This report is about two occasions: one a solo visit of myself and later we skated the same route with a group of five. The route is taken from a small booklet with skate routes in Holland. Unfortunately only in Dutch :"Noord-Holland in-line" ISBN 90-804385-6-1 from TE producties (www.te.nl). It's route number 15 called "Hondsbosse Duinen" which is about 25km long (16miles) I can really recommend this route. Especially on a sunny day, when you can have a swim in the sea.

Sylvester, Lieselot, Frank and Michael

Good asphalt

The route starts at a place called Schoorl (at theWest-side). There is a beautiful cycle track the next village at the sea side "Schoorl aan Zee". This track leads through a small forest, of which you won't see many of in the western part of Holland. The asphalt is good. Though keep alert on small branches, litle stones and sand. Most of the other tracks or trails in the dunes are only accessible to bikes, or by foot. Small slopes are typical of the dunes, so you must know how to deal with these, because on a warm day it will be very crowded with little room to brake, or manoeuvre.

Popular among cyclists too.

Small slopes.	Perfect.

Leaving the forrest you enter the typical landscape of the dunes: Lots of grass and low vegetation. And most of the time: a lot of wind. The dunes are a very popular place for walks and cycle tours. Both family cyclists as wel as people on racing bikes. And some times these groups interfere with one another. You won't find many inline skaters. When you turn North at Schoorl aan Zee, you will encounter a few hundred meters of cobble stones, but it's not too bad.

From Schoorl you skate via "Hargen aan Zee" to the village "Camperduin". At this point take a little time to visit the beach. It's just 100 meters of the route. This is where the pictures with the statue were taken.

Resting at Camperduin	Statue "De strandjutter"

At the left behind the dike is the sea (at a level a few meters above your head)

Between Camperduin and Petten there are no dunes! Maybe you learned that the western part of Holland is 4 meters below sea level! Because we don't like wet feet, this part of Holland is protected from the sea by three dikes called "the guard", "dreamer" and "sleeper". When the guard breaks, the "dreamer" has to take over and in the hopefully very unlikely event, the sleeper has "to wake up" as a last resort. Together they are called "De Hondsbosse zeewering" and was construted in the 19th century after a breakthrough of the weak dunes.

The cycle track along this dike is not very smooth. Depending on the direction of the wind it can give you a hard tim, because it's long :-)

At Botervlotbrug follow this canal.

From Petten you skate to the South-east and landscpe changes in a very flat country side called "polder". At "Botervlotbrug" turn right and follow the canal back to Schoorl. At the beginning you see wind mills at your left. At first you roll on tiles, but soon you're on superb smooth asphalt :-).

From here the asphalt is excelent.	Typical farm and fields. You don't want a strong wind here.

During this trip I experienced my second major crash in my skate life. A very small piece of stone blocked the front wheel while a was on one leg heading the group. Before I could even realize it I was flat on the ground. Luckily the rest of the group just missed me. Thanks to my knee pads the damage was only a stiff leg and a painfull shoulder. Frank was less fortunate when his shoe lace got caught by the wheels: a lot of scratches and a bleeding arm :-(.