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.    

PinkPop Day 3- (16/06)

If you are not a great fan of optimistic adjectives please read no further…

• Out of pure interest we headed to see a band called Puggy at the Brand Bier Stage and were wowed by their catchy pop tunes. It was lovely to see an Englishman, Frenchmen and Swede gel so well together.  
• Next up Bastille. We knew 2 songs of theirs before listening to the humble Londoners perform and now we know an albums worth. Their songs had such great beats that it was difficult not to shuffle along to them.
• At the 3FM Stage old-timers Stereophonics provided some great easy-listening.
• Following The Vaccines on the Main Stage was Ben Howard. He was fantastic. Not just another Brit with a guitar. Interestingly a women (in his backing band of 2) switched instruments for each song, playing mainly the cello, and sang beautifully to add to Ben’s rustic vocals.  
• Closing the festival with a 2 hour set were Green Day- not our usual cup of tea but I have to say they entertained. They sure know how to get an audience going and it was a lot of fun if not a little bit messy.

All in all a fantastic festival.   

PinkPop Day 2- (15/06)

Another day full of music. Here are some of them…

• Passenger on the Main Stage. Having only really just hit the big time, with his song Let Her Go, you’d understand if he was a little nervous. Well if he was he didn’t show it! Absolutely note perfect. Just him and his guitar and a dumbstruck crowd. What a unique voice. He made us proud to be from South East England.
• Ellie Goulding on the Brand Bier Stage, a large marque next to the Main Stage, created an electronic bubble. Having heard a lot of her in the charts, in a lot of collaborations, we wondered whether it would work live. Well, it did. The stage effects were awesome and her voice, played back at points as an echo, didn't disappoint. 
• Thirty Seconds to Mars, who we’d actually never heard of, were a great warm up to the Kings of Leon on the Main Stage. Being a massive fan of the Scottish rockers, they (and The Script) were who I’d come to see, it was an hour of my life I will never forget. Utterly mesmerising. They played a load of great new tunes which we both vowed to look up and download on return to Britain! 

PinkPop Festival- (14/06)

After a quick 6km we were at PinkPop! 

It’s an annual 3-day music festival held in Landgraaf and it’s actually the oldest annual pop festival in Europe! PinkPop 2013 was its 44^th edition. It’s had some pretty insane line-ups in its time and this years was no exception yet still hardly anyone in the UK has heard of it. Of A,B,C and D (in order of proximity to the festival terrain) we were happy to get our spot in Camping B right by it’s food court and party tent. Once we’d safety put our bikes in the bike lock and stocked up at a local supermarket we walked the 30 minutes to get to where the music was at…

• First up Paramore on the Main Stage. We were surprised by how many of their punk-style songs we knew and lead singer Hayley Williams’ energy was contagious.
• Then off for a little bit of Jimmy Eat World at the 3FM Stage towards the back of the fielded area to hear some more Americans.
• Leaving them early we got prime spots at the front of the Main Stage for one of my favourite bands, The Script. The music was even better than on their albums and the atmosphere as we all jumped and sang along at the top of our lungs was incredible.  
• Then to finish the evening off, The Killers. An hour of pumping rock classics like Mr Brightside and When We Were Young. It was a great first day. 

Nearly there...- (13/06)

A bike-failure induced stop in a wet Valkenburg.

We felt very much at home in Maastricht so it was sad to say goodbye but it was more than consoling to know we were edging closer and closer to PinkPop. What’s PinkPop I hear you ask…? More on that later. 

The aim of the day was simple: to camp out the night before PinkPop in nearby Heerlen before setting off early the next morning. With the weather taking a torrential turn, the surface a steep one and our wheels a waning one that aim proved extremely difficult. I mean we passed through a place called, when directly translated, Mountain. Certainly not the furthest we've ever had to cycle but at 10pm we’d made it.