NL2018 Day 5: Groningen to Harlingen

Wednesday 13 June 2018

Here was our planned track for the day:

We had a good night’s sleep in our caravan but the washing that had been hanging in the bathroom had not dried unfortunately. I put my items in a plastic bag to try to dry them this evening, Klaus put his wet clothes on!

We had a very tasty breakfast:

This seems to be the traditional Dutch breakfast of lots of rolls, cheese and ham, one egg and also jam and marmalade and chocolate sprinkles (we don’t eat the latter).

Our bikes had had a very comfortable night in storage:

We checked out and were on the way at 9:15.

After about 1km our route suddenly changed and the bike path we had been on beside the road changed to a very narrow path, barely the width of a Velomobile, and a bit uneven and bumpy. We kept going along this as there wasn’t really an alternative.

After about 2km this bumpy path turned onto a bridge over a small canal and we were back to decent roads again, hurrah!

Today was a day of lovely views again. I liked these house boats, some were just like square houses.

We were lucky enough to see another stork, and this time I even managed to take a (very grainy) photo of it!

As well as the stork, today we have seen hundreds of swallows. They sometimes fly incredibly close to the Velomobiles but always get out of the way in time. I love to watch their acrobatics!

Today’s road surfaces were mostly good (no 12km of brick paving like yesterday!) and this meant we could cruise through the countryside in a very relaxed manner. Here in there in the landscape we saw windmills.

As we were leaving Kommmerzijl we rode along a section of road where the hedges were being cut. This is a very familiar experience for me from my cycling years in the UK, although the hedges are cut much later in the year there after the birds have finished nesting. But it is a classic time for a puncture, and lo and behold a couple of kilometres later:

This was the first puncture on the road with Humphrey and in the Marathon Greenguards at the back.

We found the culprit and unsurprisingly it was a thorn from the. Hedge cutting. We found a second thorn trying to work its way into the front left tyre so removed the really sharp shard of that too. Reinflating two tyres to 6 bar (100 PSI) keeps you warm!

The puncture was dealt with and we carried on. We had ridden 25km and knew that our main lunch stop would be at the 50km mark in Dokkum. We doubted we would find anything before that and because of the chance to stretch our legs with the puncture repair we didn’t need to stop again.

Clouds were gathering over the landscape as we trundled our way towards Dokkum into what was becoming a pretty stiff headwind.

In due course we arrived in Dokkum and found a restaurant where we had tomato soup and then a sandwich. We are eating a lot of bread on this tour – we don’t normally eat it!

One thing we noticed is that passers by seem less likely to touch the velomobiles than in Germany. We are able to relax a bit more as people seem to have more respect for our property! In Germany people often seem to ignore the fact that these bikes are private property!

After a leisurely lunch we set off again with 55km to ride.

Our route started along the N356 which has a decent cycle path beside it but they were renewing sections of the cycle path so we had quite a lot of mini detours. We ended up going through the villages of Foudgum, Brantgum and Waaxens rather than past them!

We then turned westwards parallel to the sea but we couldn’t see it at all because of the dikes.

We were on the main road to Leeuwarden but at Hallum we turned off on a quieter road that headed a bit more north. This was a lovely road with very little traffic and some lovely views (photo by Klaus)

This road was fairly fast and we were making good progress through villages with names like Oudebildtzijl and Nij Altoenae despite a very gusty and strong head/sidewind. The road ran along the top of a dike and there were houses most of the way along, but no shops, restaurants or Cafés. We had thought to stop for a cuppa but no chance.

At Westhoek we were finally near the sea (although we couldn’t see it) and the road became rather more agricultural.

We saw only a few cars, almost no people – but lots of sheep!

We realised we wouldn’t find any cake until we arrived in Harlingen. This meant we had ridden a 25k stretch without a single cafe or bakery. That would be extremely unusual in Germany!

Harlingen has lots of industry on the outskirts, mainly relating to wind turbines and fishing. The town itself was very pretty with a nice central street.

We found a cafe and ordered some cakes.

Once again, like other cake experiences in NL, my cake looked better than it tasted.

Our B&B was in a residential area 2km outside the main town. The host was very friendly and they offered to wash our cycling kit which was great!

We rode back into Harlingen for an evening meal at a pizzeria. It was nice enough but much more expensive than in Germany.

When we came back we stowed the velomobiles in the back garden. It was a tight squeeze to get Humphrey round a corner and he seems to have picked up some new scratches in his paintwork as a result which is a bit of a shame. We really must have a go with the colour touch-up stick!

One very bad discovery was that the battery charger we had packed to charge the velomobie batteries (for the lighting) did not work. This was a brand new charger that we had received with Humphrey but never used as we had Celeste’s charger at home. We left Celeste’s charger and I just put the new one, Humphrey’s, into the packing. But it appears that it doesn’t work at all. Both Millie’s batteries are completely flat and Humhrey’s Battery Number 1 is at about 20%. We have two spare batteries so I have one that I must eke out for another 10 days. With my large LED brake light this is not possible, so we have emailed Velomobiel.nl and asked them to post a replacement to Alex in Rotterdam who we will see on Sunday. Let’s hope that works, but if any readers know of an alternative option please let us know!

Today’s ride was 107.2km with fairly strong headwind a lot of the way. Our average speed was 20.9 km/h and my average heart rate was 115 bpm. My average cadence. was 62 so you can see it was a super comfortable cruising day.

Tomorrow I ride the Afsluitdijk again but this time in a Velomobile. I hope there will be fewer insects landing on me this time too, we are only just beginning to see improvement in our Oak Processionary caterpillar rashes!!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Translate »