Today's distance: 85km (53 Miles)
Today is the day we were heading towards Dordrecht, the town where I was born, let's say.... a few years ago. It is also the place where my parents grew up, met and got married. The plan is to stay an extra day to explore around and be a little more lazy after being on our bikes for 4 days. I had booked a stay at a Bed & Breakfast in the old part of Dordrecht that had a high rating of 5 tulips on the Dutch B&B website...
We rolled out of Ouddorp at a reasonable time on a beautiful sunny day.. The forecast mentioned a possibility of rain later in the afternoon but we hoped to beat it to Dordrecht. The wind was mostly in our backs as we rode through the beautiful Dutch country side. The pictures sometimes really don't adequately show that which is why I started to experiment with the video setting on my Iphone. It seemed to work fairly well for the windmill tour yesterday, so why not some of the scenery along our ride? I even downloaded some simple video editing software for Ipad to "stitch" together some of the clips so that you wouldn't have to click on too many Youtube links. Maybe nobody cares out there to see them anyway, but it it something that keeps me mentally busy in the evening before going to bed. Linda thinks I am crazy..
The big problem is taking video with one hand with my Iphone while trying to keep the bicycle (and me) from going into a canal at the same time. I also turns out many of the best clips somehow didn't record properly (mostly upside down). I decided to not to post those and cause someone vertigo. I will have to pay more attention next time how I hold the Iphone. Regardless don't expect a Spielberg production!
We were relatively close to Rotterdam which is the 2nd biggest city in Holland. It was also the largest sea port in the world when I was growing up. Amazing that you really don't get a sense of that riding through wonderful nature areas along the way. The Dutch are very protective of keeping as much of the land preserved as either a nature area or for farming.
We crossed under the Maas river in a dedicated bicycle tunnel which was really cool. Hopefully you get a sense of that in today's video. Also of a girl taking her horse for a run while riding her bicycle along. I had a hard time trying to catch up to them so I could take the shot.
We had to do a detour of about 10km when the bicycle ferry we were planning to take was not operating. We had to push into the wind several kilometers back up the river which really gave us an appreciation of lucky we have been having the wind in our backs for so long.. We met another long distance bicycle touring couple, Nick and Barbara from the UK who were heading from London to Budapest. We biked with them for a while, but split up further down the road since they were heading for Breda which is further south in Holland.
We were 2km from Dordrecht when the skies opened up and gave us a decent soaking. That was no way to welcome a returning resident! Well, I really only lived there 1 month before my parents took me with them to the US.
We finally made it to downtown Dordrecht and checked into our really neat B&B called the "De Luthiers". The owners (Lucienne & Wout) have a business building and repairing violins, cellos, and guitars that is part of the B&B. We got a sneak peak of their workshop when we checked in and hope to be able to see more tomorrow (with pics to follow). Here is their link: http://www.deluthiers.nl/en/lucienne-and-wout
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| Route towards Dordrecht |
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| Morning view from our B&B |
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| Waiting for the drawbridge to close |
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| The bicycle tunnel under the Maas river |
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| Waiting for the bicycle ferry |
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| Our first selfie of the trip |
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| Saw many out walking their dogs. This is a Kangal dog from Turkey, bred to protect sheep from wolves and bears. My parents had a dog like this. This was a 18 mos old male who was already as tall as my waist with a head the size of a bear! Very friendly though.. |
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| First Applegebak of the trip. No, I don't think we will be starving.... |
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| Linda ready for a nap after the appelgebak |
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| Our B&B in Dordrecht |
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