# A ride to the Netherlands, final part.



## totallyfixed (16 Sep 2013)

The day dawned as all days should, warm and sunny and not much wind. A last goodbye, but by now we knew we would be returning. As we cycled away we looked up to see our hostess [friend now I think] waving to us from on high, it was strange to think that later the same day we would be boarding a ship for England. For this reason I had tried to devise a route on this last day that would not be too taxing so I tried to limit the distance to around 60 miles, giving us time to enjoy our last day.
One of the aims was to take in the town of Brielle, a Star Fortress town, I have copied this image from 
Google, much easier to see what I mean





Our route today would be via Prinsenbeek, Zevenbergen, Klundert, Willamstadt, Helwijk, cross bridge, Nieuw Baijerland, another ferry, skirt around Spijkenisse and on to Brielle.
When I say shorter day in the saddle it didn't mean slower and for once we didn't misplace ourselves very much, I think we were beginning to get the hang of Dutch navigation. Our first stop was Willamstatd where we visited a small bakers and greedily eyed up all the treats on offer while chatting to the shop owner. Today had a really good feeling about it, almost as though the NL was going to give us a great send off. A couple of km's later and we were crossing the huge two part bridge, at the far side we stopped on the banks to eat before heading off again towards Spijkenisse. Unusually for the next ten miles or so we had a tailwind as the wind was southerley and for long stretches we were doing 20 mph. Because we were nearing the coast, or I assume this was the reason we saw many wind turbines, some were absolutely huge, I took this picture of one with fully grown trees just behind it




We reached Brielle in the early afternoon, it had the feeling of a seaside kind of town with the usual millions of boats moored up on the surrounding moat / canal. It had a holiday feel about it with troops of children in their own coordinated colours walking around singing. After cycling very slowly around the town and walking we found a supermarket and found a bench to sit and watch the world go by. 
We knew we had plenty of time to reach the Hoek and the ship but didn't want to get caught out with a wrong turn or a mechanical, we still had a couple of ferries to go on but first it was over one of the many waterways heading into Rotterdam, the closest barge in the picture actually had a miniature playground at the rear.




We then had another stretch of water to cross, but after following the ferry signs we arrived on a small wooden jetty with no ferry in sight! Another lady also turned up on a wonderful orange bike which dr_pink immediately wanted, while we were admiring the bike a small boat arrived which would probably only carry a few bikes, we got on and dr_pink took this picture.




The lady in the picture was very friendly and ended up telling us her life story during the short crossing, which was actually quite a sad one [not the crossing, the story].
A few more miles along a peninsula and we reached a proper big car ferry which had lots of bikes crossing, by now we were picking up signs for Hoek van Holland, on the other side we really wanted to do the most scenic route along the river and estuary and luckily we found it. I remember thinking that we had plenty of time as it was only about 4pm and we wouldn't be able to board the ship until about 7pm. This last cycle path as always was a delight, the sun was in our faces and we were only about 9 miles from our destination




The two cyclists in the picture were French and I think the man was determined to go quicker than we did because he kept dropping his wife, quite funny really because we were in no rush.
Arriving at the docks we sat outside the cafe there and ate pieces of battered cod and sunbathed, Our mileage




On check-in a couple of German motorcyclists in front of us discovered their travel agent had booked them in on the wrong day so they had to pay another couple of hundred euros! After much delay we got through and cycled to the next barrier where there was another wait and where we got talking to our slightly mad German who had cycled from Frankfurt. It turned out he was cycling to London for business reasons then flying back with his bike. Unfortunately he also had the idea of cycling down the East coast then following the Thames in, did we think that was a good idea? Our German was a bit overweight, on a hybrid bike and no experience of cycling in the UK, so I told him no, there were better ways of getting to London.
On board ship we sat on deck with our new found friend sipping long cool drinks, watching the sunset and planning a route for him.




Remarkable how we started our journey in Harwich with a beautiful sunset and ended with one.
When the ship docked in Harwich at 6.30am [you are woken with a jingle in your cabin and an announcement telling you it is 5.45am!] we were the first off the ship, a very odd feeling cycling through an empty terminal. We waited at the exit for our German friend as we had said we would go with him to Manningtree. It is actually quite hilly between the port and Manningtree and our friend thought we were unbelievably fit because of the speed we climbed the hills, I didn't have the heart to tell him that they weren't difficult. We found a cafe open in Manningtree and after picture taking we wished him luck and we were on our way.
Essentially we retraced our route back to Woolpit only this time we had a proper hard headwind, we had lunch with our friend, staying there for three hours, then it was back via Bury St Edmunds and Newmarket and then into Cambridge where we were back again to the same friends we had started our cycling journey from. They cooked us a lovely dinner and then it was off to the station for the train back to Oakham.
Reflecting on our holiday on the train, we agreed on many things, we could live in the NL; our bikes had performed faultlessly with no punctures or mechanicals; there is little we would have changed in what we took; we never felt threatened in any way by another vehicle; liked the way cyclists had their own traffic lights and in some places in Nijmegen they reacted to your approach; we are going back.
For the record, we cycled on light touring bikes, the weight of our panniers per bike was around 10kg all in plus a bar bag. Although it is easy enough to tour the NL without a map, next time I would possibly invest in a GPS and / or a better map. Our overall average speed which included a lot of walking with the bikes around various towns and cities was 12.4 mph, The final mileage




I am seriously thinking of running a small forum ride there next year limited to maybe 8 people, something to think about over the winter months.


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## 4F (16 Sep 2013)

totallyfixed said:


> I am seriously thinking of running a small forum ride there next year limited to maybe 8 people, something to think about over the winter months.



Now I do like the sound of that


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## Hill Wimp (21 Sep 2013)

Oh yes please.

Thanks for that brilliant piece of inspiration. It sounded really good.


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## drewc65 (4 Oct 2013)

That idea sounds dead tidy.


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