Heading back to Holland – the homeward stretch…

Packed up after a final brew on the rooftop, then headed north out of Antwerp.

It was another industrial exit, but with plenty to see along the way.

The best building by far (surely another article from Dad’s ’Builder’ magazine), is the old harbour house – it’s has quite the extension! New blending in seamlessly with the old!

Once we’d cleared the ports (the second largest in Europe apparently), we were back onto a quiet cycle lane that followed the railway.

This took us to a town called Essen, but rather than explore another town square, we enjoyed a picnic lunch by a little lake on the outskirts.

The threat of rain was never far away, but we managed to stay under blue skies. Just.

About 10km short of where we planned to camp, we stopped in a town for a rest by the church.

There was a small cafe next to it and as we were both needing a rest, and without too much further to go, we ordered a coffee and took a seat outside next to the bikes.

Five minutes later, following a sudden gale, the heavens opened. It was like the cloud above had just burst. No lead in, or warning drizzle, just a sudden, torrential downpour, with drops that felt like hailstones. We dashed for the cafe door and just got inside before getting too soaked (after waiting for some old folk to get in first!). We were so lucky. It only lasted about five minutes, but later we found that about 3mm of rain had fallen in that time. One guy came in a few minutes after us soaked to the skin. He looked like he’d fallen in the river and took his shirt off in the door way to wring it out!

By the time we left, things were drying up again! Mad.

At the supermarket we picked up supplies for dinner and the next day and also spotted as we were leaving, a beer with my name on it!

It was as if it had never rained by the time we got to the campsite. It’s a small farm with only a few pitches so nice and quiet, nice and clean and nice and cheap. They have a camp shop with honesty box, where they sold local beers. I tried the ‘weakest’ one which was a mere 7% and less than the price of a coffee. One was enough! Lovely.