Saturday 9 July 2022

Utrecht to Oosterbeek on bikes

The sun was still up when we went to bed last night - we were too tired to do anything but lie down and listen to our audiobook! I got up later in the night and the moon was bright and low in the sky. 



We woke feeling a million times better and got on the road before nine. With the GPS track sorted, in the cool quiet of the morning the kilometres slipped by with ease.



We had to travel on a few roads today, but mostly, the cycle track was bigger than the car section!



In a village that was almost entirely made of small bricks (roads and houses), we stopped by a church for a rest, then found a bikers cafe, so stopped again for a coffee. Resisted the pull of the apple strudel…



There were some wonderful little tracks that took us through farmland and away from the towns.



We skirted a town called Nude (titter titter), but failed to get a comedy photo, so had lunch by a river in there the shade of a tree.



We experimented with going faster and maintaining momentum without exerting too much energy and found that on long straights we could maintain a 16km/h speed, which soon saw us into the next town, but also had us ready for some ice fruit smoothies!



A final section and a turn off down a dusty track got us to a campsite at 4pm with 58km travelled. They were officially ‘full’, but for €20 cash, have squeezed us in ‘off the books’ as they put it, by a vacant caravan. 



A perfect spot for us! We seem to be getting into the flow now as we both had the energy and inclination to enjoy a cold beer under a shady canopy, before sorting out the tent. We spread ourselves out a bit and sorted our equipment, which was handy as I found a squashed tomato in the bottom of my pannier!


Just down river from us is a bridge (and town called Arnhem), which has been the scene of several battles (and a film called A Bridge Too Far). Tomorrow, we check it out. Here’s a photo of it, along with a ‘party ship’ that just went past!



Total Ride = 58km

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