Wood, windmills, waiters and BBQ

  Heemstede, Netherlands
Friday, May 18, 2007

Today is Ascension Day (Hemeivaarts dag), a public holiday in Holland. For a country that on the surface does not seem overly religious (despite a rough north-south division between Protestants and Catholics), there are a lot of Christian public holidays.
Walter and Matt rode their host family's bikes across to our cruise director Ellen Wolff. We were collected at the back of Ellen's by Karel Lussanet in his classic wooden boat. From here we pottered around to the home of Ad Merkx (another Rotarian from the Rotary Club of Heemstede) where we were met at the side of the Spaarne River by our own waiter.

Marcel was our waiter/caterer for the day. He is also a Rotarian from Heemstede, but as a caterer decided to act in a professional capacity for the day. At Ad's house, we tasted the local delicacy of Heemstones with our tea and coffee.

From there, we reloaded the boat (including with mini Heineken kegs for the boys) and with Ad's similarly classic wooden motor boat, travelled further up the river. There was a division between the two boats - on one, the drinkers (Matt, Vince, Walter and the male Rotarians), on the other, the lolly eaters (Marnie, Adrian and the female Rotarians).

Our first stop was the Eenhoorn Molen (the Unicorn Windmill), a 400 year old windmill used as a saw mill to chop wood. At its peak, there were 200 of these mills around Holland. Now there are just 5. It was our first proper examination of a windmill and the Miller went into great detail about its operation. The grass around the Eenhorn was so lush and green. It reminded us how little of it we see in Melbourne these days.
We had lunch at the Theehuis Cruquius, a tea house next to an historic pumping station used to empty Holland's largest lake over a hundred years ago. The Theehuis is owned by Rick and Jose, friends of our own District's GSE Chairman Neville John. We said a brief hello to them, but being a public holiday, it was a manic day for the Teehuis.
Next we walked next door to the Cruquius, now a museum. It houses the world's largest steam engine and 8 giant water pumps. We've learnt over our weeks here that much of Holland is under water and the land is largely reclaimed. The Cruquius Museum showed us how much of Holland should really be underwater but is instead now housing, towns, farmland, and also Europe's largest airport.
From the Cruquius, the two boats scooted back up the Spaarne River into Haarlem. Viewing the city from the water was a great way to tour.
We ended our journey at the home of Ad Merkx once again. Marcel had prepared the evening BBQ for us all. What a feast! As it was also our last night in Kennemerland, we made a few presentations. Thanks very much to Assistant Governor Ineke Schavemaker and our great organiser for this region Ellen Wolff!