Days One and Two - There's No Limit

 Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the next in my somewhat infrequent series of travel blogs.  This time I am on a trip to the Netherlands to do some cycling.  

Day one started at home with the family in Northampton and a trip out to a cafe for breakfast, nothing noteworthy about that except the breakfast venue was also the place where Jeyes fluid was invented so we knew that that if anyone dropped a sausage the 5 second rule could easily be extended to 10.

Leaving a tearful family behind I set off for Cambourne to meet my usual cycling companions to set off for Holland and the Eleven Cities cycle tour.  For those that could not be bothered to click on the link, the eleven cities is an annual event which has run since 1912.  The event sees up to 15,000 cyclists ride 235km around 11 cities in the North West of Holland.  This year the Bullrush Bike Club (and me) would be among their number.

Following a pasta dinner prepared by Dan we met the others and formed a convoy to Harwich and the ferry.  We had plenty of time to complete the journey but decided it was better to be sat in a queue at a ferry terminal so drove as fast as we could.  I feel this gave us positive proof that it is better to travel than to arrive, yet I am sure no lessons were learned and the return trip will be exactly the same.

Stena Hollandia - cell 11156A

Once we had boarded and walked the 11 flights of stairs to our respective cells we reconvened in the bar to order some drinks from the reluctant barman (my advice is if you hate serving beer and/or people then probably bar work is not the career for you).  However the real highlight of the evening was the chance to see one of the world's largest container ships, it looked about as impressive as in the following picture which is to say not very.

A big boat yesterday

As we had to get up early to get off the ferry we decided an early night was a good idea, this decision being a sign of our maturity and in no way related to the ships bars and casinos all closing.  With hindsight this was a wise decision, the ferry company likes to wake passengers nice and early with a few bars of the 90s hit "I love your smile" by Shanice, followed by Ryan Air style pressure to visit the onboard shop.  Which I gave in to in order to buy a UK/Euro travel adapter to put with my collection of similar adapters purchased every time I have visited Europe.  I was also able to purchase a paper cup of coffee for a mere 4E20.

Departure from the ferry and passport control was a painless affair for 4 of the 5 cars in our group even when we were unable to answer basic questions like "where are you going."  The 5th car was not so lucky and were delayed so much the rest of us were able to drive 45 minutes to a seaside town, order breakfast, eat breakfast, go for a walk, then meet up with car 5.  A highlight of the post breakfast stroll was hearing UK chart sensation Samantha Foxes second best known hit playing as BGM on the pier, utterly bizzare.

Once we had regrouped we set off for our hotel which is in the North of Holland in a place I can't remember the name of.  Importantly it is quite near the start line for tomorrow's ride.  We kept amused on the journey by playing some traditional Dutch music, specifically the Vengaboys and 2 Unlimited, we were 10 tracks into the latter's album "Get Ready" before realising it wasn't one really long song.....

We got a convoy

The hotel Vigilante is rather nice and located on the cost just North of that long bridge in Holland you can see on maps of Europe.  After arriving and checking in the plan was (is) to hang around before an early dinner at 17:00.  Our start time tomorrow is scheduled for something insane like 05:55 so an early night beckons.  As I sit here writing this and contemplate the early start I realise that I am not really into cycling anymore and 05:55 is awfully early, still I am sure it will be better once we get going.....

Today has been an fun combination of my two favourite things, driving and hanging around, that said hopefully tomorrow's ride provides more interesting material for the Blog.