More summer holidays

Piet's main cycling goal this year was l'Etape du Tour, one of the stages of the Tour de France that is selected and made available for 15,000 cycling enthousiasts, a few days before the pro's ride the same course. The best part of the event is that the roads are completely clear of all other traffic, like the real Tour. This year the stage Briancon-Col d'izoard was selected, which made it logistically easy to participate. After some serious preparation around our own valley Piet was dropped off by Mary in Briancon, but obviously she couldn't follow him by car. She did her own bike ride, and connected to the Etape at a point after some 150 km where she could reach the course and support Piet with food and drinks. At that point Piet had already crossed the Col de Vars, and was in good spirits. The last part, cycling up the Izoard in the afternoon heat, proved to be a real challenge, and arriving at the top required two short stops to recover from overheating and cramps. In the end all went well, and the reward was a long descend toward Briancon, on an excellent road without any traffic, completing a 200 km ride.

The rest of the holidays was spend around the house, with regular horse and garden duties. Dorien worked for 2 weeks in restaurant La Romanche, then her boyfriend Lars arrived, and a few days later 4 friends from their outdoor sports club Slopend. They have planned a 10 day hike around Parc des Ecrins, with as little support as possible.

Then Paula arrived with 3 friends, and they have also planned a week of outdoor activities. As Paula is still recovering she has to take it (relatively) easy, but that hasn't stopped them to go for a 2 and 3 day hike.

In the same weekend 7 family members dropped by, creating a full house. As always we had a great time together, and Piet and his nephews did a few bike rides. This year Sam brought his racing bike and rode a personal record on Alpe d'Huez, beating Piet for the first time. Unfortunately Piet had to return to The Hague that same afternoon to go back to the office. However, there is a final week of holidays to look forward to!

Piet at the start of l'Etape du Tour, in Briancon

Mary doing her own ride to Col de l'Echelle

Casse Deserte, the famous landscape near the top of Col d'izoard

Finish at the top of Col d'Izoard

Regular holidays: Dorien and Mary on a short horseback ride

Jeroen and Piet on top of Col de la Croix de Fer

Piet on top of Col du Glandon, which comes for free in the descend of the Croix de Fer

Dorien and company at the start of their 10 day hike

Jelle, Tim, Paula and Lucas ready to hike to Refuge du Source 

Start of the summer holidays

The planning for the summer holidays is getting more complicated, as the girls are determining their own holidays now. For starters Mary, Piet and Beau drove out on a Friday night, arriving early morning. One of the key concerns was to find a companion for Beau, as the village pony Image, his friend for the last few summers, passed away last winter. When Beau was let out of the trailer another horse was walking around the parking in the village. As we couldn't do anything we let this horse follow us to the garden. in the evening the owner, a former butcher who has several horses scattered across the fields in the valley, turned up and we agreed that the horse, Quinaille, could stay. After a few days they were used to each other, and spend the day together. At night Beau stays in the stable (he is a city horse after all) and his friend remains outside.

The first week was spend in recovery mode, after a very hectic period with a renovation of our bathroom, the broken leg of Paula, a major clean-up of our apartment in Utrecht, and many other things. We did very little; a bit of work around the house and garden, some cycling and lots of reading. We really needed this! After a week Piet went back to work, planning to return a few days later with Dorien.

Beau and Quinaille happily eating our grass

Mary is training Quinaille

Collecting horse shit

 Mary arriving in Le Mollard

Windhoek and surroundings

Piet went to Windhoek again, for his regular bi-yearly engagements with his counterparts in the Namibian government. This was fairly uneventful, with the exception of the weekend. As the meetings lasted from Thursday to Monday Piet had to stay in Windhoek. He worked in the mornings, but in the afternoons he managed two short trips. On Saturday he visited Na'an Kuse, a wildlife rehabilitation centre, mainly for carnivores. Here rescued animals are either prepared for release in the wild, or kept in enormous enclosures for a good captive life. Most of these animals are victims of encounters with farmers, where adults are killed, and pups are kept as pets, and later donated to the centre. Piet joined the carnivore feeding tour and saw cheetahs, lions, wild dogs, jaguars and caracals.

On Sunday afternoon Piet went to the other side of Windhoek, to Daan Viljoen game reserve. As there are no large predators you can walk around freely, and Piet did a nice 7 km hike, without seeing any wildlife. On the drive back to the hotel he got a bonus: a large group of giraffes was leisurely crossing the road.

Na'an Kuse: African wild dog

Na'an Kuse: a caracal

Na'an Kuse: a cheetah with its food: a piece of horse meat

Na'an Kuse: a lion with a large piece of horse

Daan Viljoen game reserve, on the way out

Proof of work: Piet and Dennis with their stakeholders from the Ministry and state oil company NAMCOR