Fabian's Blog

Fabian’s Charity Bike Ride to Amsterdam July 14–17 2011

Thursday 28th July 2011 4:19 PM

The Dutch Ambassador, HE Pim Waldeck, saw us off by prior arrangement from the Embassy in Hyde Park Gate, London, at 9am on Thursday 14th July.

My eldest daughter, Ella and my son, Lawrence, accompanied me on the ride which was to end in Amsterdam. Our aim was to raise as much money as possible for the three charities - St Gemma's Hospice in Leeds, the Refugee Council UK and Tong Len, an Indian charity for children in Dharamsala, run by a Tibetan monk. We also hoped to have a good time as well.

The schedule was ambitious: we wanted to get to Amsterdam within four days, which meant averaging around 80 miles, or about 130km, each day. We had pre-booked our accommodation at each stage, hoping to arrive in Canterbury, 20 miles or so north east of Dover Port, on the first evening.

I hadn't really appreciated how far the South East London sprawl extended into Kent and the Medway towns. We stopped for lunch on the first day at a small place called Chalk, just outside Gravesend. This gave us the fuel for the remainder of our ride to Canterbury and we duly arrived almost on schedule at around 7.20pm. Having looked for a decent hotel at a reasonable price, we'd been rather disappointed as our ride clashed with the Golf Open championships in Sandwich, Kent. That meant almost every hotel room in East Kent was booked for that week, so our only option was Kipps Hostel in Canterbury and a shared dormitory - not the most comfortable of nights!

Our pre-booked ferry crossing from Dover to Dunkirk was at 10am the next morning, so after a rapid breakfast we set off in the July sunshine along the cycle route through some small attractive villages towards Dover. It was supposed to be about 20 miles, which we thought we could comfortably achieve in two hours, arriving a good hour before the sailing. However, we got rather lost owing to our dependence upon electronic navigation in the form of a Garmin Edge Cycle SatNav device which appeared to want to take us as far away from Dover as possible.

We missed the ferry. The ferry company, DFDS, were very helpful and simply booked us onto the next sailing at 12 noon. As it's a two hour crossing and the continent is an hour ahead of the UK, that meant we wouldn't be arriving until 3pm. Allowing half an hour to disembark and clear the port, we were going to be well behind our schedule and our hopes to get to Vlissingen in Holland by nightfall, where we had booked into a small local hotel, looked doomed. We thought that Bruges was more realistic, so we booked rooms there in the hope we could arrive in good time.

We hadn't calculated for the fact that Dunkirk port is quite a long way west of the town, so it was past 5pm before we even cleared Dunkirk to be well on our way towards Bruges. However, the going was predictably flat and as we entered Belgium, the cycle lanes improved and we were able to proceed quite quickly along the straight canal routes and in the early and late evening sunshine towards Bruges. We arrived in the stunning city past 9pm, cycling right through the centre and got to our pre-booked hotel by 9.35pm. We had travelled 87 miles under our own steam and were exhausted but delighted.

The hotel was interesting and comfortable and after a hot shower and a cool beer, we took a cab into the centre of Bruges to have a well-deserved meal. A good night's sleep prepared us for the next day, though not for the poor weather. We arrived at Breskens port, after crossing the Belgian/Dutch border just before Sluis, as the rain started. The short crossing to Vlissingen arrived at around 1pm and we stopped at the station restaurant for lunch. The rain became heavier as we set off with some trepidation to try and reach Delft before dark. Thankfully, the waterproof saddle bags on Ella's bike kept most of her clothes and possessions dry, but the covers on my rucksack and Lawrence's did eventually let in some water, so heavy was the torrential rain by mid afternoon. We got a little lost through Middelburg and decided to aim for the small town of Burgh-Hamsteed for coffee and a rest. It looked increasingly unlikely that we were going to make it to Delft that day and we considered whether we should try and catch a train in order to get to our pre-paid hotel rooms, but there was no train to be found in this part of Zeeland.

Taking a train for even part of the trip would, of course, have ruined the whole point of the project, but by 9pm, with darkness approaching, we were getting colder, wetter and desperate. We arrived on the outskirts of a small town called Ouddorp and, with the help of a rather baffled local café owner, found our way to the centre where there was a lively restaurant above which was a hotel. I trudged into the deliciously warm and packed building and went up to the bar, dripping wet and leaving a trail of water behind the puddle I had made where I was standing. The barman shook his head when I asked whether there were any rooms available and asked his wife something in Dutch. To our huge relief, two rooms were free and we were shown to them after taking our bikes to the rear car park. A warm shower and hot meal revived us and although still a bit damp, like the rest of our possessions, we climbed into bed exhausted but warm.

Getting ready to leave Delft: Fabian pictured with Ella at 3.30pm on the last day's ride as they leave the hotel they should have stayed in the night before.

Using the hair dryer to dry out clothes and shoes, we set off after a good breakfast to try and get to Amsterdam - it was Sunday morning, supposedly our last day. Thankfully, the weather was a little better - cloudy with the odd shower but some sun - and that made it far more tolerable and easier to ride. We had a lot to thank the little hotel restaurant in Ouddorp for and the excellent cycle routes in Holland made the going quite rapid. We aimed for the Rozenburg to Maaslius ferry and got to Delft by around 3pm for some late lunch.

We then had to complete the final leg of our journey - Amsterdam. Had we been better organised, we would have realised that all cycle routes to the capital city went via The Hague, or Leiden, but we hadn't brought any paper maps, so a glance at the iPhone Google maps appeared to show the most direct route was via Zoetermeer, adding an extra 15 miles or so by the time we went back to Leiden and found the actual cycle route to Amsterdam. Only 40km left (25 miles) and it was around 7.30pm - we could get there before dark.

The final straight, and well-signposted, route to Amsterdam took every remaining drop of strength, helped by a few energy drinks. We were lucky to have a tail wind for most of the way, so kept a steady pace in spite of the rain now driving in. The open flat road took us through Schiphol, right under the runway just as a jumbo jet was landing. Then left into the Amsterdam Ring Road system and a strong crosswind. Finally, as we got within 2km of Frans Meirisstraat, where our hotel was booked, the uneven paving on the cycle path punctured my front tyre - it was the first bike mishap of the journey and thankfully very close to our destination. A wrong turning on a roundabout elicited a helpful Amsterdammer on his bike offering to help us. He asked where we'd come from and when we told him "London", he asked whether it was a holiday or a charity run. We explained and he gave us 20 Euros towards our good causes - what a wonderful introduction to the citizens of this great city.

Finally, not knowing quite how we'd done it, the Hotel Washington was in front of us. We had made it - almost 320 miles, or 510 km and four days' ride from London - our goal had been achieved.

Dinner in Leidensplein, even at 11 o'clock at night, never seemed so delicious. Washed down with half a litre of local beer, a good night's sleep beckoned. Our journey was over.