Their story, in their words…
On our first day, we took the train from Victoria Station to Stapelhurst with our bikes where we would start the trip. Catching the train out of London would help us to complete the journey within five days, which we had planned. The first half of day one was relatively quick, as there wasn’t much elevation. However, in the second half of the day, we passed through the Kent Downs which meant, large gradients and big hills, which made it much more complex and slower to cycle especially while carrying heavy panniers. Within 3.5 hours we reached the campsite, pitched our tent and stayed the night. On the first day, we totalled around 60km.
On the second day, we had to leave early to catch a ferry from Dover, which was a short 15km spring downhill. Luckily we reached the port early enough to catch an earlier ferry to Dunkirk. This meant that we reached the port of Dunkirk by around 1 o’clock local time. However, the weather in France was not ideal, to say the least, there were 20-25mph headwinds with brutal gusts. As we went east the wind was persistently in our faces, which was extremely demoralising and progress was extremely slow and frustrating. Once we had crossed the Belgian border, our cycle path went onto a canal that was extremely exposed to the wind. We tried our hardest to keep a consistent pace of around 15km/h which quickly decreased as time progressed. We reached Ostend within seven and a half hours and 80km of pedalling into a headwind, which was a major relief.
On the third day, we decided against cycling directly into a headwind for over 100km on exposed land. Instead, we chose to cycle into Bruges and catch a train to Antwerp which was more inland and less windy. The cycle into Bruges was a relief after the day before, where there was a less severe crosswind rather than a headwind. Brugge was the prettiest city/town we visited on the trip, with beautiful architecture and canals. Sadly we couldn’t stay for long as we had a train to catch. Once we were in Antwerp we continued north to get over the Dutch border and camp for the night. It didn’t take us long to find a place to stay at a very nice campsite after 60km of riding for the day.
On the fourth day, we continued our cycle to Amsterdam via Rotterdam. Throughout the day’s cycle, we made sure that we were sufficiently fed and hydrated as we were in the direct sun all day. We also wanted to be relatively efficient as we tried to make stops as infrequently as possible with one larger stop for lunch where we could shelter ourselves from the sun and refill our water bottles. We crossed Hollands Diep River into South Holland, went through Rotterdam quickly and got to the campsite in Bleiswijk which is to the north-east of Rotterdam. Over the whole day, we covered close to 100km in total which left us quite tired by the end of it. Sadly, the tiredness didn’t help that night as when I (Freddie) went to throw away some rubbish into the bin, the keys for my bike lock were in the same hand. Luckily my bike wasn’t locked to anything except my back wheel meaning I could still carry the bike.
On the fifth day, we had to find a plan to unlock or get the lock off the bike, a local suggested carrying the bike 2km down the road to the nearest bike shop. Luckily the bike shop agreed to cut off the lock using an angle grinder and we could continue onto Amsterdam for our final day. We found the nearest town and managed to get a free shower in a gym as there were no shower facilities in the campsite we stayed the night before. In three hours we covered over 55km to finally reach Amsterdam by 6 o’clock. We were staying with a host that night, and we were able to explore the city briefly and have hot food for the first time in multiple days.
We were able to take a rest day in Amsterdam before returning home the next day. We found taking multiple trains back to De Panne in Belgium and taking the Dunkirk-Dover ferry would make more financial sense than catching a ferry from the Hook of Holland because of the cheap rail costs even if it made less logistical sense with such large and heavy bikes. We had a leisurely cycle back to the port of Dunkirk around 35km and caught the ferry back to England.
We found the journey enjoyable despite such difficult winds on the first few days and various mishaps along the way.
We cycled 388.7km in total and developed real-world problem-solving skills which are sure to benefit us in the long term, we also will have been able to have an opportunity to travel abroad and take on a challenge that we wouldn’t have done without Mark Evison.
