Hard work planning & organising the Aussie trip - we now have the necessary visas so have bought the flights to Cairns. We leave Heathrow on 27th August (not terminal 5, so hopefully we will see the bikes again!) We have bought a new tent (lighter than the old one) & are now working on travel insurance. The bikes are booked in for a service soon.
Meanwhile it has been great to see family & friends, & we will be doing more of this over the next few weeks. Hope the weather improves - we are not used to this cold & wet stuff!
Monday 21 July 2008
Thursday 3 July 2008
A rest.....& planning for the next adventure....
We are currently having a short rest from cycling & planning for the next stage. Expect to see another entry from about early September 08 - bye for now blog-watchers!!!
Leiden to Dorchester....
White and yellow water lilies covered the canal we followed into the renowned university town of Leiden. Like Oxford, but with lots more canals, a couple of windmills and thousands of bikes, Leiden is particularly famous, academically, for law, and for being the birthplace of Rembrandt. Red roses grow effortlessly from patches of sand between the cobbles at the front doors of the typical tall narrow town houses.
Our student host, Matthew, accidentally managed to lock us all out of the first floor flat as he greeted us. Remarkably, we decided not to spend the next five hours in the pub waiting for his Dad to get home from work, but instead went on the scrounge for a ladder. No immediate neighbours were able to help, but the security guard at the nearby International centre took us down into the ancient basement cells and lent us a ladder, of just the right length for Matthew to climb onto the balcony and let us in.
We left our bikes behind to catch a double-decker train to Amsterdam, where we gave the sex museum a miss and instead spent a very enjoyable day in the Rijkstag and Van Gogh museums. We had a cycling rest the next day too as it was market day in Leiden. We meandered past loads of stalls selling everything from bikes to cheeses the size of pram wheels. Matthew easily persuaded us to join him at one of his favourite watering holes, where we sat on a floating pontoon. The beer was great but we don’t think the nibbles served with them ,”Bitte Balls”, will ever rival crisps, as they tasted like deep fried wallpaper paste. Saturday night was very quiet as everyone was in watching Holland being beaten 3-1 by Russia. We went to the local cinema where there were only 6 other punters and the projectionist, doorman and barman were all the same chap.
Using the flat as a base it was luxury to explore the area without our “luggage”. Haarlam on Sunday was very busy as the Holland Philharmonic was playing on a stage set up outside the magnificent Cathedral. Small shops and workshops are built attached to the Cathedral in a medieval layout and many other central cobbled streets retain medieval buildings. The chandeliers on the stage swayed alarmingly in the westerly wind that grew increasingly strong. We were reminded of how much of Holland is built on a big sand dune as we battled back into a ferocious headwind which whipped up sand from the fields, into our faces. A quick cycle out to Nordvick takes us to our first glimpse of the North Sea. A dyke protects a long promenade backed by grand seaside hotels. A good surf was up as we watched tankers ply up and down. Our main reason for visiting the town was to meet Paul (Matthew’s Dad) at his workplace, the European Space Agency, where he gave us a very interesting tour of the base.
Eventually we had to part from our generous hosts, taking the cycle path through dunes and villages to the port of Hoek van Holland and the overnight container/ferry to Harwich. We tried following the National cycle route through Harwich at 6.30 the next morning, but it took us round in circles, so we plotted our own way along the beautiful Stour estuary at low tide, past little single keel boats tipped at all angles on the mud. Our first night back in England was a room at a farm near Stanstead, where the crop was a type of broad bean being grown for the Arab market. Our second night was completely different, in a posh town house in Chorleywood in the London commuter belt. Finally we reached the towpath on the Kennet and Avon canal, at Reading. A passing cyclist (Steve) helped us through some very difficult gates as he made his way to his canal boat. We joined him for a cup of coffee on his narrow boat, where he had a wealth of cycling info for routes all over the world, as he had cycled India, Vietnam and China – he made us feel like cycling softies.
Our last night on the road was at Newbury, very handy to the canal path. The B&B owner was a lovely elderly lady who also enjoyed travel, as her fridge magnets from all over the world testified. She still cycled into town for her provisions, as had her late mother until she was 96! Her full cooked breakfast fuelled us to cycle onto Salisbury Plain, where we watched parachutists dropping out of a clear blue sky on training at an airfield. Into a stiff head wind we kept to little back roads to Shaftesbury and finally to Dorchester. After 97 miles we arrived at dusk , back where we had set out 9 months and 5,719 miles ago, at Sue`s Mum’s house, to a very welcome cup of tea.
Our student host, Matthew, accidentally managed to lock us all out of the first floor flat as he greeted us. Remarkably, we decided not to spend the next five hours in the pub waiting for his Dad to get home from work, but instead went on the scrounge for a ladder. No immediate neighbours were able to help, but the security guard at the nearby International centre took us down into the ancient basement cells and lent us a ladder, of just the right length for Matthew to climb onto the balcony and let us in.
We left our bikes behind to catch a double-decker train to Amsterdam, where we gave the sex museum a miss and instead spent a very enjoyable day in the Rijkstag and Van Gogh museums. We had a cycling rest the next day too as it was market day in Leiden. We meandered past loads of stalls selling everything from bikes to cheeses the size of pram wheels. Matthew easily persuaded us to join him at one of his favourite watering holes, where we sat on a floating pontoon. The beer was great but we don’t think the nibbles served with them ,”Bitte Balls”, will ever rival crisps, as they tasted like deep fried wallpaper paste. Saturday night was very quiet as everyone was in watching Holland being beaten 3-1 by Russia. We went to the local cinema where there were only 6 other punters and the projectionist, doorman and barman were all the same chap.
Using the flat as a base it was luxury to explore the area without our “luggage”. Haarlam on Sunday was very busy as the Holland Philharmonic was playing on a stage set up outside the magnificent Cathedral. Small shops and workshops are built attached to the Cathedral in a medieval layout and many other central cobbled streets retain medieval buildings. The chandeliers on the stage swayed alarmingly in the westerly wind that grew increasingly strong. We were reminded of how much of Holland is built on a big sand dune as we battled back into a ferocious headwind which whipped up sand from the fields, into our faces. A quick cycle out to Nordvick takes us to our first glimpse of the North Sea. A dyke protects a long promenade backed by grand seaside hotels. A good surf was up as we watched tankers ply up and down. Our main reason for visiting the town was to meet Paul (Matthew’s Dad) at his workplace, the European Space Agency, where he gave us a very interesting tour of the base.
Eventually we had to part from our generous hosts, taking the cycle path through dunes and villages to the port of Hoek van Holland and the overnight container/ferry to Harwich. We tried following the National cycle route through Harwich at 6.30 the next morning, but it took us round in circles, so we plotted our own way along the beautiful Stour estuary at low tide, past little single keel boats tipped at all angles on the mud. Our first night back in England was a room at a farm near Stanstead, where the crop was a type of broad bean being grown for the Arab market. Our second night was completely different, in a posh town house in Chorleywood in the London commuter belt. Finally we reached the towpath on the Kennet and Avon canal, at Reading. A passing cyclist (Steve) helped us through some very difficult gates as he made his way to his canal boat. We joined him for a cup of coffee on his narrow boat, where he had a wealth of cycling info for routes all over the world, as he had cycled India, Vietnam and China – he made us feel like cycling softies.
Our last night on the road was at Newbury, very handy to the canal path. The B&B owner was a lovely elderly lady who also enjoyed travel, as her fridge magnets from all over the world testified. She still cycled into town for her provisions, as had her late mother until she was 96! Her full cooked breakfast fuelled us to cycle onto Salisbury Plain, where we watched parachutists dropping out of a clear blue sky on training at an airfield. Into a stiff head wind we kept to little back roads to Shaftesbury and finally to Dorchester. After 97 miles we arrived at dusk , back where we had set out 9 months and 5,719 miles ago, at Sue`s Mum’s house, to a very welcome cup of tea.
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