Jack's Advice

Dordrecht => Delft, 75.9kms, Total 2490.3, Ride time 4'39" "

Having coffee with Jack and his wife the other day, they both strongly suggested we stop at a little town called Delft. With no other plans, we thought this a grand idea, so today we set off from Dordrecht with the plan of visiting Rotterdam but staying in Delft.

I'd been waiting for this day for a very long time, not because Rotterdam was the 'official' end of the Rhein ride (according to my map), but because today we got to see the windmills. I was drooling at the bit. In fact the day was even better because after a short cycle into to see the centre of Dordrecht (which wasn't really worth the detour) we caught the ferry across the river for the 5th or 6th time, headed out of town without getting lost and then cycled through some beautiful small towns and laneways to my windmills. Why am I so excited to see windmills? absolutely no idea, it just seems to me that the Netherlands equals Windmills, so I had to see them. Consider them seen.

After our last little ferry ride (which I couldn't enjoy due to a pressing call of nature which kept me walking from one end of the ferry to the other) we meandered the last 20kms into the centre of Rotterdam. Again, we were saved my several good people who informed us that signs had been turned around, so with only a few (OK, quite a few) moments of hesitation and geting lost we made it to Rotterdam. Unfortunately it was sort of 'big deal'. We had a look around, ate lunch, found the way out of town and went. I managed to confuse a small pond for a canal (I'm gifted at getting lost, what can I say), but redemed myself by later finding the canal which we had been told to just follow to Delft. 14kms later that's exactly what we had done.

After a street corner debate on which way to go to the campsite, Christie won, and we found a little campsite about 2kms out of town which had a toilet block made of hay which amused me, and a driveway made of broken glass which didn't. Anyway, we set up our tent, and Christie had a shower, while I needed to let off steam because I was still sure there was another campsite closer to town. The result of this was I went for a ride to let off said steam (found my campsite closer to town), but more importantly went for a ride around town finding that Delft is absolutely gorgeous, and also that there was a half marathon on there tomorrow. I jokingly took a picture of the poster and when I got back to camp (feeling much better) I showed it to Christie. She actually lept at it, and before I knew it I was to have a day off, and she was going to run a half marathon ... score!!!! Just to round out the perfect scenario, I discovered that there was an all you can eat chinese buffet in town. double score!!!

Had a lovely dinner that night at the cafe watching all these kids play with baby goats and a hyper-eneretic pig which they keep there.

I get a day off tomorrow, I get a day off!!!!

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