Nijmegen to Venlo ...

Le tour 2019 begins ... 

7 June 2019 - Day 2

69.5 Kms                                                                               

Total distance on the trip 162.7

3:56:28 moving time

100m elevation

Total elevation 232m

We had planned to spend the upcoming Whitsunday public holiday weeked in Dusseldorf with our daughter and partner, bikes are not allowed on the Intercity trains (ICE), and we thought it would be OK to ride from Nijmegen through to Dusseldorf. (We could have taken a german regional train to Dussledorf from Venlo and spent a day riding around Dusseldorf - but we didn't take that option.)

This day of riding was mentally and physically tough, read on for more about this ...

We caught a train to Nijmegen to begin our cycling crusade. We rode 66kms on a route that Google selected for us. It was essentially a straight line from beginning to end along a main road (on a separated bike track of course). We also had to contend with a wicked 20km/h headwind from beginning to end with gusts of over 30 km/h. Our progress was slow and painful but we did see some nice things. 

The Maas river was so close, but without tracks to ride on we could not enjoy the water at all. There were a couple of times we diverted to try to find a more interesting route, but, it was not to be. 

The off road attempt we made - Wayne going far ahead to get the edge on the weight of his bike.

We even tried a single MTB track fully loaded - we did not fall off, but it was not quite as fun (read, no fun) as being on a lighter bike. Wayne was not impressed about this diversion with his very heavy load.

We saw a number of deer farms, sheep in custody and a couple of ostriches just hanging out on a small block of land.

Beautiful, historic Arcen.

As we got closer to Venlo we passed through a very historic town called Arcen, it had a castle and beautiful gardens, but we were really tired from the ride and only took a few minutes to appreciate the historic buildings.

The parade through the main street of Venlo.

We stayed right in the centre of Venlo at The Hotel Puur, which was very close to the Markt and old buildings. The town had a parade for all the children who had been walking running 2kms a day during the week. All of the school children were in this parade along with Oompa bands and all sorts of parade fun. This was the highlight of our otherwise hard riding day.

I also met the largest dog I have ever met. It was a wolfhund and he was lovely. 

Venlo is right on the border with Germany and has a long history of changing between the Netherlands and Germany.