odysseyone

The Netherlands is a cyclists’ paradise. It’s a country where two wheels are treated equally to the four-wheeled version and have their own paths, road lanes and traffic lights. No more having to share a footpath with pedestrians or the road with cars; cyclists have their own dedicated lane next to footpaths and if that doesn’t exist, a special lane on the road. We even have our own traffic lights and lane next to walk signals for pedestrians. We felt like we were in some type of Lego land where bikes rule.

Our cycle journey around Western Europe began with four train rides- no it’s not cheating, as our bikes are still moving. Within about an hour of leaving Freshford, Bath, we had already discovered the joys of getting heavily-loaded bikes on and off trains and running/riding along a busy platform to reach the bike carriage. I now feel very sorry for wheelchair-bound passengers as we have experienced the frustrations of a lack of lifts and the inconvenience of changing trains in UK and Europe when you have wheels.

We did the seemingly impossible on day one and took our loaded bikes on the London Underground, which all the Britons we’ve met told us couldn’t be done but we gave it a go anyway. It was that or cycle across London to change trains with just an hour to spare. The Underground carriages are small and crowded at the best of times but we found it actually worked to our advantage as people mostly gave us a wide berth and avoided our carriage whenever the doors opened.

Our first ‘what on earth are we doing moment’ (and there have been plenty!) was lining up with all the other cars and campervans to go onto the car ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland. The difference between them and us was the cars could wait with their heating on whereas we were on our bikes, wearing every piece of warm clothing we had and still numb with the cold in below 5 degrees. We were able to ride the overpass and down into the ferry, which was enormous and I think I know what Jonah felt like when he was swallowed by the whale. The ferry cabin was a real treat – far nicer than we had expected – and by far the best accommodation we have stayed in on the trip, which is probably a sad state of affairs. I have had some trouble with a few bunk beds in Europe and the first one I feel out of was on the ferry, leaving me with a very nasty black bruise on my backside, which didn’t bode well for cycling.

We saw the windmills as soon as we cycled off the ferry into Holland, into temperatures even colder than we left England. The first few days in the Netherlands were only a few degrees above 0 and we were wondering what happened to our grand plans to cycle Europe in spring. It was uncomfortable cycling all rugged up but it has warmed up since we left the Netherlands and now we have fantastic spring weather.

We visited a few major cities in the Netherlands including The Hague, Rotterdam, Arnhem and Maastricht and on our trip east from the North Sea and then south, we cycled through countless beautiful little villages and dairy and asparagus farms. We even had an offer from another cyclist to come and stay at his home in Amsterdam but unfortunately we weren’t going there. In Arnhem we discovered we were camping in an area where the British and allies had dropped gliders and troops in a major operation, which they lost against the Germans in WWII. We got to visit the war cemetery, which was pretty overwhelming.

Because we have mostly been staying outside of cities, we have had a good experience of rural European towns. We had a disturbingly up close look at Dutch bogans on the border with Belgium. We ended up at a camp ground outside another cute little town, which seemed to have prospects until we discovered it was in an overgrown yard behind a bar, which reminded me of the Barkly Roadhouse in NT. The bar was packed with loud drunkards and I saw my first Dutch mullet haircut there. There was a woman who I initially felt sorry for because her friends were helping her to stand up and I assumed were helping her to her wheelchair because she appeared to be paralytic. But no wheelchair appeared and she slowly walked off, paralytic I guess from alcohol.

We got to cycle through Belgium for a day, albeit accidentally. It was our last day cycling in the Netherlands and we were following the Maas River, which is the border between the countries. For some reason the Dutch thought it would be a brilliant idea to run a Dutch cycle route through Belgium, so we ended up seeing a small part of that country too.

We caught a train from Maastricht through Liege, Belgium, to Luxembourg. It was never on our original plan, but we opted for the train so we could enjoy the hills- going down them. There is a small alpine region between Belgium and Luxembourg and I’m on a cycle holiday and not training for the Tour de France, so large hills are out of the question. Luxembourg is a stunning country and so far is our favourite of the four we have cycled. Luxembourg City has a really great blend of ancient buildings, crumbling city walls, palaces for dukes and modern buildings, including a lot of EU headquarters. The countryside is stunning, travelling through rolling hills of farmland and quaint, colourful little villages. As we descended towards the border with Germany, we went through brilliant green, dense forests with crumbling old bridges like something from a fairytale. Finally hitting the Mosel River was pretty momentous as it had been our goal from the outset.

We have now followed the Mosel – and no, we haven’t caught anymore trains – from the Luxembourg border almost through to its end in Germany where it meets the Rhine. We hope to reach the Rhine tomorrow.

Germany has a very different landscape, very flat and dry looking as we cycled through endless vineyards. The vineyards here are amazing as almost all of them climb up the side of very steep cliffs. We knew we had hit the tourist trail as soon as we reached the Mosel as there are cycle tourists everywhere. We have mostly been on paths but yesterday I had to overtake about eight cyclists on a busy two lane road. The timing has been pretty bad as we have hit the Mosel on a long weekend. After a bitter winter, all the Germans are going crazy with the warm weather and the place is overcrowded. They separate the camping and motor home parks here and I have never seen such enormous motor home parks. We have cycled past a few, where the goal of all the baby boomers on holidays seems to be to get as sunburned as they possibly can and when they’re not frying semi-naked, walking around in their padded bike pants with their beer gut hanging over them, just in case they need to take a quick cycle somewhere.

We have camped most of the time, not just because accommodation is hard to find during long weekends but also because of a few bad experiences in hostels so far. The worst was in Utrecht, where the guy running the hostel was about 19 and stoned. We had already had plenty exposure to marijuana in the Netherlands – a few curious encounters included a guy smoking weed outside of a church and an old man reeking off the stuff – but trying to negotiate a bed with a guy in a drug-induced stupor was something else. He seemed to think his real job was resident DJ and he blasted a whole lot of English-language rap music at us and thought we might like it because we speak the language. But then he would switch, and next minute he was belting out a stoned version of Annie’s ‘Tomorrow’ at the top of his lungs, which was quite funny. The antics came to a sudden end when the fire alarms in the building went off and didn’t stop for almost half an hour and a big crew of firemen and women burst into the already crowded hostel. And this was all within the first few hours of arriving… I won’t even go into the bathroom that resembled a torture chamber or the sleep we paid for but didn’t get.

We have been pretty safe on the bikes so far. The only near miss was when a dump truck driver decided to wait until the last second to hit the brakes right up the back of Justin. I felt like I was watching it all in slow motion from behind and was wondering how I was going to explain to his parents that a dump truck collected my husband. Our only accident was when Justin ran into me and clipped my tire on day one but I managed to avoid a stack.

I have learned a lot of lessons as a cycle amateur. These include avoiding public transport since you spent a lot of time and money getting your bike over here, not dropping your bike on the ground, cycling it and not walking it up hills (starring into the rear end of a cow backed up against a fence I was walking alongside taught me this) and learning to identify when something is wrong with your bike. I learned this lesson the hard way when I failed to notice my handlebars were backwards and I snapped my cycle computer cable a couple of hours after we got off the ferry. In my defence, they are flat bars. Justin worked miracles and found a guy to fix the cable and I have been paying attention ever since.

We have now cycled almost 650 kilometres in two weeks and we’re both feeling it! We’re not sure how long we will continue before we switch to faster forms of transport but it has been an amazing experience and we have really enjoyed life in the slow lane.

Images from tour de holland and beyond