Our coastal 2 day break at Seaton Carew was a nice stop with an extremely noisy hotel, but the beach was great and we even took in a Robbie William tribute on the seafront at the town Tribute festival, he wasn’t very good.
We had planned to stay on for Oasis, Coldplay and Abba, but with Robbie being poor we decided that staying up on the seafront in another hoolie with the rain wasn’t quite as appealing as getting tucked up in bed!
We arrived in Hartlepool the next morning to see the historical harbour, but again the mist was so dense you could hardly see the water, but we did get a nice Vege Bacon butty (think Frazzles in a bun) at a cafe and had a nice chat with the owner. If you’re in a hurry up north you really are stumped, as everyone loves chatting – which we do too!
We’ve previously ridden some of the route north of Hartlepool and it has just as many irritating barriers on it as it did last time, obviously to stop the cyclists…sorry Motorbikes, but judging by the fact that we had to get off and lift Tilly around them to get through and the motorbike behind us just whizzed though they are a paper exercise by the authorities which only put cyclists off. So I was right first time, they’re anti cycling barriers.
I’m sure people think we go on too much about barriers but think of it this way, how long would a barrier on a road last if you had to take your wing mirrors off to pass though, or you had to lift the back of the car around? It’s utterly ludicrous to even think of that, so why is it perfectly acceptable for a cycle path?
Hartlepool had done some great cycle paths on pavements out of town, but they were full of parked cars. These paths were on the pavement and legally can’t be parked in, but obviously no one cares. So we stopped and photo’d every car and sent them to the enforcement officer at the council, who in my dreams issued tickets and in reality probably moved the email to trash…
And chill….
So that did it for us. We booked the overnight mini crusie to Amsterdam from Newcastle and headed to the port at North Shields along with about 150 other cyclists. Never seen a ferry that busy with us two wheelers.
After a pleasant crossing we landed into more rain and wind, but for once an advantageous wind. We seem to be doing quite well with them this year.
It’s so different in the Netherlands. Perfect cycle infrastructure and loads of gorgeous cafes and restaurants with no Full English in sight anywhere.
By the time we rolled up at our hotel and got sent to our cellar for the night it was a horrendous evening. A real light the fire and have a night in, but as Cell Block H’s restaurant seemed to only cater to guest who had done some kind of financial crime we headed out for dinner at an honesty restaurant where you just helped yourself to drinks from the fridge.
We had a couple of nights in the Alkmaar Prison as it was a nice hotel and we think we had been given a warders room, and then headed on to IJsselmeer for a night stopping for a pancake on route. It was our coldest day with temps at 7C and I’d left my waterproof socks on the ferry! I only have sandals with me so had a blue toe day cycling, it’s fine when they’re numb though…
It was another beautiful cycle in cycling heaven through some quaint little towns and we did see some cycle barriers !!! …just like the ones you see on English cycle paths. Oh no we thought, they’re not going nutty like the English are they? But no, these barriers, identical to what we see time and time again on cycle paths in the UK, were to stop cyclists going on footpaths. Ah, so they are anti cycling barriers!
Any trip for us to the Netherlands always involves a visit to see our friends Jacques, Mandy and Harvey. J & M are as obsessively keen on running as we are on cycle touring and were on training programmes for their next marathons so we got to spend more time being entertained by Harvey while they went out for ridiculous long runs before we’d even managed to think about breakfast !!.. We did all manage to squeeze in the obligatory pizza and ice cream evening and a fabulous day out at the beach making the most of some of the last days of summer.
And finally we headed back to the Hook for our overnight ferry home, being first off in the morning and arriving back at Taffy in time for morning coffee having cycled 2122km on this trip with over 5000km for the year….still a way to go to break our annual record though…..
Very entertaining but I think I’d get too angry trying to cycle in the UK !!!!! No wonder you guys escape so often😊😘