THE END.

Before we knew it we were by the beach in Scheveningen on LF1 (click here to read my first thoughts on the place). For anyone who has read my blogs you’ll recognise the name! You’ll probably also know that it’s not so far from where I used to Au Pair. Thus for old times’ sake I dragged my sister on a detour right into the centre of The Hague in order to reminisce on my memories there (here's a little summary of the city as seen by me). A quick sprint through the fountains of the Spui and a cycle around the station's lovely zebra clock made it a fun farewell as we caught the coastalroute back to Noordwijk. Nice to finish the trip with familiarity. 

Thanks Soph for doing it with me!

They really couldn’t have placed our final photo-point better…the Noordwijk lighthouse was right at the end of the town’s boulevard. With a snappy photo on a dying phone we’d finished it. The following days were spent being utterly spoilt by our family friends in the impressive Dutch summer before flying home. One of my first memorbale experiences in NL had been in Noordwijk so it felt right to finish the adventure there. 

They say fortune favours the brave... in so many ways on the trip it felt like it didn’t- our daily bike failures made sure of that. With time, however, we've come to realise something. Actually we couldn’t have been more fortunate. We had three weeks full of challenges, experiences and beautiful sights…not to mention a fantastic music festival AND we made it back in one piece. I mean really, what’s not to be thankful for!? 

The best bit? We’re the only Brits on-record to have done it and certainly the only ones to have done it on such old bikes!

Making it to Middelburg- (18/06)

Little image of Middelburg Station here, it's a busy place!

Well and truly in the province of Zeeland much of our way was along the water’s edge. As the name suggests most of the province is below sea level, consisting of a number of separate islands as well as a strip bordering Belgium (but we cut that bit out!). With an affinity of water comes one of wind, the two being intrinsically bound, so slowly but surely wind turbines became a regular sight and our pace in the burning heat suffered. It wasn’t the only one, our camera too seemed unable to cope and ceased to work! Through too many toils to list we wound up with great relief in Middelburg, the capital of the province.

Back on Track- (17/06)

With the end of PinkPop it was time to pack up all our stuff and start cycling once more- but not before a quick scheduled train trip to take us back up onto the Ronde van Nederland route. You do have to pay to take your bike on the train in the Netherlands and it's only allowed in non-peak times but priority is given to you if you get in the designated carriage so the experience was not overly traumatic. Getting on and off the steep stairs at the platform and indeed off the platform out of the station was however. A little surprising for so bike-friendly a country. Nevertheless before the day was up we’d passed through the well-known cities of Eindhoven, Tilburg and Breda all in a westerly direction- parallel in fact to that of LF13. It felt appropriate that on our mother’s 60^th birthday we had made such definite advances toward the end of our NL adventure. Home felt on the horizon.