Author: anthill

I had a nice day walking around Rotterdam. The city was pretty much flattened during the Second World War but there is still plenty to see like some of the modern buildings, peaceful parks, ferry trips and the Euromast, a 185m tower in the centre. I went up the Euromast for an eagle’s eye view of the city. I also went to the zoo. I don’t care how old you are, zoos are always great fun.

The next morning I was off in the direction of Antwerp, Belgium. I thought my route would have to take me inland to cross some of the many rivers, but I managed to plan it so it used the handy bridges and tunnels that are all accessibly to cyclists.

I went wrong a few times but it didn’t matter, I knew it would be a shorter ride today. It rained quite a lot, heavy at times but as soon as I crossed into Belgium the sun came out.

When I reached Antwerp I took the pedestrian tunnel to the other side of the river where the campsite was. Setup my camp and walked into the city centre for evening where I tasted the Belgium beers and had some food. Italian of course as that’s what most of the restaurants in Antwerp seem to be. I do love a good lasagne.

I set my alarm 30 minutes earlier to get a good start on the days ride. Would you believe about 15 mins after I’d got up it starts to rain. So the day started by packing up a sopping wet tent.

I’d meticulously planned my route the night before, hoping that I wouldn’t get any problems with cycle routes. I’d basically planned the route to stick close to towns, these usually being linked by cycle routes.

I started with a guess route down a road that I thought was in the right direction. Turns out I was correct, not only that but the sun had started to come out.

From here on in everything went to plan. I followed all the cycle route signs perfectly all the way to Rotterdam. The good thing about doing it this way is that the signs show short distances between towns, so you think “That isn’t too far” and of course it all adds up. The cycle network really is good here. I take back what I said previously. Although the odd sign missing here and there is a bit of a pain.

I went through some lovely little towns with the typically painted window shutters and miniature windmills in the front gardens. As well as riding along part of the network of canals.

I really liked the look of Utrecht – it was alive with students and looked a really cool place to spend a few nights. I got told off for cycling up the high street after 11am. Apparently I’m supposed to push it after this time. They were nice about it and I only had to push it a couple of hundred metres.

I’m not sure how far I did today but it seemed a very long way indeed. I’m glad I made it though and have a day to look around tomorrow. It’s an easy ride all the way back to England now. I’ll be covering shorter distances to Antwerp, Brugge and Calais.

I woke to the sun for a change, in fact it looked like it was going to be a nice day. I had managed to dry my shoes out a little courtesy of toilet paper from the campsite toilets.

I was a little worried that I was limited to certain roads in Holland. My worries were confirmed when I hit my first no cycling sign. In fact you can only cycle on cycle paths in Holland. I stopped at a tourist information to ask how I could get to my destination. The struggle but plotted me a new route. One town I couldn’t reach because they were all national roads or motorways. What I don’t get is the roads I can’t cycle on are only single carriageway. I’ve figured out now that anything starting in A or N I can’t touch, but just to make things even more difficult, some N roads do have a cycle path running alongside.

I pieced together a route and finally managed to work my way through lots of little villages and get to Kampen. Holland certainly is as flat as I’d heard and the little villages are quite pretty with their cobbled roads.

Tomorrow I want to get to Rotterdam. Another concerned face from the staff at the campsite. I’ve looked and it is impossible to get there without going on an N road, but who knows which ones have cycle paths or not. This is turning out to be a bit of a nightmare where planning is concerned, who knows where I’ll end up tomorrow.

Just as I was getting ready to leave in the morning it started to rain again. On went the waterproofs and off I went. I’d cycled no more than 10km before I hit a no cycling sign. I had to divert the rout south, zigzagging around fields until I hit a dead end. Which was in fact a car ferry crossing and it was running. Once I crossed this I managed to get back onto my route.

Today I was hoping to get as far as Holland but the guys I was talking to at the ferry crossing had concerned looks on their faces. Either way I had no option but to carry on through the rain in the direction of Holland.

The weather didn’t improve all day. I had to wring my socks out when I stopped for food. I eventually crossed the border into Holland and made my way to the nearest campsite I could. Would you believe, as soon as I stepped off the bike the sun came out. The campsite has this bizarre policy of putting money on a key that I had to put a 25 euro deposit on to use the showers. Fair enough I guess but my charge for camping was over 40 euros and I only had 36. So I had to have a shower then give the key back and use the deposit to pay for my camping, stupid system!

My hotel was pretty budget and resided on a road called Reepbahn. Unknown to me this is the red light district of Hamburg and pretty sleazy it was too. This is the old port area and the sailors would come round the Pauli district for beer and sex, and nothing has changed since then, just no sailors and a lot more sex shops. Once you get away from this area and walk into the centre of Hamburg it’s a lot more pleasant. A third of the city was destroyed during the war so there aren’t many historical remnants but it is a nice city to walk around.

On the first night I got decided to have a walk around the Pauli district and check out a few bars. I got hassled so much buy prostitutes, literally pulling me to one side, that I decided to cut the night short and have an early night. I picked up a flyer for a three day rock festival on in the centre and thought I’d check that out the following evening. I stayed until halfway through the last band before I left. It made a change to see some live music, it was good.

This morning I left with waterproofs on yet again. It had stayed mainly dry for the previous day but the rain had returned. To leave Hamburg I had to cross the river Elbe. There is a tunnel but it is only open to pedestrians so I had to cross to the industrial side a few kilometres further down river. I used the GPS to aid my route and this is where it all went wrong. It took me the wrong direction, deep into industrial estates and into two or three dead ends. Then I got a puncture in my back tyre that resulted in me swapping for the spare inner tube. So far so bad, although the rain had stopped.

I did eventually get back on track, but I had been cycling for an hour and a half and got five miles up my root. So I pushed really hard to make up the lost time. This paid off in the end and I managed to claw some time back.

I arrived in Bremerhaven tired and a little damp. Pitched my tent and went and got some fuel for my stove and food supplies.

It’s the seventh day of rain now. It didn’t stop all night long and it’s still raining in the morning. My tent is soaked and muddy but at least I’m dry on the inside. I’m glad I’ve booked two nights in a hotel now. Seven days of rain and I think I deserve some dry.

I planned my route the night before, as usual. It would take me 138km to get to Hamburg via a national park.

I didn’t sleep too well because of the wind and rain but got up early and left for Hamburg. I was cycling on an angle at some points the wind was so strong.

Today’s route was made up of lots of different roads through lots of different towns. I like this because it breaks the ride up and little and makes it more interesting. You also don’t know how far you have left so when you do find out it’s a pleasant surprise, or not.

There were no rain clouds today, no breaks in the cloud, just one big mist full of rain. I could only see about 200m if that. The air was full of an intense drizzle, one of those your mum always says is “the stuff that wets you”. And wet me it certainly did.

Got a bit lost trying to find my way through the national park. Ended up cycling through a forest on a dirt track at one point, but in the end I made it out the other side and had a clear run to Hamburg.

The campsite I stayed at in Ribe had the nicest toilets ever for campsites. It was like being in a hotel. I was quite tempted to move my tent into one of the cubicles in there. Unfortunately I had to camp outside in a field. Not only that, there was a gale blowing that was worryingly strong. I pointed the backend of my tent into the wind, hoping to disperse the wind around the tent and allowing me to have the door open without being blown away. When I woke the next morning the guy camping behind me had disappeared, no sign of him or his tent. That’s how strong the wind was that night.

I left before the rain started but the wind was still seriously strong. Then when it did rain it was like being pelted with bullets because of the wind. A few went straight in my ear which was quite a shock.

The day pretty much continued like this. One minute I’d be blasting along the cycle paths next to the main road then all of a sudden I’d be down to a crawl, battling the wind and heavy rain.

My route today would take me to Friedrichstadt but I was tempted to go further like I had the day before. Although by the time I reached my destination I was feeling defeated by the days weather and put the tent up in the rain. I’m really getting fed up with the weather now. Tomorrow I want to spend a day looking around Hamburg so I’m going to book two nights in a hotel I think. If only to dry my shoes out!

Viborg is a pleasant city that boasts one of the largest granite cathedrals in Europe. The town also has some very odd public houses, one of which was like stepping back into 1930 and the clientele looked like they were from the same era.

I managed to wash my clothes and I fixed my tyre as best as I could. The inner tube had two punctures and one tear from that piece of glass which I fixed up good. I also stuck some gaffer tape on the inside wall to stop stones, etc getting in and patched the hole in the tyre with layers of rubber patches and glue. I think I did a pretty good job.

The weather has been pretty bad, it’s like April showers with a strong wind. I’m getting a little fed up of the bad weather. Especially in August!

I got charged an extra 3.5% at the campsite for using a foreign card. What I rip-off. I get charged a commission and fee on top of this from my bank. Apart from this the campsite was quite pleasant. Although the one guy kept ignoring me after our disagreement on the use of the washing machines. Incidentally, I was right.

The route I took today didn’t seem to take very long at all. It was mainly A roads with light traffic. It rained a few times, at times quite heavy but I had my waterproofs on standby. The wind had dided down slightly but kicked back up in the afternoon.

I reached the campsite early so decided to carry on the extra 20km to Ribe and stay here for the night. Tomorrow I will head across the border back into the Eurozone and a new country, Germany.

It rained most of the night once again and the morning was grey and dreary with yet more rain. My poor tent got packed up wet once again and off I headed south. I’d only been cycling less than thirty minutes and I got a puncture, a pretty impressive one at that. Some idiot must have thrown a bottle out of a car window and I had cycle over a particularly large chunk of glass on the cycle path. It had torn a 1cm thick gash into my tyre and inner tube which I struggled to fix so used my spare tube.

I carried on south, battling against the headwind but the rain had at least stopped. I’d swap the wind for the rain any day though.

I was heading towards Viborg. It’s a small city which I figured would have ample services for a rest day.

Passing by large lakes the wind was pushing me into the road. It really was the strongest wind I’ve experienced throughout the trip. This is my fourth day with a headwind and it seems to be getting stronger. It makes the ride more of a mental battle than physical, although physically it’s like climbing the Alps all over again.

I finally made it to Viborg where I’ll have my rest day. I’m going to try and fix the inner tube and bodge a fix for the tyre. I also need to wash some clothes so hopefully the weather will brighten up over the next few days.

The day started as it had carried on most of the night, with heavy rain. Luckily there was a break in the cloud so I quickly packed a sodden tent together. I get chatting to some guy who had used a push scooter to scoot round Holland and parts of Denmark. I’m not sure I understood his interpretation of a scooter but that sounds pretty impressive. Where would you put your stuff?

I left wearing full waterproofs. The E45 wasn’t a particularly pleasant road, but luckily there weren’t as many lorries as usual as it was the weekend. I also had a strong headwind which was making progress particularly slow. This of course meant the rain was horizontal and coming straight into my face.

It didn’t get much better as the day progressed. I only had about 70km to do in total to Goteborg but the headwind was making the ride excruciatingly slow. Not to mention the road works I hit meant I was zigzagging across carriageways, up and down ramps.

When I did finally reach Goteborg I went straight to the port to enquire about the ferry. There was one just boarding and if I paid a substantially large sum of money I could get on it. Apparently the only way to get a cheap ticket is to book weeks in advance. I’d figured that if I save 10 euro or so by catching the one the next day I’d still have to pay for camping, so I raced for the ferry and was the last person on as the doors closed behind me, almost like an Indiana jones moment. Unfortunately this meant I saw absolutely none of Goteborg. I’ll come back another day I’m sure.

Once we ported in Frederikshavn I decided I might as well cycle another 50km to the west coast to Loken. There looked to be plenty of campsites there and the sun was now shining, that wind was still strong though.

I made it to the campsite where I booked in. Turns out I really do need a Scandinavian camping card, especially in Denmark. So the lady put me on a transit pass. A transit pass spreads the cost of the camping card over four nights stay. After watching a lovely sunset I went to bed.