Today, Sunday I woke up early.
Normal for my Sunday, but maybe weird for most people.
This time it was not for climbing, not for running, not for the family-visits. Nope.
It was for the rubbish. Or actually, against the rubbish.
As ambassador of Respect the Mountains I was invited to join the first (out of 7) EnviroTracks.
And EnviroTrack is a fun day combining mountain/outdoor activities with cleaning up a nature reserve and a good bbq.
This time it was not so much 'mountain orientated' because it was in the Netherlands. Schoorl to be exact.
Though Schoorl can be considered a high point in the Netherlands with it's dunes of 54m!
They even have a famous dune called 'Klimduin' (climbing dune).
So in a way it was still all about respect and mountains.
I woke up and listened to the raindrops on the roof. It didn't sound like a regular Summer day.
It was more like a regular Autumn day...
I took my best rainjacket, rain trousers and my 'singing in the rain'-mood and drove to Schoorl.
A lot of enthausiasts conqured the rain and joined us for the event.
Together we were with over 50 participants :) Which was a reasonable number considering the heavy rain.
We were divided into groups, every group got it's own ambassador (Philip, Bas, the Keen Team and me) and got rubbishbags.
My group headed for the dike and the beach.
The wind was tremendous! It was hard to keep our balance on the dike and hard to pick up all the plastic, cans, bottles, fishing lines, foam, and an accidental bath-suit.
We walked over the dike along the sea and learned about the history of the area, the ship-wreck, the brackish water and were astonished by the amount of rubbish we collected from the dike.
We walked for such a short time and had loads of rubbish bags full of stuff.
At 12:30 it was time to head back and join the lunch/bbq.
We warmed up, won a price for the weirdest bit of rubbish and got ready for the activities. Kickbiking, MTB, sea-kayakking and the compass-puzzle race.
Everyone wanted to get on the sea-kayaks so the participants could choose first. Leaving me with the compass-puzzle.
After a 2 hour puzzle-walk in the rain we were back at the start. Satisfied with all the rubbish we collected in the morning, all the good ideas and motivation to keep our environment clean and surprisingly everyone still had a smile after all the wind, rain, hail and a thunderstorm.
The participants went home with a goodiebag filled with Barts, Keen, Salt and more.
It was good to do something back for our nature and to be driven by the motivation to keep it all clean.
Let's go again and be inspired :)
1 comment:
Great initiative and activity! In such a way you have made a nasty day really worth while. Up to 21th of September!
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