Saturday, June 23, 2007

Daytrip to Schiermonnikoog

Yesterday I went for a daytrip to Schiermonnikoog with my friend Ina.
We left early in the morning because we had to bring Zander to Janke (one of his homeschool teachers) who lives in Aduard, a small village in the direction of Lauwersoog where the ferries leave for Schiermonnikoog.

Schiermonnikoog is a small island way up north in the Netherlands! For us it's the closest island with access to sea and wonderful beaches. This small island has the largest beaches of the Netherlands! You have to walk somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes from the dunes to reach the sea!

It takes about 45 minutes to reach the island with the ferry. It is always so funny to see so many people on the ferry that you start to think: oh no, it will be very crowded on the island today! But once you're on the island you really don't see them again (well maybe you might bump in to a couple of them) untill the evening on the ferry back to the mainland. And the people are always so cheerful!

The tide was low this time and there were a lot of sandbanks. On one of them we saw a seal. When we arrived on the island we went by bus to the village and sat down on a terrace for a cup of tea and coffee with homemade applepie. Than we saw Jochem Meijer sitting on the same terrace. Jochem is a talented Dutch entertainer with ADHD. I call him "stuiterballetje" (small rubber ball that bounces a lot) because he bounces up and down a lot on stage.

We also got visited by lots of little birds (sparrows). It was so funny, they saw our applepie and jumped all over our table and on the other chairs waiting for some crumbs. Some of them were very daring and tried to eat from our applepie before we had finished! I took some lovely photos of them.

After that we rented some bikes for the whole day. First I went to the bakery to buy us some "strandkoeken" (beach cake). And than we left for a tour over the island. Around one o'clock we went to the beach and we were so lucky that the sun was shining the whole time. Took some lovely photos of sea-gulls that got really close. Also took some photos of Ina and me.

After visiting the beach we left for another tour over the island but than it started to rain. We waited for a while under a tree but it looked as it wouldn't stop so we drove back to the village. In the village it stopped raining. We ate some fish and than returned our bicycles to the store. We had an hour left before we had to take the bus back to the ferry so we drank a glass of wine on the same terrace at arrival. Jochem was still there and when Ina went to pay for our drinks she had the chance to talk to him because he was also paying for his drinks.
Then we took the bus and went to the ferry. Before the ferry arrived I took a photo of a very dark sky above the island. Once on the ferry it started to rain again and we saw this beautiful rainbow.
We drove back home and picked up my son at Janke's. He went to the swimmingpool with Janke and her daughter Elianne (14). She has autism too and goes to the same school as Zander.
We were back home at 21.00 hours! Me feeling very tired, but also very content about this lovely day!

See my slide for some of the photos I took during this trip!

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