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Published: September 20th 2008
Sara on the ferry
Sara enjoying the view from our ferry ride across the canal.Time for another update already. We're now enjoying our first rest day since we left Amsterdam. After six riding days and over 270 miles we think it's about time. So here we are staying in a hotel in Utrecht, living it up in the city. Well, more like resting it up. We're quite tired. So we still go to bed early and sleep soundly. But before I get too in depth about Utrecht, let's discuss how we got here.
We left Spakenburg at around 5pm. Luckily we only had 10 miles or so before we hit camp. These were a fun 10 miles. Just after leaving town our path took us to a ferry crossing. Now we're not talking a WSF type ferry, nor a crossing like you'd expect in the Puget Sound area. This ferry was big enough for about 4 cars, though it actually crossed just with us on board. Don't expect to hear about an elaborate ferry dock either. More like sloping pavement into the canal, into which the ferry simple collides and drops down a little ramp while raising a barrier on the boat. The crossing was probably only 4 or 5 times the length of
Calling the Ferry
Paul pulling the ferry across the canal with the hand crank. the boat. My favorite detail, however, was that the captain of this little ferry was selling his home-grown potatoes right there on the boat.
After some more riding through farmlands (that's about all we ride through, really) we came to yet another ferry crossing. To our dismay this one seemed to not be operational at the moment. All we could see was a walkway on either side for the passengers to walk aboard the vessel. This ferry was not for cars. We found a detour route and headed off a few feet before some gut instict pulled me back to inspect the dock closer. And I'm so glad I did. It turns out that this ferry was a self-operated, hand-crank ferry! It consisted of a small barge attached to a chain across the canal. There were hand cranks on either shore and on board. So I started cranking the ferry over to us, we walked our bikes on, and I cranked us over. It was hard work, but pretty rad.
After the ferry ride we headed into the woods, riding on dirt roads. Just when we throught we'd found the boonies of the Netehrlands we passed a giant
Sara on the Ferry
Sara with the bikes on our own personal ferry. water park. Then shortly after came our amazingly popular campground. I guess there are no boonies out here. There was some sort of kids camp going on with kid singing all night. Also, across from the hiker/biker tent field (which we had all to ourselves) was some sort of tent expo. There must have been 100 tents set up with no owners. Just to check out tents. Not many people were really in to it.
Next morning was just a 20 mile ride in to Utrecht. We were hungry so the ride wasn't too pleasant, and the scenery was less than inspiring. We made it in and found the cheapest hotel we could. The only hostel in town was fully booked. We explored the town then turned in to do some laundry in the hotel bathroom sink and rest on our beds while watching the BBC 2 channel.
After a delicious hotel breakfast this morning we off on the town again. Sightseeing will probably be minimal as we're really trying to rest, but this the "Dom City,"so we'll have to go around a see some things. The city tower is quite impressive.
-Paul and Sara
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Julie
non-member comment
Hi!!
Geri sent us your blog link. Looks like you are having an amazing trip. So inspiring. Best wishes, Chris, Julie and Max Dunlap