Today’s distance / 今日の走行距離: 80.4km
Average speed / 平均速度: 12.4km/h
Time on skateboard / 走行時間: 6h 28m
Total skateboarding distance to date / 今までスケボで走った距離: 547.35km (plus 428.5km)
Total cycling distance to date / 今まで自転車で走った距離: 11,800km
It was a great sleep last night. Sleeping on hay is just as comfy as any mattress…
This morning was a morning of great anticipation for The Netherlands. The Netherlands will be the last country I travel through on the Eurasian continent on my way to England. This is it. This is the last country!
I entered The Netherlands with little fanfare however. My visions of joyfully handing my passport over to the border control for my last stamp of the continent were not fulfilled. The only evidence of a border was a sign indicating that I was now in The Netherlands. Talk about boring.
Nonetheless, The Netherlands has a great feeling about it. Smooth cycle paths, ordered and neat villages, fine clipped front yards, lowlying swamps and flat, flat, flat roads.
I did discover however that the rumour that The Netherlands is windy is indeed true. For most of the afternoon I battled a stiff westerly in my face. This would become a common thing as I travelled across the country.
The wind died down however in the evening, allowing me to make good progress through the countryside, meeting some of the natives.
The last few kilometers of the day was on one of the smoothest, hardest surfaces I have skated on to date. A runway-grade concrete cycle path projected me onwards to a nice thicket where I slept under a tree for the night, after a big six and a half hour day.
The Netherlands is certainly an interesting place. What struck me when I was there years ago, was the lack of fences. Paddocks seems to be defined by drainage ditches.