21 November 2014 - Lunteren to Amsterdam

It was the coldest day of the tour. When I checked the weather ‘app’ for Ede/Lunteren just on dawn, it said ‘2C and foggy’. At least it wasn’t going to rain. I joined the Salvation Army Conference team for the final breakfast. They were starting their final day of Conference, including Julie. For me, I would not be lingering over breakfast – I had to be dressed, packed and on the bike by 9:30am. I had to be in Amsterdam at the Bicycle Hotel before nightfall, which was about 4:30pm. I had estimated the distance to be 80k. By end of day, it was a lot further!

I said my good-byes, knowing I would not be seeing most of these people from all around the Salvation Army world ever again. I valued very much the friendships made in these few brief days. I said my farewells, including Julie, but hoping to see her by 4:30pm at the same Bicycle Hotel close to the canal area of the centre of Amsterdam.

It was 9:35am when I rolled away from the Belmont 50/50 Hotel, back into the Lunteren rural countryside. I had the usual wobbles for a few meters just getting used to riding with a large weight on the bike. For days I had been cruising the countryside without the saddle bags. It wasn’t long before my ‘saddle bag’ memory returned. I was assured it was fairly simple to get to Amsterdam – just follow the signs to Utrecht, some 40k due west, and then follow the canal system to the north west that runs between Utrecht and Amsterdam, a further 40k. If only it was that simple.

The road took me back towards Ede to begin with. At a major intersection, the bikeway sign pointed to Utrecht 39k. I turned right, heading west. It was comforting to know that for most of the morning, I had the rising sun behind me, assuring me I was indeed heading west. The signs initially were quite clear. I just followed. The bikeway followed the main road for a while, but then just as often it would cut away through lovely forests, and open farming fields. There was never a dull moment. The kilometers mounted. I was making very good time. Taking photos was the only thing slowing me down. It was effortless cycling, once I got the cold out of my system.

I was wearing my ear coverings for the first time. The bike GPS was telling me that it was still 2C, even after an hour of cycling. There were frequent patches of frost. The day though was turning out a bright sunny day, much like a typical mid-winters day in Canberra.

At about 30k in a nicely forested area, I stopped for a ‘nature break’. I walked into the forest a little way, stepping over a fence and behind a large tree. I then heard a heavy ‘plop’ on the ground, and thinking it was a falling pine cone, I walked back to my bike. It was a nice view of the bike against the background of the forest, so decided to take the photo. My heart stopped beating. My trusty camera was missing – I keep it in my right side pocket of my yellow cycling jacket. For some minutes I stood stunned, wondering where I had last left my camera. Then I remembered the ‘plop’, and wondered. Walking back into the forest to the tree, I eventually caught sight of my precious camera, on the ground partly buried in the carpet of bronzed leaves. My heart began beating once again!

Some 10k before Utrecht I somehow lost the path. I was in a built up area, thinking it was the outskirts of Utrecht, but I couldn’t see any canal that would take me to Amsterdam. Neither could I see any bikeway signs. It suddenly became very frustrating. However, riding with the sun behind me, and having to ask once or twice, I was back with the bikeway signs that bring so much comfort in areas where otherwise you have no idea of where you are.

The signs to Utrecht guided me into a very busy Dutch city centre, with a magnificent canal system running through the centre. There were cars, bikes and pedestrians, the former two all driving and riding as if their lives depended on how fast they could go. It was a little overwhelming for a loaded Aussie cyclist to cycle relatively ponderously and cautiously into the cobbled narrow streets where everything around you is moving so fast it is quite a head spinning blur. I chose to walk. It was too hard to negotiate the quick thinking locals on their bikes going every which way. At least I had made it to Utrecht, and found myself in the bustling city centre, but quite frankly I had no idea of which way to turn to find Amsterdam!

I walked a bit to try to find an information centre to no avail. I loved the canal system though, and assumed that in one or the other direction lay Amsterdam. I stopped outside a tiny coffee shop and started to open the door. The girl sitting outside was the waitress, waiting for a customer. It was rather nice to sit and chat over coffee with her. She spoke great English, and had spent the previous 8 months touring Australia. She pointed to Amsterdam with a smile. Where she pointed was ‘where the crow flies’. I took a punt and took the right hand side of the canal that roughly took that direction.

I put Utrecht behind me, but we would be returning on our tour with Julie on Monday. We will have more time then to explore. It had now passed midday, and I was keen to put some miles down and get safely into Amsterdam by nightfall. I hadn’t gone 1k when the bikeway was totally blocked off by ‘trackwork’. I find this so frustrating. It has happened a few times. The road is caged off, but no help to find an alternate route around the blockage. This time I was rather impatient and indignant. They found a supervisor who spoke English, who showed me how to go through some streets and get back on track.

I was banking on 40k to Amsterdam, and an easy route. But all afternoon I felt very uneasy. Once I got rolling it seemed simple enough, but the closer I got to Amsterdam, the more complex it became, and the more the bikeway switched about with bikeways in other directions, leaving me quite confused at times, and often having to either backtrack, or keep stopping to ask directions. I had a bikeway map, but that isn’t as helpful and clear as it should be. The closer to Amsterdam, the more congested on the map became the roads, canals, railway lines and bikeways.

Consequently, I was starting to feel quite frantic once 3pm passed, and repeated signs were telling me that Amsterdam was not getting any closer. It was tempting to leave the bikeway, which cut across farms, around water courses, in and under expressways, all the time switching direction, that it was only the sight of tall buildings faintly appearing in the distance that I had any idea of the direction I had to go.

It was nearly 4pm when I still had about 15k remaining, and I had already passed 80k for the day. My stress levels were rising rapidly with the closing day, the last thing I needed was to be caught still outside the maze of Amsterdam’s streets in the dark. I took the bikepath beside the expressway for a short run, then followed a vehicle that passed me, and went along the left side of the canal but which looked to me to be swerving away from the city in the distance. I went back up to the expressway, and took the next exit that took me along the right hand side of that canal, but which also picked up the bikeway signs again. I was riding strongly now, really pushing the bike hard. The path along the rural canal was flat and smooth.

Suddenly though it stopped abruptly, with the little arrow pointing left into the canal. Normally this would mean a ferry crossing, which I assume it was, but my heart sank to find no ferry! Faced with the prospect of going back and starting all over again, I noticed a chain slightly submerged across the canal. It was a ‘self haul’ ferry, a ‘do it yourself’ job, the small deck thing across the river was actually the ferry that required you to wind the chain yourself!

I couldn’t believe this! Do I go back, or do I do this and waste more time. I decided I had little choice, so I started winding this steering wheel sized wheel as fast as I could. It was low geared, so it required 5-10mins of frantic winding to gradually get the small ferry platform to my side of the canal, all the time telling myself ‘if only the kids could see me now’! If this wasn’t exhausting enough, once it docked on my side, I had to get the bike on safely, and then do it all again to get myself across.

I took the photo once I docked, with the last of the day’s sun just sinking on the western horizon. I was losing daylight, and I still had 8k to Amsterdam, according to the little sign I saw once I started rolling.

The GPS registered 90k for the day so far. I just put the hammer down. I had the bike cruising at a lovely 29-30kph for the next 6k at least. I was amazed that after the toll of a 90k day, that I could propel this 45kg bike almost without effort, just strong riding (beware Roger and Ged for when I get home). It was rather exhilarating I must say, passing numerous cyclists along the way who must have wondered what a grey haired touring cyclist had been eating to be riding at the speed of cars. I was now within Amsterdam’s city limits, pulling the bike up for the photo of the ‘Welcome to Amsterdam’ sign.

I stopped just past a major expressway into the city at a city map. It was like looking at a detailed street map of the inner suburbs of Sydney. I could see where I was, but could not find the street I needed in the massively complex maze of streets that make up the entire city of Amsterdam. It was now just on dark. I had one more option. I had been loaned a GPS with European maps by my friend ‘the General’ Andrew Taylor. I have never used one. I turned it on franticly, following the prompts and inserted the address and pressed ‘Go’. It actually worked, and off we went, away from the beloved bike track and alongside the expressway initially, into the back lanes of an industrial area. It then died – the batteries were not charged! I had charged it when I left Australia, but failed to check it since. My heart was about to stop beating again. This massive city, and not a clue how or where to go next.

I turned the GPS on again, and it worked briefly, getting me out of the back lanes. I just caught sight of the direction arrow it showed, before dying again. At least I had a direction, and went that way. I stopped an elderly lady – yes she spoke English and miraculously yes, she actually knew the little street I needed, but really couldn’t tell me how to get there. Just ‘keep going this way’ was the best she could do. I kept going.

I stopped another couple – neither spoke English, but the husband knew the street, but not easy to tell me in Dutch, except his gesture was ‘just keep going’! I kept going. It was now dark. Bikes are whizzing around me, cars had headlights on. I was in the dark. I stopped a third young lady. She didn’t know the street, but when she looked at the hand drawn series of lines I had drawn for myself showing the hotel in relation to the main station, she recognized the only other street name that I had written on my mud-map. Excitedly she said ‘keep going – this street is the next set of lights you come to’!

I knew then that ‘my’ street would be the street prior to the lights. The streets were narrow and it was quite dark. It had now passed 5pm. I kept cycling in the dark, careful to avoid collision with the flying bikes and speeding cars. I could see the traffic lights in the distance of the narrow cobbled streets. As I got to the corner before the lights, it was not hard to look left and see the lighted bicycle hanging from the upstairs external wall of the lovely little ‘Bicycle Hotel’. I was home, and safe. I stopped the bike’s GPS at 99k.

I pulled up out front. A young guy was arranging some bikes. He said ‘Oh, you’ve arrived. We’ve been expecting you’! That was nice, I thought.

I heard a window open from above. A female voice broke the otherwise silence of the evening “About time you got here Alley”. It was the angelic voice of my wife! She admitted later that she felt a little concerned when it got dark, but then knew that I would always make it.

Such is life. I must say it had been a most exhilarating day. It had its times of suspense and intrigue, its times of despair and concern, but it always seems that there is a right person in the right place when they are needed, which for me are moments of utter grace.

It seems that from the moment that the GPS died the second time, it was just one very long street over a number of canals and countless intersections in the dark, that brought me miraculously to the Bicycle hotel. It was the final glance before the GPS died, catching the direction of the arrow, that put me on what became the straight and narrow way home.

The Bicycle Hotel makes an ordinary Hotel look good, but it is warm and friendly. The stairs are almost vertical, but we nevertheless feel at home here.

From our safe haven in the Bicycle Hotel in Van Ostadestraat, tucked just in behind the famous canal area of the inner city of Amsterdam, we send our love.