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Netherlands (9 - 13 April 2009)

In the weeks leading up to Easter this year, my flatmate Davydd suggested we do a cycling trip through the Netherlands. Abso-fucking-lutely I said! Originally we had planned it to be a three-night camping trip, but due in part to lack of storage capacity on the bikes and in part to the need to save on weight, we left the tent behind and decided on hostels instead. We aimed to leave our flat by 7:45pm on the Thursday night for an 8:38pm train to Harwich International Port from where we would get an overnight ferry to Hoek van Holland (Hook of Holland). From there we had planned a big loop spanning approximately 300kms. With the Netherlands being completely flat, it was only the weather or the weight of our bikes that could cause us grief.

Incidentally, my granddad is Dutch (making me quarter Dutch, and hence tight with money hehe), and having just met up with him when I was back home in Christchurch last week I was eager to see where a quarter of me comes from!

My bike doesn't have the right holes in the right places to allow a bike rack to be fitted, so my weapon of choice was a quick-release rack that clipped to my seat pole, and would support about 10kg. It was partnered with a bag with zips and pockets all over the place - perfect! Sleeping bag, tools, spare shoes, second drink bottle, bike locks, other bits and pieces - all fit in there nicely. With all the weight sitting behind the rear axle, I really had to resist the urge to do wheelies for risk of toppling over backwards hehe. I even put a nice gel seat cover on to help cushion my ass.		Katie brought this half-naked bear home from work recently, so I stuck him to the front of my bike to be the trip mascot hehe.		While I forked out £100 for my set up, Dav instead opted for a nice cheap rack, and hooked our council recycling bin to it to hold all his shit hahaha! Like I said above, we had aimed to be on the road by 7:45pm, but after fucking around with his recycling bin and tying all of his shit down, Dav held us up and we eventually got away at 8 and made the train with only minutes to spare - phew!

We boarded the ferry around 11, and to my surprise found we had a cabin to sleep in (I had expected it to be like the last overnight ferry crossing I had between Italy and Greece when we had to sleep wherever we could find space).				The ferry was a big flash thing. Big cafe serving all sorts of unhealthy crap...

A few bars for the alcoholic English...		Something to keep the kids amused...		And, of course, large quantities of Heineken in the on-board shop!

After a very smooth ride we arrived in Hoek van Holland bright and early at 7am on Friday. The plan for today was to head northeast, passing through a few specific places, and finishing some 100kms later up in Haarlem, just west of Amsterdam. The weather was absolutely perfect, the wind was behind us, and I was itching to get going but bloody Dav pissed around some more with his budget job and we didn't get on the road until 8 hahaha, bloody hell!

The Netherlands: big windmills...		Little windmills...		Big flower fields...

And awesome cycling! The Netherlands is covered with cycle paths - both on- and off-road. Cars respect cyclists, and cyclists are given right of way in most cases (the complete opposite to fucking London). The cycle paths are well signposted, but I had my GPS with preinstalled routes to guide us.

With such a great cycle infrastructure, absolutely everybody of all shapes, sizes and ages cycles.		His-and-hers bike for nana and pop hehe.		Typical Dutch first date. No petrol expense this way ;)

The off-road paths pass through some varied and amazing scenery, as you'll see from the rest of these photos.				Yup, some amazing scenery ;)

We left Hoek van Holland and passed through random villages...		A house with emu roaming around in the backyard...
Big rivers that would be great fun on a tyre tube...		And big canals. We saw a few of these things hauling freight along.
20kms later we stopped off in Delft. Home to 100,000, regarded as being typically Dutch, and apparently well-known for its Delft pottery ceramic products (Delftware).

Delft City Hall and Market Square - full of tourists.		Opposite City Hall is the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church), in which you can climb the four million circular stairs to top for just €3 (it would be more like £12 in the UK!).

Pretty, but we had a bloody long way to cycle!				Looking back down over Market Square.

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