Doorwerth to Gennep, a farm stay: a drizzly, rainy kind of day
As always seems to happen to us, when we plan ahead and take shelter from a storm, we awaken to another storm just when we plan to leave. But today, the rain is not so heavy, more like a heavy mist at times. The skies are completely socked in, it is a cold and damp day. Rain gear is on and we are ready to go.
Rather than retracing some of our previous ride and having to ride through Arnhem, we have opted to take a ferry across the river, explore Elst, Nijmegen and then begin our final Dutch LF route south along the River Maas. Following the LF3 will take us to Roermond. Then we will follow a portion of Hans Reitsma's route (Amsterdam to Rome) from Roermond along the River Duur to the River Rhine and then finish our riding at Koblenz. Here we will take the train to Limburg and ride the final 25 km (?) to our friends' home. And then finally, we fly home on the 6th of September. Where does the time go?
We expect to take about a week to get to Koblenz and we will take our time as we want to enjoy these final days of riding in Holland and Germany.
As always we had a pleasant experience on the wee passenger ferry across the Nederrijn. Following the numbers, we cruised through the countryside to Elst and found a "lunchroom" cafe to have food and get warm. We elected not to explore much of Nijmegen as we didn't want to take the time a bigger city requires.
Our first glimpse of the River Maas revealed a sizable river which is what we like since it means that we will be able to watch the traffic of working river boats, container ships and pleasure boats while we cycle alongside.
When we reached Gennep we noticed that everything was dry. Even though the distances are not great here, it seems that the weather can be quite different in closeby regions. They had not experienced the rain storms that we did in Doorwerth.
We headed into Maasduinen National Park to find a Farm called Carpe Diem which has "Klein Kamping" and B&B. Once we got there, we realized that staying in this B&B was a Dutch experience that we couldn't miss. This small farm has horses, pigs, chickens and cows. The barn attached to the house has been converted to a cafe while retaining its authentic historic feeling. This is where we will have breakfast.
It was delightful to fall asleep to the sound of cows and a view of the countryside from our room.
We met this family from Brussels and their young Golden Retriever puppy, Misse at the hotel. The family loves soccer and if she had been a boy, the dog would have been called Messe! The boys are patiently teaching the puppy to look at the camera.
We do enjoy these short ferry rides in the Netherlands. Charming with personal service: the captain wheeled our trailer off for us and up the steep slope.
As we got off the ferry, we saw this monument honouring the efforts of British and Canadian troops during the famous Battle of Arnhem. The Canadian and British troops rescued 2400 of 3000 stranded members of the Airborne by taking them across the Rhine in small boats in very dangerous exposed conditions. The rescued Airborne never got to "see" or thank their courageous efforts and erected this monument in gratitude.
1000's of bikes parked at Nijmegen train station. In the Netherlands, we often mistake a store to be a bike shop because of the cluster of bikes parked in front.
Yummy pastries from a patisserie that has been well established for some time. Hazelnut pastry and apple slice to enjoy later in the forest with our thermosof coffee when we find a bench.
