Wednesday 24th - Sunday 28th August
We started out early with a goal of Bloemendaal aan Zee, around 40km away but were greeted by a nice rainy morning! We followed the coastline and reached Bloemendaal around lunch, after stopping for the first flat of the trip, Lawrie's rear (which failed at the valve...).
We decided to keep going to Alkmaar, knowing we had a few options for camping along the way. We crossed our first major river on a ferry (free!) and continued North. The weather started to clear up during the afternoon, which made the ride nicer.
We stopped for dinner as we would be getting into the campsite fairly late and were not in the mood for cooking, making it to the campsite around 7pm, covering around 96km. Lawrie rode down to the shops, following a map from the park but got lost on the way back in some market gardens, which took him to 102.24km for the day, once he made it home.Unluckily we camped near some young Dutch and German girls, who spent the night (and the following 3 in the Dutch case) up giggling.
Thursday we headed into town after a nice long sleep in, Kitty reset her ODO trying to change the time and we stopped off at the bike shop to get Lawrie's front wheel trued. We had a lovely lunch in the sun (including a goats cheese, honey, pumpkin seed, rocket & fig chutney on brown bread sandwich) and walked through the town to do some shopping.
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| Weigh house in Alkmaar. |
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| An Alkmaar canal. |
In the afternoon, it clouded over and we raced home, only to be greeted by clear skies. We enjoyed a nice picnic of local cheese before watching the sun set over the canal.
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| Our campsite in Alkmaar. |
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| Along the canal. |
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| Kitty on the fishing platform. |
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| Dinner! |
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| Lovely sunset. |
We woke up Friday with special purpose, the cheese markets! It was raining cats and dogs when we left, walking, but luckily a bus to town centre was at the stop, this sure beat walking! Our first stop was the euro store to buy umbrellas, which worked very well. We went to the cheese market and watched the show, the commentator swapped effortlessly between Dutch, German, French & English. Aside from being slightly damp, we got to try a few different cheeses including a special taste with the cheese graders! Very yummy!
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| Cheese market just starting out. |
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| Wheeling the sold cheese, around the corner into a truck... |
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| A little traditional music. |
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| Carrying the cheese. |
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| The cheese grader coming to show us the process. |
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| The market in full swing. |
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| Lawrie and cheese poster. |
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| Some of the cheese missed the truck... |
There was a carnival on in Alkmaar so the town was full of side shows and rides. After typical Dutch food (Croquettes and Frites) we continued our walking tour around town. Lawrie tried out one of the rides before we went to the Beer museum (which wasn't worth it) and went downstairs to the bar (which was). We tried many different Dutch and international beers before heading home via the ferris wheel.
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| De Boom brewery. |
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| One of the many bridges over the canals. |
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| Interesting facades. |
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| Sweet little canal. |
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| Looking back to the weigh house. |
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| Inside an almshouse |
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| Along the circling canal. |
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| All this walking was thirsty work. |
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| Windmill on the edge of town. |
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| Very cool bridge hand rails. |
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| Kitty near the ring canal. |
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| Lawrie about to test a 4.5g ride. |
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| First beers, 11%. |
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| Other beers, mini yard glass and a fruity number for Kitty. |
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| Very tasty! |
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| Cheers! |
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| Weigh house at night. |
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| One of the rides lighting up the skyline. |
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| Alkmaar at night, ride at rear is near the main church. |
Saturday was wet, cold and miserable. We spent the day doing very little as we had around 50km to ride the next day out to Haarlem.
