The guidebook we have been using, "The Rhine Route", by Mike Wells, divides the entire ride into 27 stages, each about 50 kilometers long. Today, we ride stage 26, Schoonhoven to Rotterdam. It is one of the shorter ones, listed as 37 km. Logically, that means we should ride the last leg, Stage 27 tomorrow. But, keeping a watchful eye on the weather, we see that tomorrow's forecast is for rain most of the day. Yet, Friday the weather looks sunny. This has been a wonderful adventure. Why end it on a down, dreary, drippy note? If we postpone a day, and we have plenty of extra days, we can ride the last leg in sunny style, camp without cowering from the rain in the tent and enjoy the North Sea coastline. That is what we plan to do. If you have followed this blog much, you can guess who came up with this alteration in our plans. Hint: it wasn't the Supertanker.
Neither of us slept much before 1:00 am this morning. The wind was delightfully blowing, rustling our down comforter as we lay in the Tarp Tent. Unlike an enclosing tent that blocks the wind, a Tarp Tent lets the air move through in an attempt to lessen condensation on the inside of the waterproof surface. And so it did last night, something we both enjoy. Between the wind, the ships motoring up and down the river 200 yards away and the sheer warmth and comfort of our cozy nest, we just couldn't sleep.
We woke up at 7:15 am this morning and enjoyed the luxury of a picnic table to aid in packing and eating breakfast. The wind was still at it, but the sun was peeking through, lending a little warmth to the activity. We had finished breakfast and were in the final prep to leave, when Michael, an Englishman and our neighbor of the night walked by. Due to the rain, we had not met last night. We introduced ourselves and got immersed in a conversation that lasted half an hour. We finally had to excuse ourselves to get on the road.
At this point the Rhine is in its massive delta that includes Amsterdam, Rotterdam and all the land in between. It is divided into multiple channels, all contained by dikes. We rode half a mile to a ferry dock and crossed to the other side of the branch we are following to Rotterdam.
Once on the other side the wind continued its punishing push from yesterday. We alternately rode up on the dike and down in the flatland. When off the dike we rode through bird preserves and other points of interest, always on roads and bike paths surrounded by ditches and channels full of water to within a foot of the level of the ground. Although we did not realize it at the time, all those channels were flowing the same way we were riding, to pumping stations to raise the water up the 2 to 5 meters required to get it up in the river and out to sea. Later in the day we learned that they must pump 24/7 to keep the land above water. 40% of the country is below sea level. If the pumps couldn't run for three months the area would be under a meter of water. The job of pumping started about 1739 and was done by windmills, 20 of them, manned by . . . Millers. 19 of those 20 windmills still stand, nicely restored and are a major tourist attraction. We rode into this double row of elegant machines from the land side and were caught off guard by the crowds of people. We toured one of the windmills, spinning in the strong wind, vigorously pumping water. After my experience with the windmill a few days ago I was suspicious that this mill was actually powered by the wind. Granted, the wind was really blowing, but they had no canvas unfurled over the lattice of the blades so that the width of the blades actually catching the wind was quite small. I did not look into it further. Now I wish I had, as I am curious to know if that windmill was authentically wind powered or electrically spinning for the hordes of tourists. Either way, it was magnificent to see these symbols of Holland's past and present. We enjoyed the movie in the visitor's center that explained the origin and purpose of the windmills and the engineering that keeps the ocean off Holland.
We caught another ferry, crossing the Noord River, depositing us in Ridderhaven. From here it took us about a hour to ride into downtown Rotterdam and to our Hostel.
It is always a shock to ride into the big cities after riding country roads, lanes and deserted bike paths. This time the shock was two fold, the bustle of cars, buses and trolleys and the masses of bikes zipping everywhere. Every street has a dedicated separate bike lane parallel to it, with red pavement to denote it is for bikes. It is nice to have a lane to keep the cars away.
I am thrilled about our hostel for the night. It is housed in the famous "cube houses" built in the early 80's. Each "house" is a cube standing on its point on top of a 30' high hexagonal column. The cubes have three floors inside (they are big!). 39 were built, each house is connected to the one next to it, in rows and clusters of six, each cluster forming a hexagon. Can you see why, as a former geometry teacher, I think this is so cool. The hostel company bought 9 of the units and connected them with other walls to create a very cool living environment. My description does not do it justice, and unfortunately, neither do my pictures. In fact, I wandered through the complex scratching my head, trying to understand the arrangement and how it all fit together and I am still a bit confused.
After we moved into our portion of one of the cubes we wandered out into the city to find a bite to eat. Once out and about we discovered what an amazing collection of architecturally unique building this city has. It is really cool! I have a few pictures of some of the buildings, but it doesn't do justice to the whole of the city.
Once back in our room we began planning the next phase of our trip, namely getting the bikes to Paris on trains that don't allow bikes, unless in boxes (back to this game). We fell asleep with the conclusion we would take regional trains all the way from Rotterdam to Paris. These allow bikes. It will require about six train changes and take about 9 hours compared to 2 hours and 45 minutes and no train changes on the high speed trains. We also were checking updates on weather forecasts to finalize the decision of whether to ride the final stage to Hoek van Holland at the North Sea tomorrow or on Friday. Of course, the 600 pound gorilla in the corner that we are ignoring for the moment is the 400 watt hour Li-ion battery that powers Sally's e-bike. They are not allowed on passenger planes. How will we get it home? That is tomorrow's adventure. Stay tuned.
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