A cycling holiday along the North Sea and Baltic coasts

Updates on our journey in English and German from June 1

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Day 1: Hoek van Holland to Haarlem

A fantastic first day's cycling with warm, dry weather. We picked up Marly in Hoek, where her ferry arrived from Harwich. From there it was a leisurely, well sign-posted ride through the sand dunes on good surfaces.







We had a challenging patch for an hour or so between Noordvijk and Zandvoort (hope I've spelt those right), with some very strong head winds and steep dunes to go up and down. We've decided to head off early tomorrow since the wind (which is against us at the moment) gets stronger in the afternoon.

It was a public holiday so the cycle paths were very busy with all sorts, including speedy groups of racers. So no time for dreaming and dawdling. We saw one minor collision with a car. Should be quieter tomorrow.

Haarlem greeted us with a festival of fairground organs and the local Brit-pop band on the main square. The mixture sounded a bit like a Dutch version of Sgt. Pepper.

Marly navigated us to our snappily named Stay Okay hostel, which is not centrally located, but very efficient.

In the bar, we met a Swiss guy who is testing his personal invention: a bike trailer that turns into a bed and a tent! Check out his Web site here: www.solar-flyer.ch

The weather is expected to get worse so we"re enjoying every moment in the sun... This is too good to last!

Today's run: 82 km

Tomorrow we are heading on to the island of Texel.

2 comments:

  1. huhu! das sieht ja schön aus bei euch, sonne und wind, genau wie man das erwartet.
    ich schick euch einen dicken kuss!und esst nicht soviel fla(vla?)!
    caro
    (ps wir haben ganz dolle aufgeräumt in der wohnung, du wirst es lieben, schmutti!)

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  2. it's raining miserably back at the start point of our journey, hope you have had better luck with the weather today! m xx

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