Heading North today, 25km to catch a bus ! Another early (by holiday standards) breakfast and it was off into a beautiful, fresh rather than warm morning. The winds were picking up, but at least this morning they weren’t full on headwinds. The morning’s ride was a mix of urban roads, country lanes and paths alongside the coast.
First stop Den Over, where we would be taking a bus, a bike bus ! This would ferry us across the 32km long Afsluitdijk. You can cycle it now, but I’m not that hard core. As we arrived early, I sent David off into the supermarket, in search of takeaway tea and an apple pastry. Sadly no tea but he did come back with some lovely looking cakes and a large pastry , which to be fair on first glance could have contained stewed apple, but closer inspection revealed what looked like a sausage. After a thorough investigation, which involved eating the whole pastry, I determined it was sausage and some sweet curry sauce. Next time I guess I’ll have to do the shop !
It always used to be the German’s that were thought of as being efficient, but I think the Dutch get that accolade. The bike bus turned up right on time, bikes were loaded and secured, and we were off across the dyke.
After the exhausting bus journey, a short break for tea at the visitor centre which is a few km before the end of the dyke. Not a bad spot !
Lunch was to be at the port of Harlingen, but first an hours ride up along the coast. Today the wind was not kind to us and it was a very hard slog for an hour. Not helped by the first 15 mins or so being on the sea side if the dyke wall, we were glad we choose not to ride the whole 30km
Harlingen was indeed very pretty with a harbour lined with sea going barges. Photo’s taken, we had time for a bit of lunch before heading off for the final leg of today’s cycle.
All we had to do then was turn inland and head towards Leeuwarden, where we hoped to spend the night. The route varied between pretty roads and tracks alongside major roads, but it wasn’t too long before I had the urge to stop and have a drink together with one of the pastries we saved from earlier. I don’t have a stand for the bike, so in the absence of something suitable to lean it against, I put it down on the grass.
Bike parked, I started working my way through the pastry. Before I’d reached the end, I was disturbed by David saying the police were coming. Sure enough a police car screeched to a halt beside us, I was about to make my excuses for whichever law we had transgressed, but all the officer wanted to know were if we were alright. He took a little convincing that we had just stopped for a break. To be fair, it did look a bit like a crashed bike.
Police satisfied we headed off for an hopefully incident free afternoon. Stopping to take a mandatory windmill photo, I noticed a sign for Rust.nu – I’d seen these on previous visits here, but never investigated further. Apparently it’s a scheme with over 650 little sheds, normally in farms where you can help yourself to tea and coffee and often food, using a honesty box system ( and now pay by phone !) . Today’s was very quaint and at 1€ for a tea, a bargain.
There was now only a few kilometres left, to Leeuwarden, where we arranged luxury accommodation for the night.
Sounds like a good day if not the diet of choice, being questionable! Love the idea of tourist refreshment sheds and they meets your fiscal requirements!