Up early to indulge myself in the beauty of the early morning!
 |
| Early morning from our front door |
On such a nice and sunny morning, we just had to go on a bike ride with
Ali before she headed off to the airport. We thought that a 10 kms
cycle around the Amstel with a stop off at Amstel Park would be just
perfect.
 |
| Our entrance looking in direction of the barns. |
 |
| Albino emu |
First we spotted the albino emus before discovering that the city farm,
with its slightly weird collection of animals, is free and open for all
to wander among the animals. There was a donkey crossed with a Shetland
pony, the two very small Shetland ponies we saw previously, lots of
goats, turkeys and chickens as well as miniature cows, pigs and a brood
of albino half grown emu chicks under a heat lamp! They were all quite
tame and I think some were "donations" as they had no more use than a
curiosity factor and their nice personalities!
 |
| Donkey ponies |
 |
| Tiny adult pony |
 |
| Lovely house with thatched roof near by |
 |
| Looking over the Amstel to our place - bliss! |
We had our usual veggie soup sitting in the sun overlooking the sloot.
Two classic story book storks were resting in the field alongside the
herons.
 |
| Lunch outside |
Karl dropped Ali and I at the bus stop.
Annika cycled one of the bikes to the bus stop, locked it up, met us
with the key and then went back with Karl while Ali and I went on to
Schiphol. Good planning!!
Ali
and I tried a pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks at the airport which
was, as predicted, quite disgusting and over sweet. We said "Au Revoir"
and I got straight on the bus back to Ouderkerk, collected the bike and
was cycling home by the time Ali's plane flew overhead!
 |
| Yucky latte at Schiphol Starbucks! |
 |
| Amstel Park - can you spot Luke?! |
Luke, Annika and I cycled back to Amstel
Park to check out the park a bit more and lo and behold we found some
more albino animals: a wallaby and some albino peafowls! The albino
theme seems to be a big thing at the park!
 |
| Blonde animals in Holland! |
|
I cannot described how very pleasant and very thrilling it is to cycle along "our" river back to "our" house. The kids have had a great experience of living in Holland and we'll all remember our time here fondly.
Just been enjoying a catch up on your blog. It's going to be 28 here today and 32 by Monday!! Grand final long weekend and October already ahhh the year has flown by. Your 'home' in Amsterdam looks so lovely, it must have been special showing your sister around too :) Kids are back at school next week, it's been nice having a break, but looking forward to getting back to routine.
ReplyDelete