Photos from my mobile #2



Omelette for dinner!  Yum yum.



Torrential rain in Enkhuizen

 


Gregor's bike can fit in the stand thankfully!

 


Lots of boats with wings here!



Cooking on the Trangia stove!



Left to right: car road, trees, bike path!



Finding our next number with the ride-by-numbers system



My bike!  Tyres are too wide for most stands though
so she has to lean



Gregor figuring out the diy ferry



A nice house at Heeg



Photos from my mobile #1





For those who have trouble seeing my Twitter uploads, here are some of the pictures I‘ve put up so far.

Another boat with wings :)







In Heeg





Hello!





Arriving at Stavoren





Torrential rain in Enkhuizen





Our first beer stop in Heeg



Day 5, taking it slowly

We‘re having a slightly slow couple of days (yesterday, today, tomorrow) mostly because of the weather. As I‘ve posted previously, it rained heavily yesterday, and this was followed by strong winds into the evening. From Enkhuizen we caught the afternoon ferry across the water to Stavoren. When we arrived at 6pm it was so windy we headed to the first campsite we saw a signpost for, which was thankfully just around the corner at the marina. This hadn‘t been our planned camping destination but after Gregor and bike were blown into a road sign we realised we hadn‘t much choice but to stop soon. We pitched the tent fairly quickly and had an easy but delicious dinnner of hot-dogs, rolls and salad.

Yesterdays rain and wind encouraged us to check the weather forcast for the next few days so we could know what to expect. I‘m glad we did because on the weather map for Sunday you could hardly see The Netherlands for a huge blue patch of rain! Due to this rain beginning on the Saturday night and not clearing till Monday morning we decided to book into a hostel for tonight and tomorrow night. Now we are able to experience tomorrows downpour from the comfort of inside!

Choosing to stay in a hostel meant we didn‘t have far to ride this morning. We were only on the road for an hour and a half before reaching our destination and so haven‘t got much riding done today, but a camping strategy wouldn‘t be sensible if we ended up drenched. We have had a nice journey today though. At one point it was rather entertaining to find that suddenly our cycle path had ended and that we had to ring a bell to call the ferry-man over to help us cross the canal! We paid one euro each and were over and on our way within minutes. Currently in the hostel we are lucky to have a whole room to ourselves (we‘d booked into a 6 bed room as it was cheapest but it must be quiet season still..) and have spead out all our gear for drying/airing.

Rain, rain, go away..

At this very moment the clouds have cleared and the sun is shining, but moments ago the rain was pouring down (see Twitter feed for a picture). It seems that just as the sun dries out the roads the rain quickly decides to cover them again. We took refuge inside away from the showers but will soon have to head out again to catch our ferry to our next destination. Here‘s hoping last nights thunderstorm used up most of the rain and that we‘ll manage to get to cover before storm two on Sunday ;)  Last night we got back to our campsite after our day trip just in time before the rain began to bucket down. Thankfully, as we‘d stayed at that site the night before, we didn‘t have to pitch the tent again so we climbed in quickly and eventually fell asleep to the rumbles of thunder and the occassional bright flash of lightning.

Day 3, Enkhuizen

Hello and welcome to my first blog post from The Netherlands! Today is our third full day here and so far riding, navigation, shopping and camping have all been fairly straightforward and enjoyable. The Dutch really do have it sussed when it comes to cycle paths and not only have excellent bike specific paths with (generally) smooth surfacing but they use a kind of ‘cycle by numbers‘ system. Each intersection in the cycle network is numbered so you plan your route using the numbers and following the signs to the next after each intersection. At some points there are maps so you can plan the next part of your route, but we already have a paper copy of the whole network so don‘t have to rely on the roadside ones. Having our own copy also means we can plan our route for tomorrow the evening before.

Today we visited the Zuiderzeemuseum, an open air village museum made up of original houses and shops which have been relocated from various parts of The Netherlands and which represent different periods of Dutch life. My favourite buildings were the post office, where I bought and posted a few postcards, and the pharmacy, where the red lables (such as on the peppermints I bought) meant it was consumable and blue lables meant it was an external ointment etc (red for the blood inside and blue for the sky outside).

Bike finished!

Finally, I think/hope, my bike has all its right bits on and is ready to go.  A good thing too, as we leave on Monday morning!  We had a bit of a panic as Gregor couldn't get one of the old crank arms off in order to fit the new chainset/bottom bracket, so we had to take her along to the bike shop.  As I nervously drank my tea and ate my scone next door, the bike mechanics were struggling... no not really, hehe - with the right tools the crank came off in minutes and I finished my tea happy that I would still be able to tour on my own bike (not going touring would never have been an option, quickly converting one of Gregor's other bikes (the singlespeed? hehe) would have been however).

Here she is!  Finished!  During the re-building process pretty much everything was replaced.. I think the only 'original' parts are the frame, the headset, and the seatpost and clamp!  Time to go and continue packing and re-packing our panniers now :)

Only a week to go!

With our departure date fast approaching Gregor and I have been writing some last minute to-do lists and hoping we don‘t need to buy anything else from the internet.  After a fast paced weekend watching DH and 4X at the Fort William World Cup we‘re on our way up to Inverness for a final visit to my family before our big adventure begins.  We had originally planned to ride up from Glasgow for a shake-down before the tour, but a couple of weekends ago we did an overnighter from Dundee to Stonehaven and survived, summerising that as long as we pack everything on our list we‘ll be fiiine :)  So aye, we cheated a bit, but I‘m glad we decided to go to Fort William - I‘d never been before and thoroughly enjoyed it!