We have a few chores to do before we join the barge for the beginning of our biking adventure. 1. Helmet, the tour company insists that we have one, but didn't bring it and can't buy one. Dutch people don't wear them! Next, book Eurail journey - done. Buy gluten free backup food - check (due to finding coeliac in Norway who gave us the shop name for gf stuff). Now all we need to do is find the boat.
Checked out, it is 11:45, we need to be at the barge between 12:30 and 1pm, boat sailing at 1:30pm. Just a short walk apparently. Off we go dragging one bag with 2 heavily laden backpacks and hand bags. We walked, and walked and dodged and walked and asked directions and walked faster and asked more directions, and walked even faster and sweated a lot and are now stressed and now it is 1:20 and we finally find a man who tells us we are nowhere near where we should be!!! We hail a taxi, jump in and he says he can take us there but he is the slowest gps typist in the universe. We arrive there jump out of the taxi, paying way too much, but happy to be there....... too late. The barge has left. We find a man who rings the barge and then gives us the mobile number of the barge captain and calls us a taxi. We waited and waited and when he finally showed he only didn't know the place that it had been agreed we meet our barge at. We are now frantic, we get to a bridge, but can't find the barge and I am frantically trying to ring any number but the mobile doesn't seem to be working. Finally I get a man in Amsterdam on the phone and say that we are lost! He knows about us!!!!! I am in the process of asking what we should do when I yell in his ear that I can see the barge!!!! coming down the canal. We are greeted with open arms by the tour leader Marcel and called troublemakers by the other people on the boat but we are all happy to meet and begin our adventure together.
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| Anna Cornelia |
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| Marcel - tour leader The uploading here is very slow, not to mention that the z and y have been reversed.... Anyway, Catherine and I missed the first afternoon of riding. We were just happz to be on the barge. The others thought that they were just going out to try out the bikes but 24 kms later they came back and we introduced ourselves. There are 24 of us ranging from 9 to 79. By the end of the week we will find out that we are all troupers, especiallz the oldest and youngest! First night we hit a little town (no name) and headed in for "Tropical Night", only it poured and was very cold. Not to worry, we had an umbrella a couple of Bailey's on the rocks, an old man taking photos and young ones chatting us up. Great music, the whole town came out for the festival! |
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| Music, Bailey's and fun First day of riding brought 44 kms of horizontal rain, green green countryside and lunch in a bus shelter. Today was the first day we found out about the troupers in our group. There were 6 people at our table the first night for dinner - four of them rowers! There is a lovelz french woman, Georgine, who is 70 and is always at the front of the pack. We have made a pact to practice our French and English. There are apparently 9 people over 65, but it is very hard to tell who they are. We are touring the countryside, which thankfully is very flat as we seem to average around 50 kms per day. We have seen windmills, willows, magnificent gardens, very old towns, heaps of other cyclists, swans, no fences (as properties are divided by water), hydrangeas, nurseries (flower ones), stone bridges..... the list goes on. I will attempt to thrown in a few pictures here.... |
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| some riding buddies |
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| Kinderdijk |
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| scenery Will make next instalment soon..... |
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