Jeff's Journal of Europeaness: Wednesday: Oosterhout to Rotterdam

Oosterhout to Rotterdam
~43 miles
Evening accommodations: Hostel Ani & Haakien
Route/Ride Analytics:
https://www.strava.com/activities/588009785
https://www.strava.com/activities/588136316

We loved Oosterhout so much, we decided to take the first exit out of a roundabout instead of the second leaving town, and took a scenic two mile wrong way spur to see more of the town before finally getting on the right path! More roads paved in brick led us out of town and into the countryside, where long straight stretches of easy to follow trail were much appreciated after two days of winding forest roads.

Roundabout with the bikepath visible in red, and cows in the background

Our scene for the morning was endless cows and sheep grazing in below sea level fields. About ten miles into our ride, we went through the first truly little village that we got to see in the Netherlands, Drimmelen. The bike routes don't often go through the villages, opting to stay outside. A little old lady sitting on a bench seemed amused that there were visitors that actually wanted to stop and take pictures of the town. From there, our path turned into an access road that ran alongside the dike (which doubled as more grazing land) holding back the river Hollandsch Diep, an outlet of the Rhine.

Lets go to 66, after photographing this town!

Nice little sitting area

I hate to say any biking is boring, but if any part of the trip was really a downer, these 8 miles were it. It was raining off an on, we were in a field with wind, and the view to one side was obstructed by an earthen mound. At least the grazing animals kept me mildly amused. Our goal past that stretch was to reach the A16 and Moerdijk bridge, one of only three bridge crossings of the river. Thankfully, the Dutch do consider bikes to be real transportation, and even their limited access motorways have access and lanes for bikes on bridges.

Our rough view for 8 miles

Remnants of the war. I don't know which Allied force was here, but Nov 8 1944 was the date the Battle of the Scheldt ended with an Allied victory, clearing this area of German forces

A break from fields and dikes in our view! Pic from Carissa

Looking at the railway bridge over the river

Biking the highway!

Crossing Hollandsch Diep, we found ourselves in South Holland. The trail left the A16 immediately after the bridge, and we headed back to the east, near De Biesbosch national park, on our way up to Dordrecht for lunch. We found a cool structure, that while I have no idea what it originally was, am assuming was a WWII leftover. It was nice biking for the next 9 miles, with regularly changing scenery between farms, woods, and urban riding. We rolled into Dordrecht around 2:30 in the afternoon, and found lunch at a nice place right in the downtown area.

Welkom indeed!

Beware the winged reindeer....

What happens when you go up the steps?

Our restaurant in Dordrecht

The area was full of bikes when we arrived

After getting some hot food, we took off towards our next destination: Kinderdijk, which was once a major pumping station that has nineteen windmills in close proximity to one another. It wasn't long until we came across a new obstacle: ferries. The Dutch really aren't fond of bridges, and prefer to operate ferries wherever possible. After some initial confusion with a friendly local trying to help us (I was looking for the ferry to just get us across the river, she was trying to tell us how to take a ferry all the way to Kinderdijk, because why would you ride your bike that distance if a boat went there?), we missed the first set of boats. Thankfully, the one that just crosses the river runs every ten or so minutes, so we weren't waiting long for it to return. This particular ferry cost us 2EUR each, with the bikes carried for free.

Ferry schedule, routes and cost

Trip not even long enough for the boat to have seats

Crossing the river, we were off, and lost, again. By this time, we had learned biking infrastructure is everywhere, and simply followed surface roads to get us to the dedicated bike path. We soon saw the tell-tale windmill icons and arrows painted on the trail, pointing us towards Kinderdijk, which was convenient because we found another lovely "feature" of using nodes to navigate. We needed to go to a certain node, and a new one had been inserted in-between without maps being updated to indicate it and no signs indicating the former "next" node was in any particular direction.

Rolling into Kinderdijk was a very beautiful scene, not least because I knew what was planned for there. While I had wanted to visit the UNESCO World Heritage site simply for what it was, it was also the site I had selected to ask a certain someone to get married, after I had found out that the tulip fields would be out of bloom when we visited. Thankfully, there was laughter in place of tears, and I got to come home with a fiancee as a souviner of the trip! This duck witnessed it all, kept quiet, and only after all was said and done came over and begged for some food. I'm normally anti-feeding wildlife, but he was well behaved and I was in a good mood, so he got some celebratory sweet crackers!

The canal and some of the windmills

The newly engaged couple!

We can't have a happy picture with only ONE windmill, but I had to use the bike as a tripod...

Happy Jeff, Happy Duck! Pic from Carissa

We rolled north out of Kinderdijk, to run into another problem. I chose my words very carefully earlier when I said the Dutch like putting ferries WHEREever they can, with no comment on them running WHENever you want them. We got to the dock to find a chained up door and no more boats for the evening, so we sprinted back to Alblasserdam at probabyl the fastest we booked it all day. Thankfully, we caught the second last ferry from there. As we weren't sure if we'd need any other ferries on the day, we decided to simply take it all the way to Rotterdam and dock a mile from our hostel for the night for the cost of 6EUR. After all, if you have a ferry, why would you want to ride a bike? :)

Waiting on the dock in Alblasserdam with a boat in the background

View off the back of the boat

Full size Noah's Ark replica

Our hostel for the night once again had dedicated bike parking. Also, while we saw a LOT of people bicycle touring on our trip, I saw the only touring specific bike parked here, a Surly Disc Trucker (oddly enough, customized with a non-disc front brake). Never figured out whose it was or what they were up to, and it was gone before we left the next morning.