Canoeing in the Dutch Countryside [many photos]

Recently, I had the privilege of going on a canoeing adventure through the canals of Watergang, a tiny town in the Waterland province of the Netherlands. I didn’t know it at the time, but the trip I took—called Wetlands Safari—was on a Rick Steves episode for a few seconds and he wrote a blog post about it.

The tour began on the main street in Watergang in a canal just wide enough for the canoe. In fact, I used my hands to push the canoe forward into a wider area. We ducked under pedestrian bridges as we passed people’s gardens and backyards.

Eventually, we made it out into more open and natural waterways lined with grasses and bushes. We passed grazing cows and many geese flew overhead. Methane bubbles rose to the surface of the water as we pushed our oars into the peat moss just a few feet below. We passed a goat that looked just curious enough to watch us but not enough to do anything about it.

Reaching our destination, we docked at an island with a trail and hiked with wooden clogs. Why wooden clogs? Because, as we walked, water seeped up above the peat and soaked our shoes! In fact, the island was so unstable that—upon jumping—the entire ground shook in waves!

After hiking, we had a picnic comprised of a huge assortment of food our guide Majel had brought from a local market near her house. All of us guests traded stories about the faraway places in which we lived and educated each other on our various cultures. Majel educated us on Dutch history and the Netherlands’s relationship with water and building dams.

On the way back to town, we passed more relaxed cows, small windmills pumping water out of the area (which is below sea level), and even saw a rare bird for that time and place: a stork!

We returned through another neighborhood lined with houseboats and duck houses on either side of the canals. Our guide explained that rural Dutch people keep houses for ducks, partly for tradition and partly to collect the eggs. As an avid avian fan, these houses were unbearably adorable to me.

We finished the tour with a drink around a large table at the local inn and departed, hugging each other goodbye, even though we had been only strangers a few hours earlier.