Cheese and chocolate and rowing - oh my!

The Netherlands - basically Xanadu for expedition rowers with its circular routes, respect for this form of rowing, and friendliness to eccentric Brits - produces a rowing marathon calendar every year (I mean, just brilliant or what?) and I'm working my way through it, ticking off one event a year.

2018's little taste of paradise was the 70km Nord Holland Tocht which, let's be quite clear, is a challenge ("tocht") in the region of North Holland which is part of the country that patiently wishes the English-speaking world would call it the Netherlands.

"Visitor rowing" in the Netherlands and the romance of the coxed single

We all like going on holiday. Fact. And we all love rowing. Fact. So rowing on holiday would be like chocolate chip ice cream in a chocolate-lined cone with a chocolate flake, right?

Yes, but how can it be done when you're somewhere that you got to by train? It's not like you can hire a sliding seat rowing boat like you can hire bikes in touristy destinations, is it?

Well, generally, no. But one Dutch rowing club has come up with a neatly-branded service that makes it all possible. Please give a huge cheer for Gastroeien.nl (trans "visitor rowing")!

Because who wouldn't want to win a stork?

As far as I'm concerned, the Netherlands is marathon rowing heaven. I mean, they have an actual marathon CALENDAR, so many are the 50km+ events that take place each year. Compare that with the UK's single event of that distance... Occasionally I wonder about moving there just so I could take part in them all, but then I'd have nothing to look forward to afterwards (and recent political events have put paid to the idea unless I got on with it very quickly), so instead I'm working my way through their list at the rate of about one a year. But how to choose which one to do next when you're feeling like a kid in a sweet shop?

Actually, the 54km Haegsche Bluf Marathon (trans "the Hague Bluff Marathon" - despite being almost unpronounceable, a lot of Dutch is quite easy to decipher in writing) was an easy pick for two reasons. First, most of my Dutch marathon rowing friends are members at De Laak, the club that organises it, but second, the prizes are STORKS! Soft toy ones, I hasten to add. And wearing club scarves too. Other events take note.

Getting to the Heart of the Hart van Holland

"Do the Hart van Holland," my Dutch marathon rowing buddies told me. "It's in the Green Heart area and it's really pretty," they said. I looked it up. 90km: lovely! Long enough to make it worth the flight over there. I sought some crewmates, and finished up with a four-boat team of 18 which made up 10% of the total entry. Great!

Which made the fact that two of our crews, including nine, were stopped before the final timed section all the harder. Some of it was our fault. Most of it wasn't. Still, in the 70km we did complete we found out how you can get 40 boats in a lock, how to get through a passageway that's so narrow you can't get your blades out on either side, and what happens when you don't stick to the "swap the cox every 30 minutes" plan. We also saw some windmills.

The Seven Wonders of the (Dutch rowing) World

The Netherlands is a short flight from the southern UK and their weather is similar to ours, but their rowing clubs are practically on a different planet.

Last weekend, I went on an informal 29km rowing tour there with Dutch friends, followed by a conference on touring rowing (organised by Toer!) the next day in Amsterdam, and was bowled over by what I found.

Ringvaart Regatta 2015: Time for a little lie-down

What with sofas for marshals; floating bananas; llamas; a 25km row to the start; mid-race chips; a stork on a stick; loads of students who could hardly row; but then loads more students who excelled at bilingual organisation, the 100km Ringvaart Regatta is probably the wackiest rowing event I've ever taken part in.

Though I have to say it was an unusual choice for a first sculling race for the only other British entry in the event, "Jim the Sculler".

Elfsteden (11 Towns) Rowing Marathon: Give us a HUG!

Which would you rather do on the last weekend before Christmas? Go shopping, or go rowing with a bunch of people you hardly know, in a foreign country, over the longest night of the year?

Obviously, it was a no-brainer, and so it was that I spent a freezing weekend having a tremendous time, rowing past the occasional windmill.

And as so often, but still unexpectedly happens with events like this, it was a cultural eye-opener too.