An early start today, this time not to catch a ferry, but a bus ! 30km ride to Den Oever where I needed to get a bus across the Afsluitdijk. Not too inspiring a ride, but I did pass my first windmill up close.
Despite a short unexpected detour, I managed to make the 0930 bus, they only ran every hour so I didn’t want to miss it. Normally you can cycle across the dyke, but for the last couple of years there have been engineering works, so a free bus is provided to take you all but the last 4km across. In total the dyke is 32km long ! Given how long the bus ride took, I hate to think what cycling it would be like, especially against a headwind.
After that there was some cycling on a very strange cycle path, that was banked at around 20 degrees, the photo doesn’t do it justice. I was worried about scraping my pedals. Still it gave me a good view of lots of bird life
Lunch was in the pretty little fishing town of Harlingen. (WARNING Obligatory unhealthy lunch photo) – if you are wondering about all the flags, it’s Liberation Day, celebrating liberation from the Germans. I thought it was only the Brits who were obsessed with the war (see future posts from Arnhem hopefully!)
A gentle ride in the afternoon took me past yet more tulips, and also along a very innocuous cycle path called the “young dyke” which turns out to be built on a dyke made 1000 years ago to hold back the sea !
Final comment if the day must go to the Dutch military, they had done their best to disguise a radar station, by painting it green. Think I’d give it 3/10 for camouflage!
Steady Pedals 