May 27 Nieuwegein to Hook of Holland, and the end
I much regret to say that when I got up in the morning, I was less than my usual quiet self. Anyway, after breakfast, I set out in beautiful sunshine, riding along neat Dutch cycle paths with canals and streams all over. I did see, but failed to stop and photograph, a very clever painted creeper in a little dyke: it had been painted with eyes and teeth and it had an arch so that it looked like the Loch dyke monster. I got to Rotterdam around 1pm-ish and stopped in a park overlooking the river for my ham roll that I had purloined from breakfast – but I almost didn’t as coming over one bridge, I got trapped by the barriers coming down as the bridge lifted (there were warning horns, but when you have no idea what they are on about, you don’t necessarily do the right thing). Fortunately, various amused Dutch people helped me manhandle my bike under the barrier to “safety”. Rotterdam itself had some amazing modern architecture, although the ride from Rotterdam out to the Hook of Holland was rather blah. As I approached the Hook of Holland in the late afternoon, I could see my ferry, and having done some reconnaissance, I looked around for a place to eat dinner – and I particularly wanted fresh fish. I also rode out to the beach to take the appropriate end of the Rhine ride photo. I finally found a fish restaurant by the promenade that had sole, so I stopped in there for sole, French fries, a salad, and some white wine. Well, I was in no hurry, which was good because they forgot about me and the owner after 30 minutes or so rushed over and apologized profusely, gave me some more wine (for free), and after another 5 minutes or so, arrived with the fish, which was, I must say, excellent. After dinner, I boarded the ferry and went to my single cabin, only to find that it was two single bunk beds and there was someone’s luggage on the bottom bed. My heart sank as I thought that maybe this was like the old British Rail sleeper concept of a single ticket where one would land up sleeping in the same room as a stranger. I decided that I couldn’t handle that, but I also couldn’t handle not having a shower a moment longer, so I did that, and then went up to the customer service desk and enquired about the terms of a single cabin. It transpired that indeed it should be for only one person, so they got me another cabin which was an upgrade and had big porthole windows over the bows. Great, I thought, I’ll see us approaching Blighty in the morning – and sure enough, at 5:30am, there was a ship wide alarm call to tell us all to get up. I looked out of the porthole expecting to see the English coast, only to discover that we were already docked, and I’d missed all of it.
The End (although the C2C starts the next day!)