AND SO TO THE NETHERLANDS

After our rest day exploring Brugge - which was not that relaxing as we walked for 8 hours instead!!
We were back on the road again and heading for The Netherlands.

 As we ride along we find lots of interesting things and always like stopping to investigate.  This building was really interesting but we could not find out for sure what it was - think it was something left from the war:

As we choose to travel along canal paths and rivers where possible we are always riding through beautiful little villages on the water:

Now with the EU it has become so easy for everyone to travel from country to country and so it is not always easy to know just when you have crossed over the border from one to another.  That was the case for us going from Belgium to the Netherlands and before we knew it we had our first view of the Dutch coast.

And lets not forget them - my favourites - you guessed it! - The bathing Boxes!!!

Of course we knew for sure it was the Netherlands when this unmistakable building came into view!

 But when we came across another one we were a bit surprised by its neighbours - didn't know grain was so valuable to warrant such protection:

The Netherlands is truly a cyclists utopia, with the flat landscape and the system of cycle paths, which is really apparent when the cyclists have more road space than the cars!!!!

It was not only dry when we were in The Netherlands, it got quite hot and I think half the population decided to head for the beach!

And I'll let you guess how they got there - hint.....

We found another strange construction along the road to investigatebut this time it was confirmed by an information sign.  Definitely a bunker from WW2.

As The Netherlands is such a small country and is reclaiming more land from the sea, the dyke walls and bridges built to hold back the sea, make for wonderful cycling.  The bridges to connect what were once islands along the coast are very impressive.

They are even more impressive close up!

Dave is very observant and is always noticing strange thing - check out the great locking up job on this bicycle - NOT!!

Not sure whether they have 'Grey Nomads' in The Netherlands, but there seem to be a lot of motor homes that just like free camping on the beach.

You can just see the red path in the photo above, this is what we traversed the dykes upon - absolutely amazing!

One of the problems that we are having since coming across the channel is the language problem.
As we do not speak anything other than English, it sometimes becomes a little difficult when encountering new things or signs in another language.....

What the hell??? While we were looking around for mad birds in attack mode, We didn't realise there was a CATTLE GRID beneath our wheels!   Guess what cattle grid is in Dutch??  Crazy language!!

We continued on along the coast but still managed to find some lovely little country paths as well.

It has taken a bit of getting used to the different lifestyle over here, with a lot of small villages not having any shops at all, and sometimes when they do have them it is not always obvious!  We thought that this little street was just one of houses until we asked if there was a bakery in town.  See if you can spot it??

And of course when we found it - it was closed for lunch.  yeah so many of these little businesses just shut up for an hour at lunchtime. But I guess we were lucky - if it was France it would have been 2 hours!!!  Sowe found a nice little spot just up the road to wait for the bakery to open:

We also get kept waiting for other things as we travel, and Dave often takes the opportunity to get the camera out as in this case where we are waiting yet again........for a train????

Nope!!  A Boat!

Then there was yet another bridge to cross, sometimes it got pretty windy going across these bridges, but lucky for us the wind was just keeping us cool as it was a really hot day ( at last )

And the sunset at our camp  that night was just beautiful, but hard to do justice in a photo:

There are some other unusual sights we have seen over here that we don't get at home.....
Cycle lights:

And working bicycles... you see bicycles used for every conceivable use over here.  This is just one example and they are for hire to anyone.  The people we stayed with in The Hague do not have a car and hired one of these to transport some furniture that they bought to their house.

 We also thought this was worth showing - bet you will never see a parking lot like this at an Australian Train station!!!

And Dave is continuing to try and embrace the culture of each country that we visit, last time it wasthe Belgiun Beer, This time it is the Dutch delicacy....

Herrings...................going....................going................................................................

GONE!!!!

And so are we until next time................Stay Tuned!!