We had a 540km drive to get to Rijssen in the Netherlands, at the camperpark we had stopped at on our first night in Europe on this trip 12 weeks ago. It was a hot sweaty journey (Lo11y's cab has no air-con), so we were relieved when we rolled up that the camperpark was as nice as we'd remembered. The manager even came out and said how very welcome we were and showed us all the facilities. We got the chairs out and enjoyed a cold drink, but it wasn't long until we could hear distant rumbles of thunder, that soon became very close rumbles, turning into a torrential downpour.
Colin had plotted a 50 mile bike ride the following day. The roads in this area (as with all of the Netherlands) are a cyclists dream - dedicated well maintained cycle paths, cycle roundabouts around the vehicle roundabouts, courteous drivers and few hills. We passed through some nice scenery - heather covered heaths, crossed a waterway on an automated electric ferry, had a nice lunch in the buzzy town of Ommen, then had a ride into the town of Rijssen which was quite industrial on the outskirts.
It is just so great to see the Dutch go about their everyday life going to work, taking the kids to school and shopping on their solid sit up and beg bikes - no posey lycra in site. We'd frequently get overtaken by ladies with a child on a seat behind her and another kid in a basket on the front powering along.
We had a reflective final night in Lo11y looking back at what has been the most fantastic trip. It's not until we read our blogs we remember just how much we've crammed in. We've seen so many amazing sites, met so many lovely people, and have had some fabulous experiences. We definitely felt we could have carried on, but unfortunately we can't get round the Schengen 90 day limit rule.
The rain returned for our drive towards Hook of Holland. We continued on to The Hague where the sun did come out and had a cycle along the promenade and a spot of lunch (where we'd been with the Hope cycling group two years earlier). It looked like there were corporate team building exercises going on, some involving shooting at each other with bow and arrows. Colin wasn't sure he'd have come out of that alive with some of the people he's worked with over the years.
We drove back into Hook of Holland and parked outside the Harwich public house, scene of two messy evenings with the Hope group. It was definitely missing a group of inebriated lycra clad cyclists dancing around the pub.
When we joined the queue for the ferry we soon realised that most of the vehicles around us were vintage cars heading to the Goodwood Revival. Colin got chatting to some of the race teams who transport their vintage cars all around the world for such events.
We were on the overnight ferry, so after a walk around the decks we retreated to our cabin for a bottle of wine.
We disembarked at 7 in the morning, and soon got caught in the rush hour traffic in Essex and a reminder of how potholed and litter strewn UK roads are.
We're now back at our new home trying to remember where we'd put things three months ago. In the short term we've got lots to do getting the house into shape, catching up with friends and family and preparing for our next charity bike event cycling from the UK to Paris in the first week on October - JustGiving link attached. I now have a date (31st October) for my left hip replacement (the right one was done in 2021), so that will put back the setting off date for the next stage of our travels into the New Year.
Our JustGiving page is:
Thank you and well done for those who have managed to follow this trip through to the end - I appreciate the blogs are very wordy, but they have become our diary of our trip so it's hard to skimp on the detail. You can have a well earned rest for a few months, but we'll keep you posted of future travel plans once we know when and what they will entail.
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