Heading West

With 200km still to go before reaching our ferry and three days to get there, we set out into the cool of the morning feeing refresh and psyched to be back on the road.

We had 65km to travel today, so there was no time for stopping for any of these!



The town of Cuijk was a well kept one, but we passed through before any of the cafes were open, so kept a good pace on.



After the bright start, we soon found ourselves heading towards some dark skies. We took refuge under the porch of a library while the worst of the rain passed, but it wasn’t much of a rest. 



We carried on through some light drizzle rather than hanging around, conscious that we still had a way to go.



The route took us through some nice woodlands and thankfully on decent paths after a few rough tracks earlier in the day.

Near the town of Oss, we chanced upon a splendid cafe right on the side of the trail. We’d just been saying how we could do with a rest so it seemed remiss to pass it by! Because we are off any ‘known’ long distance route, we are a bit of a novelty and another couple at the cafe were very interested to hear where we were going and how we managed to have enough things with us to survive! Full of coffee (and apple cake, thanks to a persuasive waitress), we set back out on the trail full of joy and rearing to go!







As lunch time drew near, the skies darkened and rain was clearly imminent. As luck would have it, the tour provided a sheltered bench! Perfect!



Then, once the showers had passed, we had another extraordinary stroke of luck. We needed to buy some gas for our stove and literally just around the corner, from where we had had lunch, an outdoor shop had opened this week! Legendary!

And as well as Gas, Clare also found some new sandals in the opening sale!



I considered a rain hat…



Further rains were ducked by nipping into a supermarket to source dinner.



I was beginning to flag in the final few kilometres, but picked up when we arrived at the campsite to find a kitchen and lounge that we could hang out in - and by being given a tasty protein drink and a huge dinner!



Total Ride: 65km