19 June 2014 (cloudy and mild, showers, windy) 63 km

Had a good night’s sleep as did the pigs behind us by the sounds of it – they seemed to be snoring.  Made a cup of tea then went to visit the toilet and said hello to Sandra and Niels who were already up.  They have three beautiful boys aged 5, 3 and 1 and the elder two were curious to see our tent.  So once they were dressed they came to visit us.  It’s a shame we can’t speak Dutch as they obviously wanted to communicate, as did we, but were unable to.  We had to content ourselves with taking some photos and the elder boy, Christiaan, was able to count to ten in English for us.  Then Sandra took them all to school with Christiaan riding his own bike, the three year old on the back of Mum’s bike and the one year old on the front.

Said goodbye and thank you to Niles and pedalled off to pick up the route which would get us back to where we were yesterday. Interesting to note with the game last night that there were a number of families there and at least half a dozen kids, who were all doing their own thing in front of the Tele whilst the game was on and at no time did I hear an angry word from anyone for them to get out of the way. 

The goal today was to move in a north west direction heading generally toward  Den Haag but not expecting to get there today, but perhaps tomorrow. As it was at the end of yesterday’s ride, the cycling was smooth and steady, only this time we were moving forward through great lanes with a lot of flower gardens and also potato crops. 

a field of white poppies

Passed through one village about 10.30am and decided to sample the bakery’s selection.

Hurry up Ju, I'm hungry!

So a few km’s down the road we pulled over to the side and enjoyed some fantastic baking. Julia decided she was glad that she doesn’t work in a bakery, or she’d be the size of a horse.

Pushed on toward Strijen on the other side of the motorway and a large canal. Had to ride alongside this mass of noise, pollution and excess speed for about 2km and we couldn’t believe the amount of traffic, especially trucks. Glad to get away from there and soon we were even further away as we went under the motorway and headed N.W. This area wasn’t in keeping with the organised, tidy, Holland that we are used to and we got the impression that the people who live there just thought

“oh sod it, they’ve built a bloody great motorway next door, why should we give a damn about our houses”.

Just along the road we encountered our first tunnel of the tour, a 500 metre effort which took us away and into a huge agricultural area, where we remained for the rest of the day. 

A surprising sight in the countryside

Into Strijen where we spent an hour in the library on the computer (with limited coverage ) trying to get the bloody thing to work properly. As they were closing at 1pm the lady asked us to leave and wasn’t too impressed when we asked to use the loos on the way out.

Asked a lady for directions to the supermarket and really lucked out here.  She was a 72 year old sweetheart and told us to follow her as she was going there herself.  Had a great chat with her as we all cycled along on our bikes and then we kept bumping into her round the supermarket and again at the checkout.  Really nice lady. Stopped for lunch just out of town in a graffittied bus stop, but it gave us shelter from the headwind we have had all day. Rode on into the next town of Numansdorp, by now the sky was looking ominous so we took refuge in a café called Tapperij where …..once again we were hoping for somewhere which had a connection to our blog or skype.

There are lots of thatched houses in Holland

Julia is now very pissed off with the new computer, or is it the limited connections we’ve been using since we arrived in Holland.  Either way, it’s frustrating, and it continued.  Connection, but limited.  Feeling quite exhausted from the whole process we set to finding a campground for the night and found one just out of Numansdorp.  Very clean, well set out with excellent facilities and not too expensive.  The average price seems to be about 15 euros for the two of us per night, or about $25.  Had great showers, cooked up some beans, tuna and macaroni for dinner followed by coffee and biscuits.  Went to the camp lounge room which was closed by this time, (8pm), so we sat in the porch and tried to post a blog again with no luck.  Checked messages and planned route to Rotterdam tomorrow where we hope to resolve our computer problems.