22 Leeuwarden to Schiermonnikoog - Go with the flow

After a super relaxing night and still no news about Wwoofing, I decided to continue cycling north in the morning. From Lauwersoog, the ferries go to Schiermonnigook, so I could still decide whether I wanted to go to the island or not.

But first, an incredible smell of various spices wafted from the kitchen towards me. It turned out that my host had cooked Kichadi, which is a type of meal that you eat repeatedly and exclusively as a sort of cleansing diet for a certain period of time. I had done this Ayurveda-based remedy for three days and my host told me that she does it every Monday as a 'fasting day' - I thought that was a pretty good variant and I will also test it sometime! (Here is the recipe and the blog I found it on, if you are interested: https://www.mynewroots.org/site/2018/01/kichadi-realistic-reset/)

We enjoyed the special breakfast on the small balcony and quickly realized that Kichadi was just one small topic, attitude, and consideration we had discovered among many others. She had also been traveling around Europe for the past 2.5 years, sometimes by bike too (Camino de Santiago), and it was super interesting to hear how she completely relied on her intuition and the trust that things would work out and fall into place when making decisions about itineraries. Of course, she also had certain dates and locations she wanted to be at, but otherwise, it sounded like she was simply going with the flow. Great inspiration for me to listen to my intuition more and to go with the flow more easily - which had already worked pretty well in the meantime, but the overthinking day before had thrown me off track a bit 😉

After breakfast, my host asked if she could accompany me a bit further, and I was very happy about her offer!

So we cycled through the city together, she showed me a few special spots, and finally asked if we wanted to have a coffee before I finally set off. Of course, I didn't say no, and when we stood in the beautiful café with lots of local products in front of the display case, we decided to celebrate our meeting with a piece of cake too :D We enjoyed both in the sun and chatted for a long time about all sorts of topics, from sustainability and dietary habits to places to live and work, and even relationships - we both felt incredible that we had apparently met soul mates 🙂

Furthermore, I learned that Frisian is a separate language, the native language of my host, and she only learned Dutch at school. In retrospect, this also explained why signs in the area were always labeled with two very similar-looking names^^

Finally, it was time to leave the city and when we paid, it suddenly dawned on both of us that we had eaten cake on her actual day of fasting - but it didn't matter at all :D

She accompanied me out of the city and then bid me a heavy-hearted farewell. Then I followed the Elffstedenroute, which connects 11 cities in Fryslân over 230km along canals. Actually, this route is not cycled next to the canals, but on them - as a major event on ice skates 😉 However, this event could only take place for the last time in 1997, after that the winters were no longer cold enough and the ice was too thin. Instead, there is an annual bike race along the canals, the route is also hiked or even swum - the Frisians are quite crazy in a way :D

I really enjoyed the beautiful stretch in brilliant sunshine and thanks to the tailwind, I quickly arrived in Lauwersoog. There I again inquired about departure times and tickets to the island of Schiermonnigook at the ferry terminal, and found out that I could take the last ferry at 18:30. I pondered it for a while and thought about where I would camp when I discovered that there was a Warmshowers host on the island! Since I wanted to stay there for a few nights, I wrote to him asking if he could recommend a campsite. And he promptly called me and told me that he himself lives in a yurt on a farm with a mini camping site, where I could definitely find a spot. If that wasn't a sign 😉 So off to Schiermonnikoog!

Due to the Wadden Sea, the ferry cannot go directly to the island, but takes a big detour through the Priele, which gave me the lucky chance to spot a seal on a sandbank :) On the island itself, I only had to cycle a few kilometers and I was already at the mentioned farm with mini camping site. (By the way, there are a lot of them here and they are basically just large meadows, mostly at farms, where sanitary facilities are also available and you can camp cheaply - very practical and much more sympathetic than huge campsites.)

After setting up the tent and cooking dinner, I went to the beach for sunset and was so relieved to have arrived on the island on the same day 🙂

The next day, after enjoying my beloved beach-yoga-swim-morning routine, I explored the western part of the island a bit, which, similar to the south of Texel, consisted of a super wide beach, and I enjoyed being by the sea again and doing nothing.

For the second day, a lovely neighbor in the same tent recommended a beach walk towards the eastern end of the island, which I embarked on. So I cycled as far as possible (which wasn't very far on official cycle paths^^), parked my bike, and walked for a few hours through the dunes, then right along the beach towards the east. The further I went, the flatter the dunes became, the wider the beach became, and the fewer people I saw. However, the end of the beach and the island were still far from sight, and as much as I enjoyed walking on the sometimes softer, sometimes harder, super fine sand, I also had to consider that I had to walk all the way back!

In addition, the wind was getting stronger, which intensified the desert feeling - but the sand was really everywhere :D So I reluctantly turned back quite far from the easternmost point, but on the way back, I took the entire path along the water - very meditative!

Then it was time to get rid of all the sand in the shower, cook dinner, and chat with other campers before I headed to the beach again for what would be the last sunset for now.

When I arrived there, I was amazed: The same section of beach where I had done yoga in the morning was hardly recognizable! Instead of a flat area, the sand had been blown into hills, a bit like a huge mogul slope when skiing :O And since it was still windy, the top layer of sand was constantly blowing away with the wind - combined with the warm light, it was simply magical! <3

I savored the long summer evening to the fullest and did not start the journey back until it slowly started to get dark after 11 PM 🙂