Today really was a day of two halves, one of the best moments of the trip and some of the worst. My scenic route for day came in at over 120km, having seen the weather forecast, I planned a short cut at the start to bring the overall distance down to around 80-85km.
The short cut wasn’t as bad as I thought, and took me on some pretty nice roads, just one section alongside a major road and another perhaps alongside a motorway that could have doubled as a ride along the Berlin Wall.
After about 20km I was back on the route proper and it was then that windmills started to pop up, a sure indication that this area was windy. Although the wind hasn’t picked up yet.
I expected to see windmills today as I was heading for Kinderdijk, a UNESCO world heritage site. Nothing prepared me for how stunning it was. I was expecting 5-6 windmills in a row, but there must have been 15 or so in a small area. I decided to have my morning coffee in amongst them. Wonderful experience.
I’d obviously timed it right, as by the time I got to the end of the windmills, the tour buses were discouraging their hordes
So a wonderful morning , no sign of the predicted rain, a light breeze and beautiful scenery.
Right after Kinderdijk things started to go wrong. The wind was slowly picking up, that was typical of my days here, gentle at first thing then building up. Needless to say it wasn’t behind me. Next was the ferry, I rolled up to the appointed place on the map, but could see straight away the ferry wasn’t going where I wanted, which was across a river on the South bank. It was going to take me to the North bank. I decided to go with it anyway as how difficult could it be to navigate back to the original route.
Turned out it was quite difficult, but with the help of the wonderful Dutch numbering system, I got myself into central Rotterdam, where it was starting to look a bit overcast. The wind was also becoming an issue.
I then had a horrendous time navigating through the suburbs, the Garmin kept sending me the wrong way, Komoot wasn’t much better and route signs were very intermittent. Add to this the very blustery wind and the subsequent biblical downpour which completely soaked me and I wasn’t happy. The only good thing was I had loads of time to get to the ferry.
Once out of the suburbs navigation got much easier. Helpfully the planners of the long distance routes, put them along the coast, so they are nice and scenic. Unfortunately that meant I was exposed to the full force of the wind, which was gusting at up to 35 mph. At times my speed reduced to a crawl. I’ve attached my Strava data, it doesn’t look that dramatic on there, but it was brutal
Having battled my way along one particularly bad section, the cycling gods had one more surprise in store for me !
Normally, I’d walk around these, but it went right up to the waters edge. So another detour involving pushing through scrub and a few muddy footpaths until I found a road. I followed the road and then the railway line to the Hook as far as I could before the last few km on the coast again. Eventually made it to the Hook and the ferry port. A couple of hours waiting and we were let on the ferry. So it’s a drink and dinner for me. Tomorrow back in the U.K.
I’ll post a report for tomorrow and summary once I’ve recovered lol
Steady Pedals 