Day 7 - We're on the road to nowhere

Now, in Holland, they do a very nice line in cycle paths, "Fietspads", which we have already discovered come in all kinds of surfaces and textures. Very very smooth tarmac ones (the best kind obviously); sandy ones (bit trickier to work with but you do occaisionally see workmen toiling to remove the baked-on sand); muddy/stony ones (usually found on fietspads in woodland - very nice); concrete paving slab-type ones (so-so) and then come the worst...the ye olde brick ones!Yes, they look beautiful, yes, I've considered (appreciated?!), for many miles often, how long it must have taken to lay such a path, yes yes yes. But, they hurt my bottom! Over time, the little bricks - thousands, millions of them - have moved and wriggled about to create a texture much like something, well, hard and lumpy. Cycling in this manner is not sustainable - make it stop!
Anyway, today, just as I was beginning to get over the silly brick paths and enjoy the nice smooth road-side paths that were taking us inland I was reminded by the map that we were fast appraoching the beginning of the Afsluitdijk. The what? The Afsluitdijk is the most almighty causeway that crosses the Waddenzee and IJsselmeer 'seas' to connect two parts of Noord Holland. It's over 20miles long and we were about to cross it. What was that I was just whinging about? We arrived at the Den Öever end and saw another couple of tourers who looked weary enough to have just made the journey. No, they were just about to cross it too and kindly informed us that the wind was coming in the wrong direction, 'Heh heh, 80 percent time vind goes udder vay, not today, comes this vay, heh heh, lucky ush.' Oh god, I wish I'd never asked. Here goes nothing...
If you can, imagine this: A long and almost utterly straight road, grass dyke on one side, 4-lane highway and sea on the other and a strong wind in your face as you look at this bland and noisy view. Now imagine you're on a bike, a heavy bike which you're going to cycle in to this sort of abyss for 2 HOURS AND 20 MINUTES. Give me knobbly bobbly brick fietspads any day!

I can't tell you how boring it was. The endless, monotonous view, the wind, the speedy matching bike and bike-wear bikers whizzing by in the opposite direction (wind behind them) and their unsympathetic glances. Of course we reached the end which, like the rest of it, was boring, just a mass of roads to navigate and a barrage of sand flies to swat - argh!
At this point I think it's only fair to let Hana tell her version of the tale. There's two sides to every story and of course, just to be different, her's is not the same as mine. - Hana's version. I'd just like to say that the day started beautifully, we rode through the dunes and then up a little hill and wow there was the North sea in front of us, it was our first proper viewing and it looked amazing and finally were the flat lands of Holland I'd imagined. We warmed up with a hot chocolate with a whipped cream hat and cycled off.

 So the causeway, hmmm I was rather apprehensive as the distance just seemed phenominal and having spent the large part of the morning cycling into the wind I didn't relish being battered at all. As we had a snakc before we crossed I eyed up every van that passed to see if they had room for us and wishes to god there was a passing boat.  However, I did rather enjoy it, the man Sylv mentioned earlier caught up with us our first stop and when I told him I hated the wind, he said 'Hey, it's not so bad, you just have to meditate on it' man! So I did, I spent the rest of the epic journey looking for dolphins, counting the lines in the middle of the road, wheeling in and out of them and singing road related songs to myself. Mainly I was just incrediblly happy that the sun was out and we weren't doing it in the driving rain. I may have given up and gone home had it been!
We cycled on a few more miles to our campsite on the edge of Harlingen, pitched up and them whizzed in to town to catch the supermarket before it closed - empty panniers = quick cycling! After dinner we decided, or should I say our legs demanded, that tomorrow should be a rest day. We've been cycling for 7 days now and realised that this was as godd a time as any as the next few towns are smaller and , well, further away. And with that it was off to bed safe in the knowledge that we didn't have to wake up to the alarm! 65 killer miles today - pooped!