View Larger Map
Tuesday, June 11th - Brugge to Bruinisse, 4958 km
Brugge is only 15 km from the border with the Netherlands.
Our agreed upon route will follow the coast at first, but we aren't certain how far. If it stays dry and warms up we'll stop at the first international youth hostel in Domburg out by the North Sea coast. If not, we may go as far as Rotterdam, which also has a youth hostel. 
Mike seems to be in no hurry, so I am in no hurry. We have breakfast near the youth hostel with three other young travelers who are in a heated discussion about train schedules and how long they might need to line-up at the station to ensure they will be a ticket to wherever. They ask us our schedule for leaving town just as we finish our coffees. I look at Mike and say, well I guess this is as good of a time as any. We climb onto our bikes and roll away after a few quick goodbyes. They watch us quietly with blank looks, realizing perhaps for the first time that there may be advantages to traveling by bicycle. 
We aim for Breskens, on the south shore of the Rhine River 20 km over the Dutch border. From there, there is a ferry to Vlissingen on the north side. The ferry is free for cyclists, but a woman passenger tells us we are lucky because this is a recent change. The cool sea air is 
refreshing, and exciting too, as we haven't been riding by salt water since crossing the Spanish border, and the North Sea feels so different from the Mediterranean. From Vlissingen, we follow a bike path along the canal 7km in a straight line to Middelburg, and then north on N-57 to Breezand and the 8 km long Pijlerdam along the sea to the island of Schouwen. We try to follow meandering bike path north to the town of Renesse. Mike is riding ahead out of sight with the only map and I come to
an unmarked fork in the trail. I make the wrong choice and it leads to the edge of the sea on a dead end road. Mike is waiting for me when I return, irritated and impatient. “It hasn’t been a good day unless you’ve been lost at least once,” I taunt him with his own words. 
I make it clear to him that I think this delay has been his fault for riding out of sight of me and not waiting at an unmarked fork. We had discussed this habit of his early on in the trip and he has agreed not to do this anymore when he is carrying the only map. He doesn’t want to hear the truth today. It interferes 
with his attempt to make me wrong. Just like at Lille, when I tell him my knee is paining me he decides he wants to ride on ridiculously far, another 90 km to Rotterdam when we have already covered 70 km, which would mean arriving there around 8pm in a large city at the edge of nightfall 
without a rest between. I know he won’t likely go that far, just as he didn’t go much farther after he split from me in Lille, but it’s his way of saying he doesn’t want to ride with me. I am more than willing to let him go. I tell him that if he is stupid enough to spoil the trip by trying to go that far he’s welcome to it, but I won’t be riding with him. I tell him not to wait for me in Rotterdam the next night as I might try to avoid the traffic of the big port city. We have a host in Amsterdam from our Gai Pied ad, a young French guy named Marc, so I agree to reconnect with him at Marc’s in three days. He asks how far I plan to go. I say I don’t know, and suggest he better get started or it will be dark before he gets there. We are gritting our teeth at each other as he leaves.
I ride on another 35 km to the east tip of the island, to the village of Bruinisse, where there is an out of the way youth hostel. I arrive just after 6 pm. There are no grocery stores and everything else I can find, including two snack bars and a restaurant, are closed tight. The youth hostel is open and empty. I suppose without a beach there isn’t much reason for anyone to come here. The hostel manager puts my bike in the dining room, since there’s no one around to
steal it or trip over it. He doesn’t speak a word of English, rather unusual in Holland, and is pre-occupied with construction work going on in another building in the complex so he doesn’t provide me with any entertainment himself. I go out and wander the limited streets of the town and find a Chinese restaurant open that I hadn’t seen before. After dinner it is totally quiet, except for the frogs, crickets and other evening sounds of nature. I walk out onto a short, deserted dock, lie down on my back, stare at the stars and listen to the gentle slurping sounds of waves slapping the pylons. I feel very free and peaceful.PHOTO 1: Brugge, morning view
PHOTO 2: belfry in Brugge
PHOTO 3: en route to Holland
PHOTO 4: bicycle signage
PHOTO 5: Middelburg market building
PHOTO 6: street in Middelburg
PHOTO 7: near Breezeland
PHOTO 8: Pijlerdam in Zeeland
PHOTO 9: from deck of the Pijlerdam
PHOTO 10: south shore of Schoewen
PHOTO 11: village of Bruinisse
No comments:
Post a Comment