TRAVELS WITH DAMIAN

Damain Murphy, Karen's brother , very genously fore went his brother in law's birthday lunch to take me for a drive . We
hit the Koffie and applebak trailand visited the beautfu, village of Muiden with the Muiderslot (castle ) built by some clever bloke in the 1200's who slung a chain across te river and charged boats to cross. This is the more recent version of the castle which was occupiedfrm th 1500's by the family of a P.C. Hoost , a writer and administrator who had a cultural salon there. This was at time when Holland was incredibly wealthy due to the spice trade and wealthy merchants had to do something with their money so bought paintings...which were formerly only created for religious purposes. They commissioned paintings of their own lives and portraits...pity Chris wasn't born in those times!

Sunday in Amsterdam

Chris and Megan had to work .....sad ..but I didnt so could restore my energy but just checking out the place , visiting Megan at work and then cycling over to Chris's work where his boss, Gerry, plied Megan and I with "very good wine" so that Chris could work an extra hour ..the day being good for business. We then headed of through the brothels of Niewmarkt to Chinatown to enjoy an amazingly generous chinese banquet...they were happy to put the substantial remainder in doggy bags which Chris transported home like he'd won Tatts. Shades of Grandpa??

This photo is the shop of Charlotta and Dick where Megan serves coffee on the weekends.

AMSTERDAM

A few images of A'dam

ROTTERDAM TO AMSTERDAM

I arrived in Rotterdam Europort and scootered of the boat first..the advantage of being on a bike...but onto the wrong side of the road...until I met a truck.

Had to ride a fair way to get a train to Rotterdam Centraal where I met with the happy couple. I think they were happy to see me but also becauseit had stopped raining !

We found the LF2b signs which made it a lovely ride to Amsterdam. We stopped by a canal and made lunch...they are now very frugal and had all sorts of lekker things to eat. The weather was so beautiful that the sheep with their lambs were just chilling ON the bike path and were most reluctant to move. Lots of baby animals in the fields. It was not the most direct route so it was more like 100km and I was a bit knackered when we got back to their appartment. It is in Amsterdam Zuid Oost which ahs had a spot of urban renewal ...a man who guided me very kindly to the railway in Rotterdam fromt eh Europort recoiled in alarm when I said I was staying in that suburb..."but that is where the criminal live!" . I explained that Chris was a poor artist. The gentlman running the B&B which is in an ordinary house in the same suburb explained that the area was the most dreadful suburb in the whole of Holland until 15 years ago when the authorities decide to pull it down and rebuild with a mix of private and public housing and lower level buildings. He sometimes gets clientle who have been told be the taxi driver that they had better not go to his establishment due t its location. Actually the B&B is in a small older developement adjoining Biljmer Park with open space and even horses and very close to a metro station . UIts a lovley ride into the city.

HULL TO ROTTERDAM

The day in Hull was for recovery so I went to the only restaurant in the city that looked over the Humber ..it was in "The Deep" a space age building housing an aquarium which had thousands of kids on excursion...still finished a book and watchedthe huge tide go out baring huge gravel banks in the river...would be a tricky navigation exercise.

They ctch them big in the Humber...note the crane to lift the shark out...well onto its pedestal!

YORK TO HULL IN A DAY

This nearly killed me. Its flat all the way so there was no excuse for the exhaustion at barely 90km. Well perhaps the persistant easterly wind was a mitigating factor. It would have been less but i set off north instead of south for at least 5 km until I was getting to concerned that nothing on the map matched the signs I was seeing. This was despite having my compass at the ready. The trail north was very nice so It didn't hurt. Back at York I took the opportunity to go to the post pffice and obtain a phone charger to replace the one I must have left at Walton. That meant getting away at 1000 and grinding south through the lovely town of Selby with its 12th century Abbey which the headlines in the local paper claimed is becoming a ghost town. The recession has it midlands town hard. As I approached the town tere was a huge grey thunderhead looming so I thought I was in for the forecast deluge but it was a false cloud formation form the rising steam from the cooling towers of the several nuclear power reactors. It made me think that as the have so many , why dont we sell out uranium to the poms?

The next stop was Howden...an historic town with another medieval church framed by collapsed ruins . The town also sports a very English cricket ground.
It was then on under "Constable skies" throught the flat Ouse basin with littel villages called Yokefleet, Blacktoft , Flaxfleet eventually reaching the Humber Estuary and a great ride along the Humber under the amazing Humber Bridge. I have to thank the barman and waitress at the "Griffin" , a pub in Ellingham for their coffee , mars bar and general encouragement which revived me at about 5pm. I still had about 25km to go to Hull.

YORK

Once in York I abandoned Betsy and checked out the National Trust home of an eccentric heir of some manufacturing fortune late in the 19th century. The Treasury House was decorated in the fashion of the day...green pannelled walls were big,and he had a suite built for the visit of royalty. The garden was , as usual , very pretty and green. I gave York Minster a miss and checked out the cute little shops and back alleys of the old city. It then finally acvtually rained and I retired to the TV which had more of Gordon Brown's problems. I admire the man, who has stuck it out despite the press gunning for him. York is beautifully preserved and the minster retains its dominance due to the hight restriction on new buildings. There are some very old..as in 13th century ...buildings like this tudor pub that looks a bit wobbly