Amsterdam – Brugge

June 13th, 2012 by DC

It’s been a wet few days riding from Amsterdam to Brugge, through the Hague and Den Bosch. It doesn’t look like it’s going to get much better soon either!

Leaving Amsterdam the clouds looked heavy and dark in the sky.. It had rained overnight, and I knew I was going to get hit by some more rain showers before the day was out. Within half an hour of leaving I experienced my first heavy rain shower, which was so strong I sheltered below an overpass (that another cyclist was already sheltering under) and waited for it to abate. The ride out of Amsterdam was nice- through a large green belt and then into the countryside towards Haarlem and the coast. The heavy rain showers happened a couple of times, but as time went on it got nicer and nicer, and by the time I’d reached the beach it wasn’t raining any more and some blue sky was even starting to peek though the clouds.

Riding south towards The Hague was all through sand-dunes that extend several kilometres back from the sea. This part of the trip really felt like Masons Bay on NZ’s Stewart Island, except of course with lots more people and a great sealed cycle path!

Here’s a shot of the path through the dunes:

And another:

Parts of the coast were obviously holiday destinations, and with the sun coming out the fish stalls were open for business (although I didn’t sample their fare).

A great resource for cycle tourists planning trips is the website TravellingTwo. Canadians Friedel and Andrew did a 2 year trip a couple of years ago and documented it pretty fully, as well as producing a podcast of their experiences and interviews with cyclists they met as they rode. They also took a container ship from Australia to NZ, which was part of the inspiration for me to include that mode of transport into my trip. Anyway, they now live in The Hague with their son Luke, and I stayed with them for a night after getting in touch via WarmShowers.

They made me feel right at home, and I really enjoyed talking about gear and the experiences and feelings I was having about my ride with people who knew what I was going through.

Here’s a photo of them as I was leaving (although Andrew has his eyes closed and I couldn’t get Luke’s attention!)

From The Hague I turned inland and rode towards my friend Tina’s place in Den Bosch. I took two days to do this as Tina was out of town until the Friday.

After The Hague I passed through the beautiful city of Delft. It had a great feeling, with nice canals through the middle, and a bustling market in the middle between two huge churches. They also have a really good university.

Canals in Delft:

It’s the planets!

Fresh syrup-waffles – described as crack for cycle tourists.

I used a couple of ferries that day- a small one and a big one. Here’s a photo of the big one:

I also passed through Kinderdijk, which has a heap of wind-mills which used to be used to pump water around the place. The first few were surrounded by tourists, but as you get further along you get them to yourself. Here’s a line of them:

And one by itself:

I’d seen on the TravellingTwo website a tip about a Dutch phenomenon called Pole Camping. These are simple campsites in little patches of bush that you can camp at for free. They don’t have toilets (not even long-drops), and the one I stayed at had water that I used for washing but not drinking. It was across a little bridge, and I had it all to myself.

I got there about 3pm and set up camp. I was cooking dinner by 4, and just as I was finishing it started raining (as I was expecting). So I was in the tent reading by 5pm and pretty much stayed there until the next morning! The rain stopped about midnight, and the morning dawned pretty clear. Overall the Pole camping was pretty good, although I could’ve done with a longdrop and some more water…

The bridge to the campsite.

It’s called Pole camping because it’s only marked with a pole (and you really need a GPS to find them).

And here’s a shot of the tent and bike in the morning:

Riding on that morning I came across this cool little shop, half of which sold cheese (made by the husband) and bread (made by the wife). It was very cute.

I thought I’d share this photo to show how important river shipping is around here- they have some pretty big boats moving a lot of cargo on these waterways!

I used another couple of ferries this day, including this fast little ferry:

And a bigger car-capable one that I got this great shot of a big group of school kids on a trip by bicycles using it! There’s no way a NZ school could run a trip like this, I was very impressed.

Because Tina wasn’t back in Den Bosch (also called ‘s-Hertogenbosch) until 6pm, I tried to take my time riding, but everyone has a natural speed, and so I ended up having to stop and hang out beside a river for a while. It’s a tough life! Here’s one of the spots I stopped at!

So I spent a couple of days hanging out with Tina, eating well, drinking good coffee and catching up. Tina also had the first set of scales I’d come across since Zurich about 8 weeks ago- I’d been pretty keen to see how much weight I’d lost. Anyway, I’m now down just under 100kg, which means I’ve lost 20kg in the 12 weeks of the trip so far. That’s the lightest I’ve been in the last 7 years, so I’m pretty stoked, and hopefully it’ll continue.

Coming into Den Bosch

While in Den Bosch I decided that I didn’t really want to ride from Brugge to Strasbourg via Belgium and Luxembourg. It had been annoying me for a while that I was missing some of the key sites that New Zealanders fought at in World War I through Belgium and northern France. So I spent some time working out a route to those sites, then I’ll swing east from Amiens and head to Strasbourg. I also spent time working out a route through the UK as lots of people have been asking when my London welcoming party is! I’m getting rather excited about the ride in the UK now.

It was a nice ride out of Den Bosch, and I thought I’d avoided the worst of the weather as I rode through nice farmland and forests.

Then the rain really started. And some thunder.. I sheltered for a bit under an underpass, but it didn’t show much sign of abating, so I rode on, eventually crossing into Zeeland, for which New Zealand is named! There was some resemblance, mainly to be big flat agricultural plains like in Southland, but yeah, very flat.

I made it to a campground and met a couple who were spending 2 months just cycling in the Netherlands. I realised that I’ve spent 2 weeks here and I’m already bored with the flat landscapes, but I didn’t say that to them!

I used my big nylon fly for the first time to cook under. It worked quite well, but you’ve got to be pretty lucky to have things to tie it to in the right places. I’m used to going tramping where you’d at least have walking poles to use! It worked though and I managed to cook in relative dryness!

Riding on I wanted to get to Brugge pretty early so I could have a look around. I rode through the rest of Zeeland (nothing to really report there), then took a fast ferry across an inlet to the southern part of the Netherlands. I’m really trying to enjoy the good cycle lanes as much as I can because it’s possibly the last time I’ll be on them for the rest of the trip!

It was some great riding along canals (including finding some hand-wound ferries).

I made it to Brugge, although I haven’t seen Colin Farrell yet.. I had a big cookup in the hostel kitchen, drank some great Belgian Beer, then went on a walking tour of the city.