This morning, I had a newly serviced bike with a new suspension seatpost so it felt a bit like Christmas. While it was sad to say goodbye to Paul and Marlies, I was looking forward to the next part of this adventure. I had been here for four nights and wasn’t yet tired of Paul’s humour 😁. Marlies is one of the kindest people I know. If that’s not enough, she makes incredibly good coffee ! I met both of their kids 17 years ago and they’ve both grown into interesting, talkative and smart adults. Thanks for putting up with me !
The ride started into the wind and when I went past Prins Alexander, I looked for a bakery to get the food for the day. I couldn’t find one but found a Decathlon store, my favourite. I needed new sunnies and the sun was shining, so it was perfect. When I came out of the store, the rain was pelting down and it was dark and gloomy. Using sunnies would have to wait.
The route took me past Kinderdijk with its iconic row of old windmills. I’d been there before, so I didn’t feel like going in, besides, I still had a long way to go. I had lunch by the Maas and was feeling pretty good, so I messaged my friends, Eric and Petra and said I’d be there soon.
Then my GPS stopped. No problem, I’ll just restart it. Then it rained, so I stopped, put a cover on my rear bag, and donned the poncho and kept going. Then the rain stopped, then it started, and …
Then the GPS pointed me to a ferry terminal. That would have been fine, but the next ferry wasn’t for an hour. That’s ok, I’ll just plan another route, but the rain started and I went through the same exercise as before. When I finally got up to the next bridge and crossed it, I promptly missed a turnoff, backtracked and still couldn’t see where I had to go.it turns out, there was a small track worn in the grass, no more that 300mm wide – ridiculous. I’d wasted so much time by this stage that I wouldn’t arrive until 6pm.
On the way into Waalwijk, there were some really nice villages as well as another ferry – which I didn’t have to wait for.
I met Eric and Petra on a bike trip in Tibet and hadn’t seen them since. It was great to see them. I had a superb home cooked meal and we talked and talked. We glanced at our watches later, expecting it to be about 10:30pm, but it was 12:45am. I guess that’s a good indicator of how nice it was to see them !
