Thursday June 14, 2018.
Our day started with a bit of a sleep in then then a leisurely breakfast after which we backed up our bike gear into panniers for the last time for the epic voyage back to Amsterdam via public transport with bikes.
Our good samaritan with a bike rack on his car who had helped Wayne before, emerged from his room and helped us get to the bike shop in Krimpen aan de lek (Krimpen on the Lek (river - see almost fluent)) to pick up Wayne's broken bike. Both bikes were loaded onto the back of his car, and he took us to the ferry pier at Krimpen aan den IJssel about 10kms away to catch the fast Waterbus to Rotterdam, which took about 25 minutes.
We were loaded on with all the other bikes (bikes travelled free on the Waterbus) and as we pulled away, I noticed a giant Noahs Ark (De Ark van Noach) parked near the pier. I cannot find much about it, other than it was built by a Dutch carpenter and cost 4 million euro to build.
Although a bit cool, it was a very pleasant ferry ride into Rotterdam, and we got to see many of the famous bridges of Rotterdam along the way and a very large cruise ship berthed.
On the water bus we noticed a young woman who was also wearing bike gear, fluorescent colours and had a helmet with her. We identified her as non local due to these identifiers, and had a chat with her upon alighting. She was from Germany and was touring around as well.
We found our way to the Rotterdam Centraal Station - Wayne walking and pushing his bike, me trying to not go too fast on my laden steed in the streets of Rotterdam. Incidentally, Rotterdam is deemed the least bike friendly city in The Netherlands, however it was still eons ahead of what we get in Australia. We had to buy tickets for our bikes to make the journey and we had to get on a bike specific carriage. It was really warm inside the train.
We enjoyed the scenery rushing past, and saw the famous greenhouses of Westland which cover many, many acres and are essential for the Netherlands food and Tulip supply and export. The area is renowned for the technology and amount of food produced. Wayne commented when he used to fly into Amsterdam in the dark, these greenhouses were like a beacon to indicate Amsterdam was close.
We arrived in Amsterdam, met up with our daughter to collect the keys to her home, then figured out how to buy a ticket for the train south. We now understood why the Dutch have more than one bike - getting bikes onto trains is inconvenient and expensive. So they have a bike for home, and a bike for work if they need to catch the trains and buses.
We managed to get to where we needed to be at about 2pm, cleaned the bikes and packed them away. Repacked our bags for flight and non riding mode and headed to our hotel in the north and west of Amsterdam and had a lovely dinner with our daughter recounting our adventure.
Total stats for the trip
653.9 kms, (Wayne did 506km on a bike not meant to do more than 10kms a day,)
one broken bike, one bike with precarious brakes, no flats.
Elevation total for entire trip 905m.
😉
We estimate about 95% of those kms were on dedicated bike lanes, or paths or sections of the road for cyclists. Very few kms we were amongst traffic and we nearly always had right of way.
No angry car horns or abuse flung out of windows at us, and we even had cars stopping to let us cross roads when we did not have right of way. It would be lovely if NSW or Australia could come closer to this utopia for cycling.
Estimated amount of cheese consumed - let’s just say I have loaded for a few years worth of riding.
We visited the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Leiden, Den Haag, Sheveningen, Kinderdijk, Doertrecht, Lommel (Belgium), Maastricht, Eindhoven, Den Bosch, Utrecht and many other small villages along the way. All were quite different to each other, but all made cyclists feel very welcome.
Now onto to plan the next one - Europe again I think, maybe even more of The Netherlands but north Netherlands this time. Love the country. Spain is enticing as is Italy....
