Their story, in their words…
We undertook this 550km long bike ride trip in 5 days, not entirely sure what to expect. We’d already had an unexpected surprise the week before the trip, when one member of our trio had to unfortunately pull out at the last minute. Nevertheless the remaining two of us set off a few days later.
We would never have been able to have done this without the wonderful hosts we met on Warmshowers, a charity organisation for bike-fanatics looking for a place to stay for the night. Our first host, Jon, made sure that we got to his house safely, phoning us and waiting outside his house two hours after sunset, after an unfortunate delay. He, as the rest of the hosts did, ensured that we were well fed and prepared for the next day, checking over our bikes and showing us the best routes. He even cycled with us to see us off at Dover the following morning!
Belgium and the Netherlands were very windy, making cycling very laborious, but the wonderful views and general mood of the trip provided an unforgettable experience. Cycling along the beach proved to be a bad idea, with the wind absolutely hammering down on us every inch of the way.
We slept in Deal, Bruges, Ouddorp, Rotterdam and finally Amsterdam, each of which was a city worth of its own page long detailed account! We made sure to fully immerse ourselves into the Dutch atmosphere, speaking Dutch to each other, eating the renowned krokets, and visiting the world famous Rijkmuseum After an eventful night in Amsterdam, we very nearly didn’t make it onto the coach back to England (we had to dismantle our bikes into bike bags were having difficulties doing so) but the coach drivers were very kind and helped us.
All in all an unforgettable experience. Thank you Mark Evison!
