We were woken gently by the sound of birdsong through the ships tannoy, followed by a very loud announcement to let us know that it was 05:30am and breakfast was about to be served! We stayed in bed until 06:30 and at 07:00, rolled off the front of the boat and into Holland…

Once we’d got the GPS track sorted, we followed the river east towards Rotterdam, stopping for a breakfast of yogurt and granola by the waters edge after a few kilometres.

The small ferry over the water from Maassuluis, was pulling away as we arrived, so rather than wait for it to come back, we turned around and rode the short distance into the town. And what a stroke of luck that was! It was classic Holland…

The buildings were from the 1600s and all lent over slightly. We soon found a coffee shop that had seats in the sun on a floating pontoon on the canal. We stopped for a drink, then, reluctant to race off, ordered a second breakfast of ham and egg toastie with salad, and a glass of green tea with passion fruit.

After the excellent detour, it was around midday by the time we took the ferry…

The two euro crossing saved us quite a few extra kilometres that it would have taken to cycle to the next bridge.

Later, we passed an amazing bridge that lifted high into the air to allow a boat to pass underneath. We had to wait five minutes for the section of ‘the road’ to come back down and once joined up, you could barely tell it was a separate section.

We had a bit of a faff finding somewhere to stay the night, as the booking App we tried to use, didn’t quite work right. In the end we headed to a campsite that had a ‘wild camping’ area, which is tucked around the back of a very large campground. There are loads of campsites about, but the big ones are fully booked and costs range up to 100euros a night! To sleep in a tent?!! Madness! Anyway, rather than be set up next to a line of caravans in the busy main campsite, for €24.00 we have a private little alcove in a field packed with wild flowers. There’s even a shelter to cook under.

We’d come far enough and were very relieved to be assigned one of the last available spaces. We lay out the tarp, brewed some mint tea, ate, read and snoozed until the sun went down.

The sunset was another good one and as we sat there among the flowers it was hard to believe that I was in Paris a week ago, or watching the sun go down from a mountain top in Wales just two nights back…

Total Ride: 35.4km