Distance: 45.1km
Time: 2h 20m
Average speed: 19.2 kph
Song of the day: The Day We Went to Breda
Click here to see today’s route
Our very friendly host at the hotel in Numansdorp had made a reservation for us to have dinner at the nearby Schippershuis restaurant, and we enjoyed French(-ish!) food, some lovely Zinfandel, and then back at the hotel a digestive each, courtesy of the house. We set the alarm for 8am, and were asleep in moments as usual.
The alarm turned out to be superfluous, as the church bells pealed loud and long at 8am, and we speculated that they rang each Sunday at exactly the right time to wake the hotel’s earliest breakfast guests. Which, today, was us, with only our final ride back to Breda to achieve, hopefully in time for lunch.
We headed out at 9:30, back over the water we crossed twice yesterday on our trip to Willemstad, marvelling again at the enormous locks. These might take quite some manual effort to wind up…
It was sunny, but as we turned east after the bridges and into farmland, it was quite misty in places with a heavy dew. There was a definite feeling of it being the end of our tour, but cycling alongside the newly harvested fields, some all ploughed into corduroy stripes ready for the next sowing, it also felt very firmly like the end of summer. We’ve never toured at this time of year before, when the trees are changing colour, the days are shorter and the temperatures cooler. It could have been much wetter, much colder, and much more windy, but in fact we’ve had lunch outside frequently, and not felt cold on the bike.
It being Sunday, there were lots of pelotons of weekend warriors, very different cyclists to those we’ve been encountering during the week, ‘properly’ attired and all wearing helmets, hurrah.
It was a different atmosphere altogether, actually, lots of different users of the paths today, including a roller-blader and some horse-drawn traps.
The kilometres ticked down, we started to recognise the route we’d taken out of Breda almost two weeks ago, and all too soon we were coming into the city.
We navigated to the car-park, rode down the ramp, found the car and then filled it with the dismantled tandem. A short walk out to the sunny central square and a lovely lunch with a view of the church we’d seen only in darkness on our last visit, and we were ready to leave.
It’s been a wonderful trip, no mechanical issues (not even one!), and no injuries other than a broken thumbnail. We’ve seen a lot of different aspects of this lovely friendly country, been welcomed everywhere, kept safe by their incredible cycling infrastructure, and even learned to pronounce Edam and Gouda correctly.
Bit worried about re-acquiring our climbing legs when we get home, though….
Final summary:
Total distance: 862.2
Total time: 44h 47m
Overall average speed: 19.25 kph