| What are we doing?
February 22nd, 2004 Across the Netherlands from Top to Toe: Wijnbergen-Bemmel It had been a long time, true. And the search for Raoul Vanderdonck had been more of a slow plodding through endless marshland, than a hefty legstretcher. But the enthusiasm with which the Wandelsoc. threw itself into Stage 10 of 'Across the Netherlands from Top to Toe', like a pack of young dogs, may be called disquieting.  Now, of Joseph, this was all too understandable. Joseph namely is a young dog. A relatively young dog anyway, for five years old. Joseph (I first understood his name to be 'Dozer', so I asked Harm whether his other dog was named 'Bull') is Harm's dog (he's got another one, named Floor, but that one is a bit older, so he'd left it at home). Being a well-raised Schnauzer, Joseph tiredlessly frolicked around in pursuit of thrown sticks and my gloved hand, as if, by the end of the day, he would not have walked 40 kilometres.
For us, that was somewhat different, although it did, as said, start off in a frolicky way. A speed of six-and-a-half to seven kilometres an hour was upheld from the beginning, and maintained for the full 40 km, with little resting. That's what I call frisky, although most, thereafter, walked like a gang of freshly escaped invalids. And I call it foolhardy, and I don't understand it at all, although, as said, it had been a long time. Would it all have been due to Joseph? I don't think so, for Joseph hardly ever took the lead, although, keeping abreast of us, he did the whole thing twice, for to and fro, alongside us. Would it have been due to Harm? Harm has a history, of fastmarching. In his own words: "I change my pace, it drives people crazy". Still, I do not believe it was due to Harm. Harm was moving fast, but did so at the back of the pack.  Would it have been due to Jeroen? Enrolled into our company by Anne-Jan, who himself was absent today (because he was at work in Abu Dhabi), he walked with us, today, for the first time since we'd first met him at the Ribbon Shower. And he went at it hard, with a big grin. This will of course pass at the moment when during a multiple day march the own limit knocks at the door, but until then a bloke like that is unstoppable, this we know.
Still, I don't think that was the cause of it. It is true that any admonishment to be prudent is lost on such a character; but we should know better. And we do, as was proven by Lourens who, having spent months at home with inflamed tendons, started this endeavour at a solid snail's pace - but even Lourens didn't finish far behind the rest (I've no idea how he managed to accomplish that, up to today). And painfully fatigued all of us turned out to be, afterwards. Of which the most telling illustration surely was Jochem Prakke's refusal to go and have cooldown drinks in the Souteneur. Anyway. We didn't know all that yet, when we set off. And we set off from Wijnbergen. Wijnbergen, where we had ended up the last time over. Then, it was dark, now, there was daylight enough to finally take that picture of Marco van Zijntergen under the municipal sign 'Wijnbergen' - which, however, went awry because my digital camera decided it was still so early that flashing was required, which made the text on the sign illegible, disappearing in white-out. That picture will therefore have to be taken again.  Other than that there was, for now, little to photograph (barring restaurant 'Happy Wok'). For we were still in the area I already complained about last time: it is dreary, and ug-ly. Thankfully, an end was put to that swiftly, today. First, and sooner than expected, and just at the point where Joseph, through brushwood, drove startled roadside chickens out onto and across the secondary road, we were confronted with the prevalent carnival, in the shape of a passing float.
And just outside Wijnbergen, right before Braamt, a hilly landscape, which evoked strong memories of the Bärnbiet, suddenly unfolded before our eyes. This was quite an improvement of course, and we therefore arrived at Hostellerie Hettenheuvel satisfactorily limbered up. 
This is a pleasant establishment, that absolutely deserves the qualification 'Quality Rest'. Besides its picturesque location, great armchairs and witty wildlife (outside, by the window, a great tit amused itself with peanuts on offer) one presented us with utterly correct and friendly service, fine coffee and top-of-the-line toilets - of which I loudly shat one to bits (the room was somewhat resounding), to the great amusement of all our party.  Once we'd contentedly left the building (I did so partly because Prakke had returned my wallet, sneakily stolen from my coat pocket by Ronald Fischer as I paid my visit to the loo, to me), we shortly ended up in even more alluring parts: those of the Bergherbos. A joy to behold, dolmenworthy. Those, there were not, but both Joseph and us found fine pastime there, whilst leaftreading (in the meantime I did become worried again, because my phone now turned out to be missing too - naturally, I again suspected Fischer, but the thing did not reappear momentarily).
Through the Bergherbos, thereupon, at Beek we did finally reach the world inverted: suddenly no longer the only sots on the tarmac, we marched parallel to the yearly carnival parade between Beek and Babberich, for a kilometre or two. With man-sized and -fat bees, gypsies, Santaclauses and princes carnival, we advanced on the overpass at the municipal border, under police escort. Having stomped across it, and past a few gnomes, we stopped in Beek, for a quick smoke and drink. 
Before the parade, slowly dabbling forth, had caught up with us, we swiftly got away, in the direction of item 2 that would make this day so special to the Academic Walking Society: the crossing of the track of 'Across the Netherlands from Top to Toe' with that of 'Crossing Borders from Border to Border', in Pannerden. A largely silently experienced, yet very emotional moment for those among us who'd made that last march too. Nice, too, that, where we arrived there, the first time, with a party of five, we now strolled past there thirteen heads strong (van der Schelden, Prakke, van Reenen, van Zijntergen, Neumann, de Gisser, Dinger, Swarts, Fischer, Middelkoop, Rijkman, van Prijzen and Zieleman). 
Just before Pannerden itself, the Wandelsoc. showed the world its positive side, by assisting a damsel in distress, who had ended up in a muddy ditch with her rear car tyre, next to the dog school. She was out of it, in her silverblue contraption, before I got around to photographing the affair, and she thanked us with a smile that still rang as we entered Bemmel. This was quite a ways away yet, for, as said, we first came to Pannerden, where, in Cafeteria Janssen, we were enveloped by the carnival buzz once more. 
We did, however, notice that that buzz was a lot more modest than we had expected, both in Beek as well as here. But this was not to hamper the fun. There were beautaceous Indianettes, we bought up the entire supply of meat rolls, fries, croquettes, beer and coffee, Lydiamum dropped in with Lanca, from out of Arnhem, to laugh at Jochem and then gawk at the divine Barend Rijkman, Edwin Buil (for everyone) benignly looked down at it all from the wall, and there was a fat local girl that snapped at Schelden that she'd be glad if he finally kept his gob shut, when he left the place loudly jabbering and singing.  Naturally, nothing was less likely, and so it came to no fruition whatsoever. Schelden continued to sing merrily, and even got the rest of the group to, en route to the ferry outside Pannerden, sing Ramses Shaffy's 'Laat me' together. On that cursed ferry near Pannerden (on the third crossing, it admittedly doesn't lose its beauty, but the desire to acquire an automobile-for-on-it does begin to grow - highly irritating, moreover, was that those girls from Angeren were only on it the first time over) Barend Rijkman, being the newest member of the Societas Ambulationis Academica, was subsequently presented with the sissy-ish blue choker by the Secretary, who accompanied this with a clownish speech, rendered in battering wind, a mini-banner of the Soc. upright in the piggish paw.
Barend, nonetheless, was honoured and content. We therefore all were, but this swiftly passed when the ferry reached the far side of the Rhine. For there we were not, as during the second crossing we made, awaited by Saint Erik in his sturdy blue LandRover, with soup and other hart- and artery-warming stuff. No, it was a LandRoverless place, by that blighted dyke, and this saddened us greatly. 
But no worries. More bitter perseverance, though, which showed itself in a grim tread, swiftly changing into silly skips as, for the first time in our marching history, we walked through the village of Doornenburg. A welcome change from the tour through the adjoining castle. Schelden did suggest detouring for it, but it was decided, quite rightly so, not to mix courses. And so we did, after all, reach Bemmel unexpectedly soon - although the going, partly because of the tempo that was still high, was getting tough by now, due to bloodblister and skinscrapes, and led us, during the kilometre before the last, along a high sleeperdyke, bashed by a hard, icy wind. Our only MP, Marco Neumann, in particular, was most outraged about this, and took that out on Schelden, to the hilarity of Dinger, de Gisser and myself. The rest, at that moment, was out of sight for a while, because they'd taken a wrong turn and were therefore busy detouring through Bemmel. 
Once descended from the dyke the whole thing, by the by, became an impressive affair again, emotionally speaking, for the Four Day Marchers amongst us. It is indescribable what passes through one as, while there are no Four Day Marches at all, one enters that very same Bemmel, whilst softly whistling the Four Day Marches' Song between one's teeth, where one normally only comes but once a year, on the first day of the Mother of all marches (to then have the first rest, in the Bemmel Arms, and shake the hand of Mr. Persoon MA, mayor of Bemmel). 
Cold shivers begot, striding through the village centre, without anyone paying attention. And very weird, how, all of a sudden, those Bemmel Arms suddenly pop up, around a Godforsaken corner. In it, our waylaid group turned out to be beering already, on the edge of a wildly dancing carnival melee.  Of which I experienced little, since I had offered to be the sober driver, so, together with Marco Neumann, Harm Swarts, Jeroen Zieleman and Joseph, I made my way to Bert van Prijzen's FourWheelDrive, who had after all dismissed his Rover. A magnificent display of bumperpushing later, we said goodbye to Harm, Joseph and Bert, in Wijnbergen. On the dashboard of Marco's Polo I then found my phone, with a voicemail from Albert van Geyningen on it. We'd already wondered where he was at, and dearly missed him. He turned out to, what with these carnival days, be working as a doorman (and to have had to use force too, so having been worth his money). So there: an utterly valid excuse, although a march without Albert will always be a uh... ...march without Albert.
Some detours through Braamt, Zeddam and Beek later, I found the road back to Bemmel via Arnhem and Elst, and arrived just in time to catch our party in the act of sneakily moving from the Bemmel Arms to Bistro 't Klokhuys (the apple of Bemmel's eye). The latter, it utterly rightly is. Finally happy that, due to the carnival, dinner at the Bemmel Arms was not a possibility, we namely found that 't Klokhuys deserves the Michelin-star it does not have: eve-ry-thing was per-fect, there. 
From the long, brown wooden table reserved for us (along which there were even two superfluous places), via the smiling, fast and attentive waiting, by the ex-cep-tio-nal-ly good food (I opted for escargots, duck's breast and coffee, and I have seldom had so good a meal), the warm ambiance (which couldn't even be demolished by Dinger's nagging about the quality of his spareribs - Dinger had to have something to nag about after all, wasted as he was after this first long march following his tendon inflammation, but the nagging was unjust, for those spareribs were ex-cel-lent too) and the superb sanitary facilities, to the price of one and all (I won't expand on that, because it will all get to be embarrassing): 't Klokhuys is a hot tip. 
We therefore had a great time there, with speeches (to, amongst others, the female cook), handing out lewdicity marks to the waitresses, practicing drinking mores (by Schelden and de Gisser, in preparation for Bern), and stealing eachother's gear (more precisely, Jan Middelkoop stole Marco Neumann's Langiole - which is a French filleting knife Marco got as a gift on the occasion of his remarriage, from former legionnairs Fischer and Rijkman - Neumann was most upset about it, but did get it back and, shortly after, was happily slicing his meat into slivers, with it).  And so it was sad, almost, that we had to leave there at the end of the night - although, for our by now inebriated Secretary, this came not a moment too soon. Nor for me, because I had made this march under the influence of a nasty influenza, which had kept me home the week before it already (while writing this, by the by, I am actually undergoing a course of treatment with penicillin to battle it), and I was knackered therefore - although, in hindsight, I do have the distinct impression that making this endeavour has been a good thing rather than bad, in this context.
Well anyway. Once back in Haarlem, we ended the day in select company, in the Souteneur, regular haunt of the Wandelsoc., where we were welcomed by first member Max and Friends Jelle and Joëlle (Jelle satisfied, by the by, with his third price in a table tennis tournament). 
All in all, a fine resumption of what threatens to become a good marching season: time, for a timely convalescence. To your health, gentlemen, excellent walking there. Aken awaits. |