Kinderdijk/Rotterdam

When in Holland - do as the Dutch. So we swung ourselves onto our bicycles and cycled the 4km from Alblasserdam to one of the most iconic places in The Netherlands: Kinderdijk. Kinderdijk is famous for it’s 18th century windmills. With it’s dikes and waterways it makes a truely picturesque scene. Riding against the wind along the UNESCO Heritage site one feels very Dutch! 


It was a much rougher ride on our boat going from Alblasserdam to Rotterdam and beyond. The heavy commercial traffic on the Maas was rocking us like on a roller coaster. To take photos of the interesting skyline of Rotterdam while trying to maintain balance was quite tricky. I am astonished that any of the pictures worked out. 

At one stage we thought we might have to seek refuge in Noahs Ark to escape the wild waters of the Maas.




We had looked for the life size Noahs Ark built by a Dutch man in Dordrecht, where it used to be exhibited. 

Now we passed it unexpectedly just outside of Rotterdam.

We do not know why it is there. It might be docked for repairs. The original plan, we believe, was for the Ark to travel the world and help spread the word of the gospel.



As we have lost a little time dealing via "long-distance" with business issues in Australia, we decided to bypass Rotterdam but stick otherwise to our planned route.

Apparently Rotterdam has become very popular for city dwellers and property prices have shot up.

Seen from the water, the town has some fascinating architecture and mixture of the old and the modern.

Is this a de-constructed Sydney Opera House??? It seems to have it’s own windmill. And why not! This is Holland after all! From up close it looked like blocks of units and we were wondering how the people inside could sleep with the giant windmill whizzing around!??

Below is a chart of the diverse barges we encountered on the big rivers, and underneath is the number of Trucks they replace by transporting their freight. Sorry it’s such a bad quality shot, but the first barge on the top replaces 500 trucks. That’s 500 trucks less on the road and 500 trucks you don’t want to "play chicken” with! 


© Austin Robinson 2019