When Dutchies refer to "camping", they usually mean the sort that involves caravans, fields to park in, and cafes and restaurants within a five minute walk. Fine if that's what you've grown up with, but my tastes in camping are somewhat more refined. And last weekend I was lucky to get a real classic camping experience, and not even three miles from Middelburg.
This camping trip was organized by the HZ Green Office, my usual partners in crime. While I was expected at 11:00 on Friday, I had other, totally unrelated priorities: seal watching!
They let me drive the boat! I was terrible at it. On the right you can sort of see our plump and hairy friends, but this was as close as our ship could get to them. The tides were far from ideal so most of the zeehonden (sea-dogs!) were out foraging or travelling.
It was a lovely old ship from around the turn of the century, perhaps 80 feet long. These pictures can in no way capture the blasting wind and tossing waves that haunted this cruise.
When all this work with the seals was finally complete, around 3:00, I rode my bike and all my camping gear out to the village of Ritthem. The countryside around here is littered with boerderij campings, "farm stays", where you can pitch your tent or park your car and take in some real agricultural vibes. Oest Farm & Stay is the place if you're curious.
As with most camping trips, there's no real agenda other than relax, walk, and snack. So from Friday night until Sunday afternoon I and a dozen other students (coincidentally, almost all water managers) did just this. The official title of the weekend was "Three Days In Nature", but this nature borders on farm fields and you can hear the highway in the distance.
Eating supper together (chicken stew with couscous) and sitting around the fire. There were complete kitchen facilities here, hot showers, and composting toilets. The whole campsite is in the middle of a manmade poplar forest- trees in straight lines, all the same type and ages, etc. Nonetheless the forest really does make it feel more remote than it is!
Saturday was quite rainy, so we spent most of the day working for the owners, Jeroen and Marieke. (they kindly came to us and asked if we wanted something to do!) Perhaps they saw dozens of restless students and instantly saw the opportunity for backbreaking manual labor...
I was on the wood splitting crew. Safety was remarkably lax and nobody was injured, beyond a couple of slivers. Normally I would never chop wood barefoot, but my shoes were soaked and back at the campsite, so I made an exception. The medieval peasant feeling grew with the mud throughout the day, especially after they brough us bread, cheese, and vegetables to snack on.
Sunday dawned with sunlight and we were all dancing with joy, after a cold and rainy night. Around the campfire for breakfast the general attitude was to head back to Middelburg early to dry out, and most of us did around noon. A strange feeling to go from the farm to my apartment in less than a half hour! From bare feet to warm socks and tea. In the end, a lovely weekend that I'm very glad to have been a part of.
To start and end on completely different notes: I can't help but mention the cat colony at this cluster of student-houses in Middelburg. There are at least a dozen well fed, but quite mean semi-feral cats which subsist entirely off of handouts from students. The orange one you see here is George, who is particularly fond of yogurt. (others are not as friendly!)
