DAY FOUR: THE CONTINENT

Day Three (Snaith to Hull): Daily Distance: 68.31 kms

Day Four (Rotterdam to Haarsteeg): Daily Distance: 114.09 kms

Total Distance: 321.32 kms

Day Three was probably the wettest day of my life. Even though it was a dry morning, it started raining literally as we mounted our bikes. The plan had been to follow the Trans Pennine Trail but by the time we were about to re-join it, the light rain had turned to heavy, pouring, soaking, drenching, thunderstorm-inducing rain, and knowing from the day before that much of the T.P.T. is dirt and/or sand, we decided that it would be treacherous. So instead we hid in a cafe for half an hour to see if the weather would turn. It didn’t. So our newly hatched plan was to follow the A63 which (while not a motorway and so does allow cyclists) is derived from a motorway so still has cars and trucks passing much too close to us at 70 mph.

It was probably because of the rain (and wanting to get off the main thoroughfare) that we pushed harder and covered the distance to Hull in much quicker time than we had planned, and so had enough time to find a bike shop for odds and ends before we met Dan at a pub that afternoon. We had a short ride from there to the overnight ferry which took us from Hull to Rotterdam. This gave me a proper chance to get to know Dan, the man who, to our delight, has researched most of our route and completed the necessary accommodation bookings for the first few days. It was also his birthday, so of course we had a few beverages (and chocolate cake thanks to Irene) to celebrate!

Because half of my clothes were soaked, despite my clothes being packed in plastic bags inside panniers, I got teased for creating my own Chinese laundry above my bed in our cabin which as you can imagine was not particularly spacious when filled with four fully grown gentleman. I also had a panic that I wouldn’t be able to access English-language books for a while, so purchased three, only to realise that I have to carry them in my already jam-packed panniers! For the record, I got ‘Nelson Mandela: Portrait of an Extraordinary Man’ (most of you probably don’t know that my claim to fame is meeting this Extraordinary Man when I was younger!); ‘The Confession’ by John Grisham; and ‘D-Day: The Battle for Normandy’ by Antony Beevor. Reviews to follow.

The following day was our introduction to The Continent. We had a decent 25kms to cover before we even reached Rotterdam City from EuroPort where we arrived, and then we caught three more (smaller) ferries during the day to cross rivers or canals. The second ferry crossing was an abject failure: we arrived at 12:50 for the 1:00 ferry and in the 10 minutes that followed, three large river boats destined for other stops came and went. At 1:01 we wondered where ours was, knowing that in the Netherlands it was unlikely to be late, only to look up and see a small boat departing from the far end of our dock. The next departed at 1:30, oops!

In the afternoon we passed Kinderdijk, with its lovely canal lined with traditional Dutch windmills – a truly amazing sight!

It was here that we met Mario, a work colleague of Alan’s, who rode us to his bright orange, funky 33-year-old camper van where he had prepared lunch for us! This including pickled hering, traditional Dutch fare that Dan and I managed to talk our way out of while Alan of course felt obliged and Jim was kind enough to help him out! Mario owned a collection of very impressive gimmicky toys, most of which are of course orange, that I had to try on...

We said farewell to Mario with full stomachs and headed South-East, through more rain and via some side of the road strawberries that despite it being late season were amazingly sweet and tasty, to Haarsteeg – eventually arriving at 6:45pm, nearly three hours behind schedule. The line-up of European friends continued as we had THE most amazing dinner at the beautiful house of Dan’s friends Serva and Netty. She had prepared a SIX course (true story!) meal for us that was truly amazing and we certainly slept well that night.

A long day, but we knew that we had over 100kms to conquer on each of the next four days...