London to Schipol to Edam

The flight over the channel was interesting. First the English country side and then the channel. There was one really interesting spot as we got close to the Netherlands. There were two large wind turbine farms out to sea! One of about 60 and one of about 40 turbines. A pretty good place for them I guess. Also near there was what looked to be a container ship parking area. Dozens of them just waiting out at sea.

Once at Schipol things went reasonably well. Fortunately only one of my two large panniers had lost its hook, so I still have one spare. With the unpacking and repacking and putting the bike together I got a bit of a scare. The front skewer wasn't where I expected and it took me quite a while to find it. I went through all the bags, twice, and of course I found it in the original bag just where it was supposed to be. Rushing I guess. It took a bit of fiddling to get everything in, but all in all about 1 hour to go from immigration to exiting the terminal.

Based on a vague recollection I walked to the far right of the terminal looking for the bike path to Amsterdam, and there it was! I then set off in the direction of Badhoevedrop and then Halfweg. It took about 45 mins to get to Halfweg and it was quite hot, so time for a snack. I had a pleasant sit by the bike with my sausage roll and coke. The lady in the store asked if I wanted the sausage roll heated up and it was quite funny, the first thing that came to mind was … Hi, then I realised that was wrong and said Si, then Oui and then finally I remembered it was Ja. She was laughing by then too.

From there I rode to Spaarndam, then north and caught a short ferry over the Noordzee Canal. This is another area with oodles of Wind Turbines. I guess for a country created by wind mills powering it with wind turbines comes naturally! I took the Zaandijk ferry to Zaanse Schans which is a popular tourist attraction as it has several working mills. I found this out on the ferry ride talking to a couple of dutch cyclists. One had a Pietersen (?) bike, a remake of an 1890's bike, but with Shimano running gear of course. I went into a working mill and took the tour, quite reasonable at 3 Euro. I was tempted to go to the clog making factory but it was getting on.

I then rode to Purmerend and after another sausage roll I rode on to Edam. The ride was very nice to start with, along the top of a dyke with a roaring tail wind. With a rest and some food I was flying along. At least I was until we turned, then there was a monster side wind and suddenly I was not so rested :( Anyway I eventually made it to the town of Edam, it looks very picturesque, so I've decided top stay two nights.

Total: 69 Km's.
Planned: 50 Km's.
Tired from 40 Km's.

Current state: Stuffed (both from food and cycling)