Day 2a: Zevenhuizen to Kersel (90km)

What a difference a day makes. Today the sun was shining and in the afternoon it warmed up to something like 23 degrees. And the wind calmed down although it was still with (or rather against) me the whole day. It was a long days' riding.

In the morning everyone seemed to be out to make the most of the sunny Sunday weather. As the woman at the place I stayed at had warned me, the racing bike riders were out in force. They are the only ones wearing helmets on a bike on Holland and given their speed and recklessness I think that's a smart move. You're riding sedately along the bike path when suddenly there's a call of "coming through" behind you and a group of them rushes by at breakneck speed. Bad luck if you happened to move to the wrong side of the path at the wrong time. On the waterways there were rowers practising. On the paths lots of joggers. And of course endless streams of people going out for a Sunday ride on their bikes, young and old. I notice that electric bikes seem to be very popular, particularly amongst the older women.

The "Zeemeeuw" ferry at Oudekerk (bikes and pedestrians only)

If there's a theme for today it might be animals, or perhaps nature, since a good part of the day was spent in fields and along farms, as well as following canals and streams. The paths along the streams - all sealed of course, this being The Netherlands - were a joy to ride along.  All along the way there were wildflowers, yellow and white. Of course they were really weeds, but they were pretty just the same. Birds were everywhere: Ducks of more varieties than I knew existed, practising their water landing and take-off skills; geese; the local version of the magpie; various versions of crows, rooks, and ravens; not to mention many more which I had no idea what they were.

I rode past villages with houses with front gardens full of ducks and goats. Then another front yard with an enormous pig mowing the lawn. That was different. I rode past fields with horses and ponies, cows and sheep, including a few black ones just to make things interesting.

Kinderdijk - windmills and people

The route crossed quite a few waterways, with three of them using some form of ferry. From the tiny 'Seagull' (to stay with the animal theme) at Oudekerk to the large passenger and bicycle ferry, the 'Waterbus', at Papendrecht to a large car ferry at Krimpen. There was also the kilometre-long Moerdijkbruggen which was quite a ride (windy and uphill, followed by downhill).

Just after Kinderdijk, a place with an amazing collection of windmills, spoiled only by the hordes of foreign tourists milling around and generally getting in the way by walking on the bike path, I see a man in a black suit with flapping tails and white shirt and tie coming towards me on a bike. I'm thinking 'only in Holland'. Then another guy in a suit on a bike, and then even more. Women in their Sunday best. Young boys in suits on bikes. A baby behind a little windscreen on a seat on the handlebars, ridden by a man in a suit. What's going on? Then the penny drops: It's Sunday and these people have been to church in the next village (Oud-Albas) and are now riding home for their Sunday lunch. This is obviously a pretty conservative party of the country and people are taking their Sunday obligations seriously. 

Breda - Tourist office closed on Sundays

Last night at the place I was staying (a private house which is part of 'Vrienden op de Fiets', a collection of thousands of places all over Holland that open their doors to bike riders) we had been discussing the wind strength. The weather forecast had said it was 'strength 6' which I understood to be a lot, but I wanted to know what that actually meant.  Was this going to be just another windy day, or was I going to riding into a hurricane? The guy says, with an air of authority he himself realised he didn't have, "That means the wind is 6 metres per second". This doesn't seem right to me and I start to do a mental calculation. Before I'm finished he says: " that means the wind is 180km/h". I try and keep a straight face and say gently "I don't think it would be quite that much" hoping that he'll work out for himself that riding a bike into a 180 km/h headwind might be a bit difficult. Besides, 6 metres per second is around 20 km/h - quite different to 180 km/h!

For the record, I think the wind strength numbers relate to the Beaufort scale, which my sailing friends are no doubt familiar with. A strength 6 wind is a "strong breeze" and is between 38.8 and 49.9 km/h (who thinks of these numbers?) No wonder I was having trouble yesterday.

Tonight I walked to Belgium for dinner. Now there's the sort of statement you can't make every day. I'm staying in the Netherlands, but it turns out the house is only about 50m from the border. So when I set off down the main road in search of somewhere to eat, it doesn't take me long to cross into another country. Since there's little on offer on the Dutch side, I settle for what turns out to be quite a nice place just across the border in Belgium. I walk back to the Netherlands after a good meal, wondering what it must be like living on the house that straddles the border itself. You could go to sleep in one country and get up during the night to use the bathroom in another country. Or if you have a big enough room, you might be sitting on a lounge, watching a TV that's in another country. Or maybe you could have breakfast in the Netherlands and then go and mow your lawn in Belgium.

I must be on the right path!