The Land Rover Club Holland annually organizes some interesting
spring events. This time, a fellow member of the disco2owner mailing
list, Crispin Glymph from Houston, Texas, chanced to be in the
Netherlands at the right time for joining Isolde (6), Roderick (4),
and myself (their young dad) in the 2001 Spring Surprise Ride. We
agreed to pick him up in our DSII from Hilversum train station nine-ish
on the Sunday morning. In the last week before the event we got the
important secret surprise letter, stating where the event is to take
place: Ommen. Be prepared and bring a compass and tape.
The trip up north (just 100 km or so) from Hilversum to Ommen
was hardly noteworthy apart from the various other Land Rovers that
we overtook. Upon arrival at approximately quarter past ten at the
Bootsman Restaurant in Ommen (car park filled with a few dozen
Land Rovers), we stood in line for the hand-out of the envelope
with the road book and other ride information. Sitting down at
a restaurant table, we took a short time to sort out the various
bits. And translated everything into English for Crispin. The kids
speak better English than he does Dutch....
The major part of the surprise
ride was coded with a tulip chart (in Dutch: bolletje/pijltje-kaart)
starting at the dirt road nearly right in front of the restaurant. And
that a public road! Living in the Gooi-area, I am totally unaccustomed
to public dirt roads. There just aren't any in my area :-(. So the
ride went off on a good start. The children held the list with 10
questions for children (in Dutch) and asked Crispin if the next number
(in English) was there yet. Just two more to go, he says. And then:
the dirt road crossing where the first children's question is:
what is being built on the right hand side? We all look out and
see shrubs, trees, dirt paths, but nothing resembling a building
site. A bit disappointed we drive on, and happily we then pass a
new developing area, apparently growing into a golf course. Question
One answered.
After a while we have been driving various short stretches over
dirt roads through the woods, and are quite pleased with just being
there. Then the second part of the ride is a compass activity. I had
taken this very good reason this time to actually buy a serious
compass, and this we put to use. Unfortunately, it acts more like a
ventilator than like a compass, until we think that perhaps getting
out of the car would be useful. As Crispin is the navigator he
tells us to go east 'here'.
That Land Rovers come back from the
direction that he tells us to go to doesn't bother him. Nor me,
since we are having good fun. Presently we're back there, and some
five other Land Rovers stop too at the same cross road in the woods,
from all four directions. There is one person having a really good,
military style compass. That he hasn't a clue what to do with it (Oh,
can I turn that dial? Oh, is that what that little mirror-thing is for)
is easily solved, with my old boy scouts' training. And we're off, in
that direction. 'Crispin, zijn we al bij fifteen?' And yes, the second
children's question works out too: What is the number of the toadstool?
Driving on for some time in the various directions that the
navigator tells us, we gather more answers to questions about what
Moriaantjes mean (name of a school), where is the Silent Beach (sign
on the house), and the name of the new trees here (willow?). Also we
gather a lot of good impressions of the beauty of the Dutch landscape.
Estimating I would say that two thirds of the ride is on dirt roads,
which is a very high percentage considering the city density in the
Netherlands. Compare it with an off-road course through one of the
larger city areas in your own country: 16 million people spread over
an area of 150x300km, (effectively 32,450 square km), so nearly 500
inhabitants per square km (equals 1250 per square mile). That
unfortunately doesn't leave much room for dirt roads. The ones that
we here drive on are highly impressive, some even for more than a
kilometre on end. We all are awed with the scenery and Crispin takes
plenty of pictures, with just one or two of his four cameras.
Further on is a piece denominated
as 'lots of mud.' Coming on to
it, we see some large corn fields (empty of corn now in spring, of
course), and a path in between. On the path is a long line of Land
Rovers, the first of which are stuck deep in the mud, and others are
helping out. We make this the lunch break: Parking the car on the
verge of road before the path, the four of us, with many other Land
Rover people, walk down the line, look at all the nice cars and the
nice mud, and watch from a safe distance Land Rovers being winched
through. A really stuck Defender 110 gets pulled backwards out of the
mud by an old Series I.
.
Some people think they can drive over the
fields around the difficult bit, but, apart from being told off by
the organization, they get stuck in the very muddy field too. Even
more so for being stupid enough to think that trying once more with
a little more throttle will help them out: they're up to the axles
in the mud. Since stupid behaviour is not looked upon favourably,
they aren't the once being towed out first. While walking back over
the thick mud path, both Roderick and Isolde get their Wellies firmly
stuck in the mud. Fortunately, muddy socks and trousers can be cleaned
in the washer. Having finished lunch while walking, we get on over the
'alternative route for Freelanders.' Hey, I just have a stock DSII
with non-aggressive tyres. And it's my daily driver. And
I'm not a millionaire if things get dented/scratched/broken.
Having followed the tulip chart road
book again for a while, we now are up to the third challenge of the
spring surprise ride: a small piece of a military style map of the
area was cut up into a puzzle. That is where the enigmatic tape comes
in handy.
The kids enjoy fixing the hard puzzle (just three pieces,
but Roderick is only four, you know) into one map. We choose a nice
route from S to E (start to end, coincidentally from north to south),
and as a result there is an marvelous forest we pass through. And it
is just a public road! Where I live this would be either Forestry
Commission controlled and only open for walking public, or private
property and not open at all. Sheer bliss.
The last part of the ride is a very funny combination of several
farm roads, small dirt roads off the main paved road, leading to or
by some farm buildings, around some field, and back to the main road
again. Not really challenging in off-roading, but still interesting
for its own sake. At the end of those farm roads stretch, we park the car
on the verge of the main road, and take a last break. We see all the
Land Rovers passing by, wave, and take more pictures. Then the main
road leads directly to the next village where the children hand in the
answers to the questions in the local bar at the village center. The
market place in the village is hoarded by all kinds of Land Rovers, and
before leaving we take a last walk around to look al all those cars.
Going back to Hilversum for dropping Crispin
at his train station again, at last he gets to drive the car all
by his own: a real Td5 he's driving (actually the T fell of, so we
should call it a d5?), and a manual gear box too! 
He is so proud
of this achievement that he promotes me to honorary member of the
Houston Land Rover Club, with accompanying baseball cap. Thanks,
Crispin, for the navigation, the pictures, the cap, and notably the
pleasure of your company.
The LRCH is growing strongly in membership. So much so that they have decided to organize simultaneous events, and this time it was an off-road event in Zeeland, and an all-roads event in Drenthe. Although my wife isn't into this Land Rover thing, with some persuasion, she agreed to accompany the rest of us to join in the Drenthe tour. Just a few days before the event, the papers arrived, and the venue was changed to... Ommen? Haven't we been there before? Yes, it was exactly the same route, with the same road book, but unfortunately without the childrens' questions.
The dirt roads were dry as sandpaper, and no difficulty arose at all. The 'very heavy' bit was now 'tough' not really because of the mud but because some very deep ruts were dug by the first Land Rovers, and not even the well equiped cars (body lift, large tyres, winches and stuff) could just drive through. Discos didn't bother trying, as obviously we didn't either.
Looking back it was a bit of let down that I fully knew the route beforehand, but with my wife and children participating it was a nice day out.
Text, and editing Copyright © 2001/2003 Wim
van Dorst
Photographs Copyright © 2001/2003 Wim van Dorst,
Crispin Glymph