Holland is becoming hard work! Yesterday we were following a well-marked cycle route which would take us to the coast, but because we got so far off the route trying to find a camping spot the previous night, we got a little lost today.

First of all Mike used his Garmin to navigate, but it kept trying to send us down non-existent paths. I know, we’ve been here before! Then we thought, we’re in Holland, they have cycle routes everywhere using a number system. Every so often there would be a board with numbers on, showing you all the routes. So we knew we need to head west, so we collected all the numbers we needed to follow and I wrote them in a note on my phone. Then we were off.

It was actually a lot of fun. Follow the 2, then the 1, then the 70 etc etc. Until we got to a board where the numbers had been rubbed off. Oh well, let’s just follow the one going West. That worked out well, we got back on track and were following my numbers again in my note. We cycled through forests and fields, and sometimes on roads. But we still haven’t seen a frikking windmill.

Anyway the numbering system was working well, and we were making good progress to the west. Then when I stopped to check my notes to see what the next number was, I accidentally deleted them all, no way to get them back. I could have cried. To top it all off, our internet stopped working so we couldn’t even come up with an alternate route.

So we followed our noses, (the sun actually). Then we got to the town of Tilburg. We’d done 40 kms for the day and thought it would be nice to finish early and navigate to either a campground or a hotel. I was leaning towards hotel so we could get internet to find out why our internet wasn’t working. So we headed for the centre of town when suddenly we were thrust into a carnival in the main street.

‘Let’s go back!’ I said to Mike, but he was navigating to a campground and said we continue on. And it got worse. There were so many people and rides and the noise, OMG so much noise. Loud booming techno music coming from all different directions as we weaved our way through the covid-infested masses while keeping an eye out for pickpockets. This went on for a kilometer with no end in sight. It was too late to turn back now and claustrophobia was setting in.

Eventually we pushed our way through all the people and I asked Mike to navigate on his Garmin to get us the hell out. ‘Just head for Breda,’ I said. So we did.

It was quite scary having no internet, not knowing where the heck we were going or where we would find to sleep. It was lucky Mike had his garmin as that works regardless, despite it trying to send us some stupid ways.

Not long out of town we found a hotel, but they were fully booked. I told the girl on reception of our problem of having no internet, and she said we could use theirs, so that was really nice of her. She also suggested some hotels on our route, but they were all booked. We finally found one about 20 kms away and booked in using their free wifi. And it was a straight line to get there, so no navigation required. So with peace of mind, we navigated to the hotel and settled in just after 6pm.

We ordered a Dominos pizza for dinner.

We are both getting a bit grumpy with Holland and all the drama of finding places to sleep.