Another day, another Country ...

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Duisberg => Millengen on the Rhein (Netherlands), 97.40kms, Total 2264.8kms, Ride time Unknown

I suspected that the day wasn't going to start so well when I asked the lady at reception to confirm that to get to the Orsoy Ferry, I should just go out along the Industrial Park, turn right and then follow highway 8. No she said, I should go left. She then went and got an english speaking cyclist who worked there to explain the way for me, "It's simple, go out here, go left at the road, at the second lights, go left, go under the highway, through a tunel, and you'll get to a T Junction, go left, you'll come to another T Junctoin, go right, then left ..." seriously he went on like this for another 2 minutes whilst I stared at him trying to look like I was taking it all in, saying "Jaa, jaa" and nodding gratefuly and getting seriously, seriously worried if we'd ever get out of this place.

Anyway, off we wet, I got to the second set of traffic lights and couldn't remember if it was left or right, went left, and we were lost. We wizzed back and forth a bit, and as we sat there completely dumbfounded as to which way to go, a gentleman walks up to us with his beautiful dog and asks in perfect english where we were trying to go, we explained we wanted to get to the Orsoy Ferry, at which point I could see his mind ticking over, so I quickly added, " We want the EASIEST way to the Orsoy Ferry". He gave u dead easy instructions, "down this road, go left, then go right, we'll see a service station, go left, go for about 5kms, se another service station, go left, and folow your nose". We got lost at th first go right, we went left. Fortunately we only went a km down the road before we realsied our mistake, and after that had a quick and easy journey to the Ferry and back onto our map. That was the first 10kms of the day.

Immediately across the river, we took a shortcut to Rheinberg and then Zanten, a beautiful little town where we had coffee and cakes and bought ourselves bells for our bikes to warn pedestrians we were coming. One thing that really amazes me about Europe is the amount of agricutlure. Everywhere we went there are crops growinsg. For some reason I'd always pictured Europe as a net importer of food.

We discovered 3 excellent bike shops in a small town called Kalkar (but they were all closed on a Wednesday), before heading to Kleve.

Kleve looekd beautiful in the book we had (blueline cycle guide) but becuase of that it was voerrun with cafe's and tourists. We ate our lunch and half-heartedlylooked around, mainly vexed and cnfused by the lack of desperately needed public toilets, before we headed out of town. We went in the wrong direction of course, but managed to get it right the second time before heading the last 12kms to Millengan on the Rhein just over the border. I should say that I did suggest several times that we book a ncie hotel in Kleve as it is Christie's Birthday the next day, but Christie wanted to keep going so we did.

With the help of a few more nice people, we eventually found a campsite, and after wonderful hot showers went into town for a pleasant and huge dinner and a delightful shpping experience ... We like the Netherlands already. they had all the food we like, more diet drinks than soft drinks and the food is cheap!!!! Yay!

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