Homeward Bound

This blog is long overdue but is aimed at rounding off the details of our 2019 summer cycling tour after the last blog saw us arrive in Frankfurt on Day 73 of our tour.

After a good night’s rest at the riverside Ibis Hotel, we decided to grab breakfast at the nearby station before visiting a laundrette we had located on Google maps. The breakfast in a station cafe allowed some people watching as we munched on our pastries and enjoyed our coffee. As you might expect, Frankfurt has a very large station and we noticed a few unsavoury characters floating around but thought nothing of it and left to get our laundry done at the nearby laundrette.

We set-up all the cleaning and found a Starbucks close by and had another coffee whilst watching the world go by. Suddenly we heard a lot of sirens, saw a lot of blue lights and quite some commotion at the station. We then heard a helicopter overhead and saw people rushing from the station. We decided to leave the area and return to the laundrette but only found out later in the day the tragedy that had unfolded at the station. It was quite a shock to read and was a sad thing to learn. The world can be a tragic place sometimes.

We had decided to aim at returning to Jersey before the end of August in time for our youngest son’s 21st birthday, so our plans were now to cycle from Frankfurt to the Hook of Holland where we could take a ferry to Essex to spend some time with family and friends. We then planned to get our bikes to the place of their ‘birth’ Thorn Cycles in Bridgwater for a service before we took them home. So on Day 74 we left Frankfurt and followed the Main River before connecting with the Rhine.

The next five days of cycling followed the Rhine through Germany with some spectacular scenery and cities including an overnight stay in Cologne where we stayed in the only hotel where bicycles were not permitted in the room but could be left outside at the rear of the hotel. This made us uneasy as there was a lot of construction going on and even our double locked bikes might be vulnerable. So once we had checked into our third floor room, we managed to find a sneaky back entrance to the hotel and snuck the bikes up three flights of stairs into our room. It was a bit of an effort but at least we slept safely knowing we would still have our transport in the morning!

On Day 79 we crossed the border from Germany into the Netherlands (our eighth country of the tour) and once again enjoyed the cycling paradise that is everywhere in the Netherlands. We managed to find a nice campsite mainly aimed at motorhome holidaymakers but there was a nice area for tents too, where we noticed a unicycling bicycle tourist! Unfortunately we also found ourselves pitched quite close a couple where the lady has a bad cough which kept her (and us!) awake for some of the night – the delights of thin tent walls!

Day 80 was the last time we used our tent staying in a small but welcoming site with some good facilities for cyclists and spent some time speaking to some fellow cyclists.

Day 81 was an interesting day of cycling when we briefly ventured across the Belgium border (making it nine countries visited) and then returned back to the Netherlands but then found ourselves technically crossing into and out of Belgium again as we cycled through a small enclave that Belgium has in the Netherlands. Who knew? Accommodation that night was a nice sports hotel with a ground floor room allowing easy access for the bikes.

Days 82 and 83 saw us cycling through the Netherlands and seeing some windmills along the way. The final day of cycling to the Hook of Holland saw us cycle through some really long dedicated cycling tunnels with their own lift system – pretty amazing cycling infrastructure. We also cycled through the busy port of Rotterdam where you could see the arrival and transport of thousands of containers from ship to train and vice-versa.

Unfortunately the final stretch to the Hook of Holland was into a strong headwind and we were grateful to reach our accommodation for the night before the ferry sailing the next day.

After a smooth ferry crossing we make it to Harwich for an overnight stay at the Premier Inn. Then a short cycle to the Ingle beach hut at Walton-on-the-Naze to be greeted by Richard’s sister and her family.

There follows a short visit with family before Miss Sunshine and Shadow are transported by van to Bridgwater for a well deserved service and home to Jersey in time for 21st birthday celebrations.

And that’s the end of this summer tour. Our first long-distance, multi-month tour. 3,789km cycled and 10 countries visited. What a blast! Can’t wait to do it again.

Musical accompaniment to this post has to be this one…