My heart sank when I saw the BBC weather forecast for the weekend of our trip. Friday, Saturday and Sunday had big dark rain clouds and heavy showers for all 3 days! I couldn’t believe it as I had thought that the weekend of midsummer would be ideal weather-wise. You just can never tell. I hoped for the best, knowing that bad weather makes for an unsatisfactory skate trip.

 

Our group of 11 (along with Maya from Skatefresh) was a lovely mixture of London skaters but also skaters from Eastbourne, Scotland and Belgium – very international. A surprise to me, even the Scottish Skaters didn’t know each other and had heard about the course from Don Morton (ICP Instructor in Glasgow), or from the website or from having me as their instructor at some time in the past.

 

Some of us met on the Friday afternoon in SkateZone the local skate shop where we did some shopping, made last minute repairs and tweaks to our skates and Maya and I bought everything pink in the shop. Then we headed to Vondelpark for some refreshments before the Friday night’s skate. There was a heavy shower at 5pm but by the time the street skate started it was dry and a lovely evening.

 

The Friday night skate took us out of town on beautiful smooth cycle paths through the flat, green countryside. The evenings were long and beautiful being nearly 21st June. The pace of the skate was pretty fast and got noticeably faster once we were out of town and had no junctions to stop at. There were some fantastic long and fast sections, which stretched on and on, and everyone got the opportunity to work on their stride and improve their overall speed. As is common on skates the tiredness can set in just before half time and for several it did, but after the petrol station stop for supplies (Dutch waffles and water) everyone seemed stronger on the way back and a huge sense of achievement was felt by all. Unfortunately one of our group Roly had a skate malfunction and lost a wheel during the skate and had to pull out. We had a few drinks in the Vertigo café in the park and I was shocked to hear it was 1.15am when I enquired about the time (I thought it was 11pm). These light evenings play with my body clock. Luckily everyone was staying close to the park.

 

Saturday, windy, lots of clouds but bits of blue sky too and I then had a feeling that the weather wasn’t going to be a problem at all – and I was right. No rain interfered with our skating during the weekend. Result!

We met in the park and skated to the skate shop where Roly was having his skate fixed by the lovely guys at SkateZone. We stocked up on supplies ready for our big skate to Marken.

Even just skating through the city to get to the east side was fun and smooth; the Dutch know how to make roads, and cycle paths and junctions which are safe and fairly coherent (considering how many forms of transport are using them pedestrians, bikes – lots of bikes, cars, trams, buses)….. We climbed 2 large bridges (the only big hills on the weekend) and then found ourselves in the countryside on tiny roads skating through small villages of well to do houses and farms. Fields full of cows, sheep and horses confirmed why Holland is so big on their dairy….they have a lot of grass.

 

The skate to Marken was hugely assisted by a beautiful tail wind (which sometimes became a fierce cross wind) and I was so grateful we weren’t skating into the wind, that would have made it feel a lot more like hard work. At times our path stretched between the sea and lakes as we skated on the dykes with raised view of the flat land all around. We saw no other skaters, but lots of bike groups.

 

Marken is the perfect day trip from Amsterdam. We had 3 wind turbines in our sights as I knew they were just before Maerken and it was amazing to see them tiny on the horizon and then all of a sudden there they were, next to us and we were nearly there. A final grass verge stop for snacks and water and some blister attention and then the final push to Marken. Kate missed the last stop declaring ‘if I stop now I’ll never make it’. But we did all make it and deserve the fantastic lunch we then had (Maya and I not shirking away from the local speciality, eel).

 

 

We split into 2 groups to come back some taking the ferry to Volendam and then bus home and others a bus straight from Marken.

 

 

We met up again in the evening for a short tour of the Red Light District with Stacey, a friend of mine who lives in Amsterdam and gives tours in her spare time. The tour was very educational, telling us about the red light district, how it all works, how much it all costs (the price goes up if you want changes of position or enjoyment to be simulated) and Stacy showed us where the most popular girls have their boxes and also which sex shows did what (in case we wanted to go later).

We were mainly all thinking about our ever growing hunger and when we finally made it to New King restaurant I suddenly thought I had over raved about the prawn toast and it may turn out to be not as good as I remembered. When I saw Ofran take her first bite I knew I was right. She confirmed with “this is the best prawn toast I’ve ever had”. We all ate a huge amount of food and felt justly justified.

 

Sunday morning we met again in the park for an impromptu skate dance session. Everyone did really well in learning the basic steps and making a short routine of moves you can do together. As most were leaving that afternoon, the nags were taken to the station and stashed there for later and the returning skaters Fiona and Joan had to make a mad dash to get their skates on and join the Sunday afternoon street skate. The skate had actually left, but one of the Marshals kindly stayed behind with them and helped them catch up. Another 3 minutes and that might not have been possible.

The Sunday skate is not a regular skate in Amsterdam, we were just lucky to have this special midsummer skate scheduled on the weekend of our trip. This skate also went out of town and was much slower than Sunday, attracting several kids with their families. But a great addition was the music truck which gave the whole skate a fun and relaxed atmosphere. It was good to recognise local skaters from Friday night and everyone we met was so friendly and helpful. There was a beautiful section where anyone wanting to go fast could go in front of the music truck for the length of the lake we were skating past. I saw 2 cars on this road in 15 minutes of fast skating on perfect tarmac, next to a lake. The Dutch countryside is very idyllic and perfect for skating.

 

At a short stop the remaining skaters from our group had to leave the skate to make it back in time for their trains, flights and ferries to the UK. I was sad to see them all leave but very happy that we had managed to have such a good weekend and that it hadn’t rained. Having said that towards the end of the skate it did rain for 5 minutes but we sheltered under a big tree and then continued into town, Maya and I dancing all the way.

 

I am hoping we will go to Amsterdam again next spring, as it is such a fantastic skate destination. My thanks to Maya for all her help over the weekend and to all the people who came and made it do fun. It was good to get to know some of you better and lovely to meet some of you for the first time. Next year Berlin will also be a destination. I would like to do a study on who makes the smoothest tarmac, the Dutch or the Germans….. we will just have to find out for ourselves.