The colours from the fields outside blurred into streaks and lines as our train pushed on from the hovels and lurking streets of Amsterdam towards our next unplanned and unexpected destination. The decision to stop in the small town of Venlo arose after deciding it would be a practical rest point on our route to Germany, we had a hour to kill, amazingly adventures often include a lot of waiting around for things to happen, for this reason we were always within arm’s reach of a game of magnetic travel chess. If I could advice one thing to take on any journey it would be a travel game, it has saved my sanity on more than one occasion.
Although we had seen the name Venlo on a map and we knew this train was going there, we honestly had no idea what was going to be at the other end. The train pulled into the station, shuddering violently for just a second as the brakes were applied; there was a sense of anticipation in all of our eyes, the next step into uncharted lands.
Venlo was town, there was a central square where the reminisce of the daily market remained, we wondered through the neat and quite streets, the first thing we needed to do was get more food, after looking at a map it looked like we needed to cover some fairly long stretch of country to get to our next destination, all in good time of course. Caius waited with the bags outside the local supermarket near the square on a concrete marble slab, his long thin legs protruded from the mound of bags that surrounded him. Leon and I strolled into the supermarket relieved to be able to drop the burden of our equipment for a short while.
When we made our way back to the square Caius was attempting to understand the ramblings of several of the local drunks, through multiple hand gestures, slowed down pronunciations and bad translation we eventually made it onto the topic of music, I pulled out a honner blues harp, the eyes of one of the men lit up as he snatched it out of my hand and started playing. They were happy and friendly individuals, after a while of struggled conversation they were able to point us in the direction of the forests and the rolling fields beyond, this sounded like the right direction and we still had plenty of weed left from Amsterdam to keep the journey flowing.
The guys we had been talking to told us that if we kept walking for long enough we would eventually find forests, within that forest they said was some kind of pond surrounded by a beach. By this point it was already mid-afternoon and we would need to push on if we were ever going to find somewhere we could actually pitch up and sleep. It’s much easier to sleep in a tent in a forest then in the local town as there are fewer things to keep you awake and less people to mess with you when you are sleeping.
Naturally the entire walk to this unknown place was entirely uphill as I remember it now, the hot sun beating down and taunting us with the lack of shade, a hidden smile came to my face as we reached the top of this endless experience, ahead a small path led off the beaten track and down to a sea of trees, we had to cross the rail line to get there but this was reassuring as we knew that no matter how lost we were we could follow the track and we would eventually find our next rambling destination.
Once over the obviously rarely used tracks I slowly shuffled into the creeping and otherworldly shadow of the forest, like entering a new domain I could feel the moister in the air, light danced in the gentle breeze. Before long we ran out of path and had to find our own route through, as the sun began to sink into the mass we decided to pitch up the tent where we were, an awkward spot between a few trees which kindly left thorns scattered across the landscape.
We knew there was more to discover within touching distance but for today this is where we would rest, we quickly set about making the flimsy two man tent from Asda and preparing a fine meal of plain noodles and bread before passing the evening away strumming overused power chords, attempting to regurgitate riffs and snippets from songs and guitar lessons long since forgotten, our best moments where defiantly just jamming to the blues, all you need for that is rhythm and soul.
Tomorrow we will find the secret beach.
Alex
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