25 June 2014 (sun, cloud,warm) 110 km

I used to wonder why the farmers I know, had a hard edge to them. Was it the 14 hour days on a continuous basis, out in all weathers, the constant financial worry about whether or not whatever they farmed was going to pay. As far as life and death on the farm went, they were immune to it. If ol Fred the farm dog died, it was a quick “good on ya Fred” before chucking him in the hole.  

Julia had always had chickens when she was younger and she used to tell me all the niceties of having these little clucky things running around the back yard and clucking when one laid an egg. That was until last night………At 3.20am a rooster sounded, through the hedge behind us. Then another with a slightly different tone to it’s voice.  All was good until it went on……and on……and on.

Three hours later Julia can’t stand chickens anymore. She will eat any and all that is put in front of her. The lovely sound of childhood clucking has been replaced by a maniacal desire to kill anything that remotely sounds like a cluck. She will wring its neck happily and spit out the bones with a smile.

Julia now….at 7am I announced I couldn’t take it anymore, this endless cock-a-doodle-dooing.  Even the bloody roosters were going hoarse!  So time to leave the warmth of our sleeping bags and go test out the showers.  They were immaculate and didn’t have a time limit on them, so we enjoyed that, then breakfast, then broke camp and headed east.  Our ride today started with a 3 km jaunt through the forest on a lovely smooth cycling track.  No traffic, only the occasional cyclist to share it with.  Then we were into the lovely town of Ammerfort.  The houses on the ride in were all so neat and tidy, it made us wonder about the state of our own untended garden.  However, the sight of a Starbucks across the road soon put that out of our minds as the promise of free wifi and a caramel macchiato were soon the prime focus.  The coffee was magnificent but the wifi connection pathetic.  Couldn’t do anything on it so were a bit miffed at having shelled out about $7 each for a coffee with no wifi.  Good job the coffee was so good.  So we stopped at the train station to see if we could get wifi there and got stopped by an envious long distance cycle rider in his suit and tie who wished he was doing what we were doing.  Had a chat with him and then ventured further into the old town, which was magnificent.  The ride there was outstanding as well, past some beautiful, established areas with big houses. 

 The old town was so picturesque and we found the Information Centre on the edge of the town square.  I asked if I could use their wifi and they said “Sure” so I updated the blog, checked messages and checked our route for the day using the dot-to-dot system.  I’ve got to say, this system hasn’t been the best the past few days but we held out hope that it would work well today.  When it’s well sign-posted, it’s fantastic.   

Some of the moats and canals look less than clean - wouldn't want to fall into that green slime!

 All this mucking about with wifi had taken a lot of time, so it was midday before we headed eat once again through the less salubrious part of town and picked up the green and white dots.  They led us on a course across the flat farmland and into one quaint village after another.

We had three hours of smooth riding with no hiccups in the signposting, or our ability to follow them.  Stopped for lunch in a kids park on the outskirts of a village and shortly after that had a confusing time with the signs which put us off track for about half an hour.  Anyhow, we found our way back to the planned route and then had a lovely quiet ride through forest tracks for the next twenty kms which brought us to the town of Appeldorn.  

The ruined city walls of Zutphen

We weren’t too far from our destination of Lochem, about thirty kms we reckoned, but decided it was probably a bit far as it was already 5.30pm, so went into town to find a supermarket.  Eventually found one but couldn’t find any campsite signs so just started out towards Lochem which is where the son of one of our client’s lives.  We’ve never met him or his wife before, but his mother insisted he would love to have us come and stay.  We hoped she was  right and had emailed him earlier saying we may well make it there tonight so thought we may as well push on for Lochem for the night.  

One of the huge houses on the way to Lochem

Eventually turned up at Bart and Wendy’s door at 9.30pm (luckily it doesn’t start to get dark until 10.30pm) where Bart welcomed us inside with a much appreciated beer as today had been our biggest day to date with 110 km.  He also made us a lovely dinner when he heard we hadn’t eaten and we had a good chat until he went to pick Wendy up from the train station at 11.30pm.  I went and got a shower and met Wendy when I got out at midnight and we all sat round chatting til 1.35am!  Luckily we don’t have to work in the morning but Bart and Wendy do!