August 31, 2014
Hoek van Holland - Breda
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Travelling this route inevitably means an early start, off the boat by 7-30. This could almost be the best part of the trip. There's a sense of anticipation of adventure, although the word adventure is a bit over the top, when you always have a bed for the night {Barbara refuses to camp} and never go hungry [the knock notwithstanding]. Nevertheless we were off into the world, wind-assisted and accompanied, as far as Maasluis, by another British couple, Yvonne and Peter from Sadleworth, Gtr. Manchester, with plans to cycle down the Rhine.
At Maasluis [pronounced Mashlowsh}, we crossed the river on the ferry to Rozenburg and turned left. The next few kilometres on the south bank of the Maas we were surrounded by tank farms and petrochemical plants, until Spijkenisse, where we we left heavy industry behind. I've no complaint, I like industrial landscape. I had preloaded our route into a GPS device, which was fine until across the river from Oude Beverland, the anticipated ferry had just left, not to return for two hours or so. There's another ferry 4km that way, said a man whose house overlooks the river, the Spui. So we rode back, reluctantly downriver and into the wind for the short and regular crossing to Nieuw Beijerland. The Spui, incidentally, flows backwards away from the Haringvliet dam as part of South Holland's flood protection system, the Delta Works. From the ferry, we followed its flow backwards ourselves as far as Oude Beijerland, in the company of two US cyclists, Walter and Linda from N. Carolina. They were riding Bike Fridays, loaded for camping. The first time, I'd ever seen them in action.
At s'Gravendeel, Barbara complained of feeling hungry. We'd eaten most of our supplies, on the other side of the Splui at the slow ferry terminal [a notice board and a bench]. Shops are mostly shut on Sundays in the Netherlands, but on our route, right there in s'Grevendeel, appeared a chip shop, Paulus Fritespaleis. Paul's Chip Palace. We stopped and ate chips [fries] with tomato sauce and mayonnaise. They do a good chip in this country and at Paulus's they are master craftsmen.
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Beyond s'Gravendeel, we were due, according to Mynheer Garmin, to recross the Maas, towards Dordrecht. Up on the Maas dyke, looking into the distance in both directions, I could see neither bridge nor ferry. We asked an elderly man, first if he spoke English [a little] then how do we cross the river? “There's a tunnel.” “Is there?” We had seen no tunnel. We'd missed the turn. Retracing, we found it easily enough, two for motor traffic and alongside, another two for us cyclists, the Kiltunnel. We turned south to cross a larger body of water, Hollandsch Diep, this time by bridge, on which I spoke to another American cyclist, a young guy from Boston on his way from Amsterdam to Rome. Over the other side, in North Brabant province, the darkening skies gave out some short-lived drops of rain.
We found a hotel in Breda [pronounced BredA, stress on the final a] and it rained some more. I bought food and drink from the expensive convenience store at the railway station, which we ate in the room, before an early night.
Today's ride: 105 km (65 miles)
Total: 141 km (88 miles)
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