Friday, 11th April
Time to move on again, heading this time for Gouda. We’d had reports of bad campsites and overnight facilities, so once again we tried the campsites loaded onto the TomTom. On the way through Gouda, TomTom took us on a lively shortcut, straight through the centre of Gouda. I wouldn’t mind, and in some ways, it’s nice to get up close and personal with a new town, but the narrow cobbled streets with cars parked one side, and a very deep and cold-looking canal on the other, made the detour interesting. We eventually came out on the road we started on, I think, and we followed her voice due East of the town.
We got to the campsite, which didn’t look too appealing, and the lady apparently lost no time in telling Annie there was no space. We weren’t too disappointed. But where to now?
We continued along the road, and pulled into a little village called Heersch-something-or-other. A lovely village, actually with a small supermarket!
To campers brought up on the UK and French models of touring, you kind of get used to seeing huge out of town supermarkets and retail shopping centres, where you can stop off and fill up your fridge and freezer with food. Not so in Holland, it seems. I don’t know whether it’s local planning that stops the building of these retail parks, but we didn’t see one on our travels, and although we had brought quite a bit of food with us (hurrah for the separate freezer), there were things we’d have liked to buy. However, we managed with the small town shops so far, and we’d delighted in some cheese we’d bought with cumin in it. Very tasty.
There was no local information that we could see, so we asked Kate again if there was another campsite near. There was, just a few kilometres down the road, so we set sail.
It wasn’t quite where Kate said it was, but it was signposted nonetheless, and we pulled into a small site with a number of static caravans on it. A moment behind us, a Dutch caravan pulled in too, who called the phone number in the window of the house. The owners appeared, and said that yes, they had a spot for us.
It is actually quite a nice, peaceful site, Templehof. It backs onto a canal, and all of the statics on site were well-kept. It maybe is a little close to the main road, and as I type this, we are about 100m from the road, and there is some road noise, but nothing too bad. The toilet block was basic, with plumbing that looked like it hadn’t changed in the last 40 years. The block was unheated, but it was clean, although we thought the €20 a night we were charged was a little steep, especially as we needed 50 cents for the showers. I think something less than €15 would have been nearer the mark, but we were happy to be parked up. We did ask for the male part of the management team to remove some dog turds that had been deposited on our pitch. The dog responsible (probably) was a lovely black Labrador, who sat at our feet, and enjoyed the small (and last) piece of ginger cake that Annie fed to him.
After a nice cup of tea (how British!) we got the bikes out, and cycled into Gouda.
The ride was quite pleasant, passing through mainly open countryside, and is an easy 30 minute bike ride away (something like 8km). We parked our bikes in the main square, and set out to explore.
The Lonely Planet guide recommended the restaurant “Zlim”, so we had to try it. Annie had some dark brown bread sandwich, and I had a salad with warm goats cheese and pine nuts. Both were lovely.
The LP Guide also recommends a cheese shop, which took a little bit of finding, but find it we did, and bought some cumin and some pepper cheese. Then it was back to the van for some reading in the sun, and a little doze. I cycled back to the supermarket in whatever-it-was local village, to stock up on bread and milk. Very friendly staff there helped me find what it was I needed. I didn’t know I needed “Murphy’s Genuine Red Ale”, but there it was, in my basket. Strange how these things happen.
