warning sign.
"Je bent een gijt als je hier doorreidt" ("You won't fly hy if you pass here bigh.")
A totally clear farmer observation. Two people ahead of me don't seem to have problems with "not flying hy", so I also decide to "pass bigh", despite the fence. It saves a lot of energy, compared to walking bigh the place. Energy you'll really need later.
"Dangerous to life", my friend Jan concludes later, when informed about this.

Noordeloos is another village at the end of such a long dead-end spur off the main route. Ice-quality decreases fast. Twice I must cross a frozen moonscape, amid the lunar surface I tumble down between the craters.
According to the brown route-map, you're only at the halfway point in the tour, when you finally crawl under the small brick-arch bridge near the Noordeloos checkpoint. And it's almost three o'clock. I will have to pick up my pace, heading for the most difficult, unsheltered headwind section now. Besides this it's an open question if the final control-point, back in Kinderdijk, will still be open for skaters arriving there after the half-past five closing-hour. I might miss my medal!

Dabbling passing Goudriaan village on my way to Groot-Ammers. Polder-canals and headwind. Cracks in the ice and roughly-frozen ice holes. It also starts snowing again. My Dextro energy-tablets run out. They work a lot better in the TV commercial than they do now. But there's a real memorable moment just after passing the "Telegraph" checkpoint in Groot-Ammers: My old 60 km record from Ter Aar is smashed here!!! And there are still 15 km to go from here!

It's only four o'clock when the feared last stage, the endless Boezem, stretches out in front of me. My race against the clock is going better than expected. Only my Viking skates feel like they are equipped with saw blades. Or is there sand on the ice? I skate on, in an endless cadence. Half way down there's even time left for a short pit-stop, at a "koek-en-zopie". (Eat & drink selling point on the ice). I make a strong story to a fellow girl-skater, there are "core-team" skaters, finishing the entire Alblasserwaard tour before lunch time!

My tiredness seems to melt away as the Kinderdijk windmills appear on the horizon again. All those hardships come with a reward: About five o'clock I can call myself the proud owner of the one and only real Alblasserwaard honorary medal!!!