The stage from East to West crosses the low lands between the rivers Hollandsche IJssel and Lek. It’s a long one: a 43 kilometers walk between IJsselstein and Oudekerk aan de IJssel, but it’s well dividable in two: Ijsselstein to Vlist and Vlist to Oudererk – both about 22 kilometers. The only disadvantage is shortage of public transport: one or two busses during the week, one on Saturday and none on Sundays. (In this part of the country, there is hardly any activity on Sundays except going to church).
We took our bikes, parked them between Polsbroek and Vlist so we cycled back to IJsselstein, another 18 kilometers.
This is mainly a course following the ribbons of old dykes dividing the polders: straight, up-leveled lanes of trees in otherwise low, flat, treeless grasslands, only sometimes a farm or decoy breaks the wideness of the view. Villages here similar: longstretched ribbons of farms along both sides of a canal, as you will find out walking this route. You’ll see some farmhouses built about 300 years ago, and still in good shape.
Since most of the path is over the dykes, there are a lot of pictures showing the different looks of the path, some biews since most is blinded by the trees on both sides, and some others where the wall of trees is opened, and in dome taken in the villages we passed. You’ll find them here, as well as the Garmin, GPX and CSV formatted files.