We checked out of our lovely hotel at noon so had a late start to the day. The sun was out and it was such an enjoyable ride through the sand dunes. We just tootled along and took our time, stopping to eat some lunch, view a game of sand hockey or listen to one of the many bands playing on the beach.

After about 50 kms the trails ended. We stopped riding to decide where we would head next. As usual, Indecision was being a pain. We could either carry on cycling north or head inland to Amsterdam. As we were discussing our options a guy on a motorbike stopped and asked if we needed any help. “No thanks”, Mike said. “We don’t know where we are going so it is hard to ask for directions”. Motorbike Man replied “Well it’s going to rain tomorrow and hard, I suggest you go to Amsterdam. At least there will be things to do there”.

OK, Decicion made for us by Motorbike Man. He asked where we were heading after Amsterdam. “We don’t know” we replied in unison. He had a look at our map and showed us all the nice areas to go. So our route for the next two weeks also decided by Motorbike Man. Thanks Motorbike Man 🙂

We headed toward Amsterdam. We still had about 30 kms to ride and it was the longest 30 kms ever. We would stop at a red light. Cross the road. Stop at another red light. Cross another road. It was painful and not the nicest of scenery. We finally made it to Amsterdam about 8pm. We were so tired, but we couldn’t see any hotels. Mike started navigating to one in his Garmin, but it led us through all these dodgy suburban streets and I didn’t like the look of it. So we decided to navigate to the IBIS, which is near the train station. From memory, I knew the train station was central.

We finally arrived at the IBIS absolutely shattered. The price was ridiculously expensive but we just needed to stop. The other bummer was they had nowhere to park our bikes. We looked outside and there were thousands of bikes parked up, most of them damaged in some form, some were totally wrecked. They were all really crappy as well. Our bikes would stand out like a sore thumb in this lot.

Luckily there was a bike storage place next door so we put our bikes in there and hoped for the best.

Beach Hockey

Nowhere to park our bikes

Nice cycling through sand dunes