17 June 2014 (cloudy and mild) 43 km

NOTE: the photos shown on today's blog are actually from yesterday on our ride from Antwerp to Breda....seeing as we saw bugger-all today!

Today was the day when everything went pear-shaped.  First priority was to see if the computer would turn on – it wouldn’t.  Well kids, you should have seen your Dad.  He was frustrated beyond belief.  He couldn’t write his blog and it was really getting to him.  He was so anxious to get into town and get it fixed that he woke me from a beautiful deep sleep at 5.30am.  You’d think after 26 years of marriage he would know better.  So I gently pointed out to him that the shops wouldn’t be open ‘til 9am, so what was the hurry?  Well we were both awake now so we had breakfast and packed  up the tent and headed into Breda to try and get some good shots before everyone else woke up.  Well Breda is a nice clean town, well set out with lovely houses, but it didn’t have the same stunning historic old town as Gent and Antwerp. 

Kastellan Veltwijck - even the old stables are impressive

As it turned out, the computer shops didn’t open ‘til 10am and the tourist information office didn’t open ‘til 9.30am, so we went to a coffee shop across the road from the info office called “Coffee and Cream” and it was perfect.  We walked in there pretty grumpy and the lovely girl in there made us the

A fitting resident for the stables - only needs a long horn out of it's
forehead to complete the picture.

best mochas we’ve had all week and served them with a beautiful smile and a jovial personality.  Pete thanked her and I wrote her a little note to say how much we had appreciated her coffee and service.  Went to the Info office afterwards and mapped out our planned route for the day before cycling back to one

One of the many tree lined lanes we have cycled down this week.

of the computer shops we’d spied earlier.  It was supposed to open at 10am according to the sign on the door, but when we arrived at ten past ten, it was still closed.  So it was off to find one of the others we’d seen.  Found it, but the guy was next to useless.  Picked it up, turned it around, pushed the

There have been some beautiful houses that have caught our eye

plug, pulled the plug, rolled it over etc… For Christ’s sake man!  Out of there and cycling down one of the shopping streets we spied an Apple shop so tried that.  They very kindly printed off a map to show us how to get to a shop that dealt in our brand, an Asus.  It was only about 2km away so we

cycled there and they told us it was kaput.  They took $100 off us to send it back even though it was under warranty, which still left us without a computer.  It wouldn’t be back for a month at the earliest, so $800 later and our day has died and gone to hell.  No option however, but the bad news is that we lost ten

days of photos.  I had been meaning to back them up over the past few days but with the long mileage we’d been doing, it had just got left.   At least we have some record with the blog photos.  And I have learnt my lesson…do not delete off camera until you have backed them up.

Out of there and off in search of somewhere to eat with wifi so we could load the new computer.  Found a McDonalds not too far away.  Yes, I can hear everyone now……but they have plugs next to your seats so you can charge your devices as well as get internet access.  Except the slow connections they have in coffee shops is not up to the task of installing software on new computers, so we had to cycle back to the shop we’d bought it from where Julia began loading all the information on the new computer while I cycled back to the tourist info office to find a campground for tonight.  Managed to find my way back to Julia after about an hour, who was still busy setting up.  That took until 4pm when we finally started out for Katjeskelder, a wooded area just north of Breda with several campgrounds.  Even trying to get out of the city of Breda was awkward.  It’s been one helluva day, but after asking about ten people for directions, we were finally cruising along.  Came upon the campground and as usual, no-one was around.  I used the intercom and a voice told me the price was 26 euros (around $40).  Are you kidding me?!!!!!  This was twice as much as normal.  But we were too dispirited to continue.  We just wanted to rest and perhaps watch some World Cup football which we haven’t seen yet.  “The Voice” amended his first price to 16 euros when he heard we were on bicycles and became our friend.  We love you “Voice”, you get our vote.

A beautiful traffic free forest path for us

Tent up, quick tea and then cycled up to the onsite restaurant to see if the football was on.  It wasn’t but they turned it on for us and we watched Belgium beat Algeria 2-1.  Was hoping to watch Brazil vs Mexico but the place was closing at 9pm.  Soon after we arrived back at the tent, a

It's official - we are definitely in Holland now 

camper van with British plates arrived.  Since we had no map to look at to plan our route tomorrow, we decided to ask if we could see their maps.  Tilly and Anita it turned out, are in fact Dutch but Anita had lived in England for thirty years.  They kindly lent us their map and we began to plot a makeshift course.  When we gave it back thirty minutes later, we asked if they could think of any places of interest we should see on our way to Amsterdam and arranged to have a chat in the morning.