Rotterdam-Dordtrect-Gorinchem
Couldn't have asked for a better start to the day. After a cheeky escorted trip back to our bikes to pick up a few last things we get chatting to one of the very nice ship's crew who hears about our trip and gets us a free breakfast pass to set ourselves up for the big day ahead. Off the ferry and some of the smoothest cycling i've ever encountered with the simplest of signposting.
Flew into Rotterdam and after a few circles found caffeine and the tourist information point for a most helpful map to Germany. highlight definitely goes to the drunk who nearly rugby tackled me from my bike despite only being half 9 in the morning.
Dordtrect went well until our lovely cyclepath had been attacked by diggers! At which point our first acquaintance - 'Pim' showed up and took it upon himself to guide us the 10k to put us back on track. the gentleman, in his late 70s, i just could not understand through his frothing lips and a tongue that could have been taken from an 80s reptile monster horror film!
Despite our 'detailed' first day route plan, our first major loss of bearings took us on a dead end somewhere in Dordtrect. Our American saviour in his non-fitting lycra then directed us in a direction which saw another 10k of unnecessary diversion!
After finding the centre we tracked back en route to Gorinchem. Twice dropping my gloves to Marks Discovery, we ploughed on, until my ever faithful ebay purchased pannier bags tore on me creating a machine gun chatter on my back spokes. the only solution ending in locking my bags backwards to the rack and tying my rewards bottle holders away from my feet. The solution being optomised once we had stopped randomly next to a cyclepath for the traditional english meal of tuna and supernoodles with a desert of dried apricots (of which remain as marks exuse for filling the tent with poisonous gases!).
Found our epic campsite after a very unnecessary 3k loop around the campsite and befriended 'Bas' (pronounced Boss) our tour guide and couch-lender for tomorrow to his hometown of Nijmegan. Again a far too generous Dutchman who facillitated us snacks, beer and pearls of wisdom for the trip. Now with sore legs and a mishapened back i retire to my 3/4 thermorest that separates me from this lovely dutch soil.
Ed's Top Tip of the Day: Dutch people are awesome and do not forget to vaseline your nips when wearing the borat shorts!!
