After a very nice breakie served by an equally nice host, Hans, we got going around 9am with skies threatening overhead. Sure enough, 5 minutes into our ride, the heavens opened up and luck would have it, we found shelter just in time.
Half an hour later, the rain eased up as we found ourselves going through central Utrecht.
Before then, we captured this photo of the Dutch flag with a school sports bag hanging off it outside a house; one of many. This is a tradition still practiced today when a kid(s) leaves the final year of school. Happy days.
Pretty easy getting out of Utrecht following the route on my Garmin created by my mate, Ellwood. Not long after stopped at a fruit and vege shop run by a couple of ladies in the middle of nowhere (in front of their orchard. Had to try some local produce, since they were so nice; not only was it delicious, it was seriously inexpensive. Very proud they were and told us that business was pretty good especially on the weekend, Saturday; shops don't open on a Sunday.
Moving along, on yet beautiful bike paths, we see this imposing castle, Castle de Haar (in Haarzuliens) which was not open to tourist for the day. Bugger!
As usual there were obstacles on the way; tree loping on a bike path where we had to walk across fallen branches....
One of the highlights of today's ride was the path next to a canal for the best part of 10km; where this young man was in a fishing competition, actually caught one in our presence. A 1.5kg Bream. It's interesting, all fish caught are thrown back into the water; each persons bag catch is weighed and the one with the heaviest bag is the winner and no there are no prizes just bragging rights with your mates.
The bike path and some of the houses along the canal weren't too shabby either.
This route is worth doing if for no other reason than this path along the canal which is quite something to experience.
Cheese in this part of Netherlands is a big thing and they have speciality stores that proudly present their stocks to tempt punters into the shops.
Moving along, into an unassuming town, Bodegraven, the Garmin showed that we had covered 45.7km of today's stage, which meant we had cycled 1000km on our bicycles since leaving Zurich. A proud achievement, I reckon. Happy days.
By now Gouda was in sight, in a way it was sad because we were really enjoying the ride but on the bright side we were staying with Tobias and Susan, (friends of our friends, Pratik and Anu from Sydney). They gave us a warm welcome and extremely generous with their time and hospitality. Unfortunately Tobias had to go to work soon after our arrival but not before he worked out a bike route to Kinderdijk to do with us the following day; after freshening up, we went to the shops to purchase groceries and Ursi cooked all of us a nice meal.
Some days are almost perfect for touring and today was one of those days; hope the words and photos in this blog capture how we felt.
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