Monday 18 June 2018
This was our planned route for the day:
A short report for today as it’s my birthday and I want to enjoy a relaxing evening with Klaus!
We left our brilliant B&B at 9am and headed off in a light drizzle towards Burgh Haamstede itself and then further south towards Middelburg.
We had some more impressive dams/sluices/bridges for the day.
This one looked very complicated!
The only obvious place to stop in the first 50km was Middelburg, which at 30km was quite early but I needed the loo! We found a cafe where we just had drinks as it was too early for cake. Middelburg seemed very lovely, I saw this impressive row of buildings on the way out.
The rain had stopped and we were now on really fast bike paths so were zooming along at 30 km/h for long stretches.
We crossed more canals.
Saw more impressive bridges
And then decided to stop in Kruiningen for lunch and found a bakery/ice cream cafe/post office that was open.
They had sausage rolls!
I also had a cake as it was my birthday but once again it was a bit of a disappointment.
We carried on, keeping up a good speed and our average was creeping up too. Although today was a longer distance at 118km, which would normally be 6 hours at our NL speed, we realised we would arrive at the hotel a bit earlier than originally expected.
More bridges.
And this, dead ahead, is Antwerp. We are on the edge of Belgium.
We went down one street where the Belgian border was on our right hand side. We rode at a good pace except for a few bad cycle routes and brick paving in towns. I liked this road name!
Our average was at 23.5 km/h as we arrived in the outskirts of Roosendaal, at which point Klaus and I lost each other as I had a navigation issue due to a missing cycle path. But we met again outside our hotel which, despite having slightly singular proprietors, seems very nice. Our bikes were stored in one of two special bike parking areas which have someone watching the bikes. This is free of charge, it is just provided by the city, and was in a building in the main pedestrian precinct. Excellent!
We went out for a celebratory birthday dinner at a local Greek restaurant which is apparently the second best in the Netherlands. I enjoyed the meal very much but was a bit amazed at one of the dessert options (and which Klaus chose), which was Banoffee Pie. This Eastbourne dish has really travelled through Europe!
I had a Baklava as I love them!
Anyway, we had a good day although I’m feeling a bit tired now. Tomorrow we visit some Dutch/Belgian Enclaves and Exclaves and then will stay with a colleague of Klaus’s in Tilburg for the night. A shorter day but with plenty of interesting things to see. We are now heading eastwards with the wind either behind us or to our quarter, so the riding is easier and this is a sign that the tour is drawing to an end.