Week 2, London to Amsterdam and beyond...

My farewell to the UK saw me cycling 124 km’s from London to Harwich to catch the 11-45 pm ferry to Hoek van Holland in the Netherlands. A long day in the saddle that ended well after dark due to a  detour to be able to pop into Re-cycle, a Non-Profit organisation based in Colchester that collects and distributes second hand bicycles to various locations in Africa, where I met Derek and a few of the volunteers. A fantastic organisation that has recycled and distributed over 35 000 bikes to Africa in the last 10 years, looking forward to building on the relationship and fingers crossed we raise enough funds to bring over a container to Cape Town.

Arrived at Hoek van Holland at about 8 am the following morning, after a well deserved sleep on the ferry, spent the first 20 minutes of the day doing some bike maintenance removing the front mud guard that had been damaged in London traffic and was rattling like crazy and the next 20 minutes wrapping my head around cycling on the right/wrong side of the road. Met a Canadian fellow heading north, so we set off on one of the many Dutch cycle networks a completely separate road system only for cyclists we followed the west coast and hugged the coastline of the North Sea up to Haarlem and then cut across into Amsterdam a 92 km haul in the wrong direction. But hey; what would a trip to Holland be without a visit to the Dam.

Amsterdam is a beautiful city with a bicycle culture second to none, more bicycles than people, I found myself running around like a kid in a candy store, they seem to use the bike as a tool to fetch and carry people, groceries etc. Certainly a paradigm we could learn from, the bike brings to Amsterdam a sense of cohesion a common denominator for its residents.

A few days in the capital gathering footage and set off south via Utrecht another stunning Dutch city with a tiered canal system littered with cafes and restaurants. From Utrecht to roughly 28 km’s out of Breda where I’ve set up tent in the woods next to a beautiful little stream about 200m off the main route south. The first of many camping sessions on this trip, it feels really good to be out of the urban sprawl and back on long winding roads with open spaces.

The mind feels clear and the body feels strong winding through the back roads of the countryside, time to think and take in all the finer details. Travelling by bicycle seems to be a great pace to move at, quick enough to get places but slow enough not to miss them. Will continue south towards Breda and onward to Belgium, if all goes well my next blog will be out of France.