End of the Rhine

The last day or so brings me back to the Rhine (or more accurately Maas, if you are Dutch) and eventually, a morning's ride to the mouth at Hoek van Holland to catch the ferry home.

It's been fun (?) with best bits probably the Rhine and Meuse gorges for scenery, the Netherlands in general for sheer calm civilised life and, perhaps surprisingly in my mind, Belgium for people who reached out to talk to me and offer directions when I looked (and was) lost. I've enjoyed camping once more though hard ground, even with some cushioning is a challenge.

At the peak, there is nothing to beat, after a hard days riding, finding a campsite, setting up tent, and then relaxing over a beer in the sunshine. I must do it again next year.

Small World

If you look carefully you can probably make out the Hill's logo on the top of this feed plant.

That's the company I dedicated ten years of my productive life to and who, indirectly, is paying for this trip.

I came across it purely by accident though I remembered it was in the area. I even thought of popping by and reintroducing myself before realising it was twenty years ago and things may have moved on.

The Hippy, Hippy Aches

This bridge is a metaphor for how I felt on the last full-day cycling. For some inexplicable reason my aches and pains caught up with me - specifically my hips/lower back. So the roads all felt steeper - though this part of the country is dead flat.

May be it is a subliminal message from my body telling me not to do this again. It seems like good advice, but I will probably have forgotten it by next year.

Quick, Sand

Google Maps refers to this as a bicycle path. I call it a children's sandpit. The campsite on the penultimate evening was tantalisingly close after a tough day skirting Antwerp but they always throw in another wrinkle like this just when you thought you'd cracked it.

A Quicker Way Ohm

As another aged couple bomb past me on their supercharged electric bikes, I've been running the numbers and I think I can make it work.

I reckon that these grey dragsters are moving about twice as fast as me. Now my costs for this trip have averaged about Euros 35 per day and I've been away just over 3 weeks - say 24 days.

If I could save half those days by moving twice as fast then I would pocket Euros 420 every year.

If a top of the range electric bike costs say Euros 3,500, then it would have paid for itself in about 8 years. That, to me, is a good deal.

The Last Leg

An early morning start out of the campsite in Namur to get me well across Belgium before the day is done.

I have it all planned now. I feel like one of those horses that mopes out of its stables but then turns to a trot and gallop once it heads for home.

A youth hostel in Loeven tonight then just one glitch, with another night camping as the next one is full.

Then I remembered the waterbus that I caught on the way out so that can take me on a last leisurely trip into Rotterdam. The ferry to England is booked for Saturday, so just one last push.

Killer Metres

I need electricity. Everyone else seems to have it, especially in Germany where the majority of bikes now seem to be electric?

Or is that cause they are owned by retired people who are running around on them during the day. I was exasperated by the number of older people who whizzed past me on their silent killers.

They are all German-made of course. Bosch engines and Kalkhoff bikes, so they would set you back a pretty penny.

May be I just need to pay up for the modern technology that perhaps enables me to keep making cycle trips for another few years. Or at least stop me moaning about how I can't do 100kms a day. With one of those I'd be home before I knew it.

Heh, after all, Dylan went electric.