No Wimps Here!

 

It’s been a couple of days since my last post and many kilometers have passed under our trusty bikes. We are sitting tonight in the small town of Meerssen just north of Maastricht in the far southeast of the country. As a matter of interest a very few kilometers in either direction would take us to Belgium or Germany. We are staying in a very nice B&B that is also home to a gourmet restaurant, and we are looking forward to breakfast with great anticipation! Its located quite a long way off the beaten track, and with the exception of an amazing church complete with flying buttresses, the town looks quite bland and I suspect that it was largely destroyed during WWII and subsequently rebuilt. Close to Maastricht so will allow us to spend the day there tomorrow. We expect some rain tomorrow so plan to wander what is reputed to be a pretty town and also rest our bodies for a while before tackling a long day north into southern Brabant (Province of).

We have tracked some 370kms and I must admit we are more than a little surprised at how well things are going to this point. Frankly we are having a blast and I can hardly wait to climb on the bike ever morning and get going. Of course there are exceptions to the rule and today was one. We awoke to pounding on the roof that, on closer examination, turned out to be rain just a pouring down. Well we were staying in this rather expensive hotel that was all we could find in the town of Arcen which seemed full of a rather wealthier clientele (but perhaps not so famous) and there was no way these budget travelers could be seen in a hotel of this caliber a second night (strangely I didn’t have a tie with me). So this meant we had to go, no matter the weather. We had planned to ride almost to the German border to visit this small Dutch pancake house I’d located on the internet from home, but with the rain there were likely to be few detours for pancakes today! Annemarie recalled seeing a similar establishment down the street from our hotel so off we went only to find it was early brunch for E10/person…there went the budget…sheeesh! Warm and dry and lots of good food, so we stayed and fueled up for the long cold, wet ride to come. When the host began making strong hints that it was time for us to depart (I offered to wash dishes), we had no choice…time to venture out. It wasn’t sprinkling as we stood in the door of the bike shed…no it wasn’t…wish it was.

We launched. We rode, and we rode and before we knew it we were laughing and making jokes about the cows that had taken shelter under the trees who were making jokes about the stupid Canucks riding by. Even the sheep…even the stupid sheep were mostly looking for cover (no, not all of them cause, while, you know, they’re sheep). Then it really started to rain. We started to think about which town might have a train station where we could jump a train down to Maastricht. You see, we had planned to ride to Roermond and catch a train from there, but with the weather as it was we started to look for alternatives. Standing under a tree I decided that we could catch one at Venlo, just an hour away, but as we got closer the rain eased and we decide that we were tough Canucks and wouldn’t jam out. So through the town we rode and over the Maas River on a really, really high rail bridge, then onwards south, ever south.

 

At noon we stopped at a small brown café all dressed up in Dutch orange for the coming E2012 and went in for a drink and to use the facilities.

 

It was like every other bar I’d ever walked into…dim, dark and brown, with 5 locals at the bar drinking beer and chatting with the bar keep…on a Sunday. We could have been in any one of a thousand, thousand small bars…except…it was all decorated in orange. So there are probably only a few of those…all likely in Holland. Our drinks completed all too soon, and no chance to wash dishes here either, we stepped out the door to find the rain falling ever harder. We looked at each other, Annemarie looked at my bike seat…it had a plastic bag on it…she then looked at her bike seat…it didn’t. Then the wind caught a few words…something about, “incompetent Super Domestic”.

Longish story, longer…we rode on through the rain, down cobbled stoned trails (damn but they’re nasty with panniers on the back!), along muddy puddle filled trails and we eventually found our way to the train station in Roermond. The last 10kms were perhaps the worst. The team lead’s wet gear was wet, while the Super Domestic’s gear had provided rather good protection…needless to say it was harder on one of us than the other…will leave to the reader to figure that one out!

True story; when we arrived at our B&B today there was an email waiting for us from Annemarie’s cousin telling us that he hoped we did not plan to ride today as the radar showed such intense rain systems in the area…we must have missed the email by minutes.

Sitting here in the dark typing this late at night and listening to some old Simon and Garfunkle I’m thinking that as strange a day as it was, I’d rather be doing this more than pretty much anything else right now. No doubt there were a few ‘moments’ today (don’t believe me? You should see our muddy bikes!), but yesterday was a sweet, sunny day. We had the wind behind us, the photography was good, and the strangers we met along the way were welcoming. Tomorrow it will rain, but the next day the sun is supposed to shine…and we get to experience the joy all over again. Tot Ziens…