Tank Tours

Delft was always on our list of places to visit in The Netherlands and yesterday we did just that on our day off the tour. Also took the opportunity to further explore The Hague on a seriously hot day. Ursi even managed to climb the 300 plus steps up the very narrow staircase to the top of the tower in Delft. Not for me. Our host, Abhi, had organised a home delivered Indian meal in the evening which went down a treat. Nice change from what we have normally eaten on the tour. Early start today; after breakie, we left around 8.45am to catch a train to Rotterdam to reduce the riding distance and time to Breda. It was always in the plan to do that. Getting bikes loaded with panniers on the train is not as easy as it sounds when the platform is quite a bit lower than the train doors. Anyway, we managed to get them up and there was a first experience, where the ticket price for the bikes were more expensive than the passengers. The bikes cost Euro 6.90 ea...

One of the many good things about bike touring for us is taking time out to smell the roses and the 3 days spent in and around Amsterdam was a point in case. Our base in lovely Haarlem: A day and half in fabulous Amsterdam: A day in fairy tale town, Geithoorn But all good things come to an end, so today, we were back in the saddle and through a combination of good luck and planning, we rode a fabulous route to The Hague. It turned out to be a ripper of a day's ride. Given, it was a short ride, we took our time over breakie and getting ready; left Haarlem around10am and experienced riding (on, as always, nice bike paths) a bit of everything today. We cycled through, forests, little villages, along canals, past lakes, next to a golf course, sand dunes, even a National Park (Noordwijk-Binnen) with deer and along the North Sea. Just before we entered the LF1 route, we caught site of a bright purple lav...

Back in the saddle after a couple of lovely sunny days in charming Maastricht with our daughter Jessie who flew in from London. Hadn't seen her since she left Sydney early February. Today's route created by my mate, Ellwood was beautiful and going through Leiden made it that much more special. After a quick breakie, we hit the road around 9am on a lovely warm day, trusting that we would get into the cycling rhythm after Maastricht. You can't help but get into the rhythm with the sun on your back and bike paths, smooth as, along canals/dikes or flower beds and it didn't take us long. The cycling infrastructure is second to none here and long may it continue. The Dutch take full advantage of it, as one sees people of all ages, from young toddlers to grandpa's and grandma's cycling. Moving along, we rode into Leiden; it was that time of the day when Ursi needed her morning fix of decaf coffee. just as well for 2 reasons, one, it was t...