day 127 - 45 km
Zandvoort - Alkmaar
It is heavily overcast and gray when we arrive from Amsterdam and pick up the tree bike at beach tent 17 in Zandvoort at ten o’clock. There our Stone Oak has been able to watch the sea all night. Wearing an extra sweater, I cycle with Daan through the beautiful Kennemer dunes. Sanne and Richard arrive a little later and then take both cars and the trailer from Zandvoort. The dunes have a totally different look with this gray weather, more exciting and poetic. We enter the forest area and come across a whole group of horses, surprised and slowly moving aside. Big deal, it’s their world. We drive into IJmuiden, to cross the North Sea Canal on the north side at the locks, including the huge new sea lock. What a construction, very impressive, especially if you cycle past it with a tree on your bike. There we meet Leo and Vera. It begins to rain and before we reach Heemskerk via Velsen-Noord and Beverwijk we are soaked and cooled off. We had not counted on this. Stupid, what it hung in the air. In Heemskerk Sanne is just in time to change the batteries. We bike at a brisk pace through the rain to get to the elementary school in Castricum on time. This school collected money for our project in June because Daan’s granddaughter took the initiative. Now she is handing Daan and me a check from their contribution. Totally great. We take a picture of the top team, have lunch in the school room and I call the Parool for an interview. By three o’clock we cycle on towards Alkmaar, via Limmen and Heiloo. It is not the route mapped out by Richard because we went past Castricum. In the center of Alkmaar, accompanied by Monique who is coordinating tomorrow’s program, we park the tree bike at the back of the City Hall. We drink coffee in the B&W room while we go over tomorrow’s program. Then we walk to “Soepp” where we stay for two nights that has been offered to us by the municipality. Very nice. Richard and Sanne have also parked the cars and are there now. Everyone has a spacious room of their own. Very nice. Good for our rest. We drink and eat something around the corner and go through the coming days including the handling. Logistically quite a complicated puzzle. We are also going to figure this out. On time to bed. A good night’s sleep. We are already in Alkmaar.
day 128 - 15 km
What a beautiful day in Alkmaar and Dijk en Waard, the neighborhood municipality of Alkmaar. At nine o’clock we met with Maud of the Noord-Hollands-Dagblad for an interview. Together with Sanne I tell our story in the cafe of Soepp. Tomorrow it will be in the newspaper. The sun is already shining when we cycle to the big church. There, alderman Christian Schouten is waiting for us with a group of about thirty people, and the tree bike receives applause. The map is laid out by Richard and Daan and I tell the story with the whole group around the map. We hand out tree bicycles and I hand the alderman the forest book. Richard takes drone shots for which we wave. There is a beautiful engagement in the air and together we cycle through downtown to the IJk building. There we are welcomed by Martijn and Roos from “Circus Andersom,” who perform a beautiful ritual with the group in a large circle about grounding in place and learning from trees. Also my sister Ineke with her husband Marten are there, very nice. After the ritual I prepare my presentation which I give for the about fifty people from the cultural, social and ecological field, also some sustainable companies are represented. Wim Jansen of the municipality does the kick-off and with the trailer and the map that has been laid out on the lawn I tell the story of our cycling Stone Oak. Reactions are enthusiastic, and Alkmaar is a proud and active partner of Circle4Change. We have lunch in the conservatory, and it is almost two o’clock when we roll the tree bike backwards onto the boat. Nico, the captain handles it just fine. We are waved goodbye by Alkmaar and head for Dijk en Waard. It’s more than an hour of sailing, which is actually quite nice, not having to do anything for a while. Fine. Meanwhile, Richard picks up Yka who is coming along for another day. Halfway along the sailing route Ellen Klaus also arrives on the boat who has arranged the boat trip together with Dijk en Waard. And exactly at half past three we arrive at the place where we go ashore again and from there we cycle together to the Vaanpark. Again a large group of people who, after the alderman welcomes us, cycle behind the tree bike in the direction of the Vaanpark. Next to the first part of the planted trees of the Vaanpark we put down the map and, after the director of BPD, Ester Agricola, introduces me, I get to tell our story for the fourth time today. Things are still going well, only my voice is barely strong enough to rise above the noise of the traffic. I emphasize the role that municipality and BPD can play in realizing a birthday forest before urbanism organizes around the forest. How wonderful that would be. Richard, a very good friend who designed the Vaan Park from his firm ‘Rogg’ for BPD, shows me the park under construction. Everyone happy, and here too many tree saplings are given away, including DVBs – ‘Pass-Through Birthday Trees’. We talk some more and I cycle back to the center of Alkmaar with Sanne to park the tree bike near our accommodation location, on the way we hand out the last of the trees, more than sixty today, how good. A beer is well deserved today and we have a delicious meal at ‘Binnen komen’. We walk back through Langestraat and go to bed on time. We conclude that we only have three days left to cycle. It goes very fast now.