Island Living

Our July tour of the Netherlands concluded last weekend with a trip to another island up north, called Texel (pronounced Tessel).  This time, our trip was with a group of fellow American expats, and one Dutchman.  On Friday, Todd and I headed up early in our car to Den Helder, a city that's about an hour and a half north of Amsterdam.  From there, we took the ferry over to Texel with our bikes.

The ferry took about 20 minutes and then we hopped on our bikes and rode off onto Texel, with our packs on our backs.  The bike ride to our apartment was 11 kilometers, and it went quite well despite being our being a bit sweaty upon arrival.  

Todd carrying both bags, what a guy.

The rest of the crew arrived a bit later, and we enjoyed dinner in the market square of a small village called Den Burg.  On our walk out of dinner, we came across this plaque:

Very official for just saying, "No pooping on the sidewalk".

The next morning, we headed out to Ecomare, which is a nature center where they rescue seals.  We went at feeding time, so we got to see all the action.  Many of the seals are blind and have crazy looking eyes, but they all knew what to do to get their fish.

The seagulls were also excited about feeding time.

The babies seals were definitely the cutest.

These little guys were only a few weeks old.

Ecomare also had a museum and aquariums, so it was a nice little morning activity.  We were all wearing our bathing suits at this point, hoping it would be beach time.  Unfortunately, it was rather windy and chilly, so instead we hopped on our bikes and headed to lunch in the village of De Koog.  Lunch was at an American-style diner, which was actually pretty good.  After eating and then waiting at the restaurant after lunch for thunderstorms to pass through, we headed to the Texel Brewery.

We took a tour at the brewery and did some sampling...

The tour was in Dutch, but thankfully our one Dutch group member, Evert, was there to help us out.

It was a cute little spot, and they have some great beer.  After our tour and tasting, we decided to take it easy and order pizza into our apartment.  The weather was beginning to cooperate again after dinner, so we ended out night watching the sunset on the beach.  It was gorgeous.

The boys.

The ladies.

It was the perfect way to end the night.  The next morning, we set out for the town of De Cocksdorp which was near the island's lighthouse.  Our ride there was about 17km, and it was super easy. I'm serious, this was some easy riding.  We discovered that the ride was so easy because there was an enormous tailwind essentially pushing us along. Hills were a breeze, and 17km went by in a flash. It was a beautiful ride.

Coffee break halfway through.

And once we arrived at the lighthouse, there were more amazing views.

After lunch at the restaurant on the beach, we needed to start heading back on bike to get to the ferry.  But not without a quick stop in De Cocksdorp.

This is when the real fun began. Todd and I were going to be biking 25km to get to the ferry.  Now on a normal, sunny day, 25km really isn't all that bad.  It actually would be quite enjoyable.  But remember that tailwind I mentioned from our ride out?  Well, believe it or not, it was a headwind on the way back.  And oh my, did it kick our butts.  There were times when I swear I could have walked faster than riding my bike into this incredible wind.  Wow.  There was some yelling, and definitely some points where I wanted to just give up, but we stuck it out and made it back to the ferry.   Very fortunately, the others had driven their cars onto the island, which meant that after their 17km ride back to the apartments, they could take our stuff with them in their cars to the ferry.  I'm not sure I would have made it if I had a backpack on as well.

On the ferry back to the mainland, we discussed how we need to segregate that part of the trip in our minds from the rest of it, since the rest of the time was amazing.  Truly an awesome weekend spent with great people.  I'm so glad we could all go!