At school Paula is participating
in the “International Award”, a British program aimed at stimulating voluntary
work, reaching creative and sportive goals, and independence. Paula got a
bronze award last year, mainly based on a 2-day hiking trip near Utrecht, in
the pouring rain.
For this year the silver award was scheduled, and Paula and 3 of her friends planned something completely different: cycling the famous
Friesian 11-cities tour, well known from ice skating (see also post of the 12th of February 2012), and the most famous sports event of The Netherlands. They
planned to cover the 200 km in 3 days, and to camp for 2 nights. They presented
their itinerary to the coordinator at school, and got approval. One of the
teachers volunteered to accompany them, which is a requirement from the Award
organisation.
So very early on Saturday morning
Paula and her friends loaded their packed bikes into a train, and got out in
Leeuwarden, the capital of Friesland, to start cycling. Unfortunately summer
wasn’t there yet (like almost all weekends this year), and a very strong
south-western wind was blowing. The first day took 65 km with a strong headwind,
and was a real challenge for the girls. But doing a loop means that you will have
tail winds as well! In any case they had a lot of fun, cycled past the eleven
cities, camped and cooked for themselves and ended up back in The Hague after 3
days. The main lowlight was a cat shitting in one of the tents…
The same weekend Dorien was asked
to participate in a race for horse carts at Vlietland, near The Hague, with one
of the coordinators of the stable. She had to sit on the back of the cart for
balance and act as navigator, doing a number of exercises and races during 2 days.
In the end the combination, with pony’s Bo and Jack, managed second place.
Dorien did very well and can look forward to an invite for another race soon.
Paula at the entry of one of the 11 cities
Cycling through the Friesian countryside
Friesian wildlife on the road
Gina, Charlotte, Paula and Rachel at the end of the trip
Dorien (red jacket) balancing the horse cart during one of the exercises
No comments:
Post a Comment