Mid May, Preparation

We have done this sort of trip a number of times before, so our preparation is pretty streamlined.  The only things we have booked are our tickets from Sydney to Amsterdam, rental cars to get us to and from Canberra to Sydney, and a one-night stopover in Hong Kong on the way home.

Our intention on this trip is to ride to Brussels to see friends, and then to the North Sea coast, where we will catch a ferry to somewhere in northern England, probably Kingston on Hull.  From there we will ride more or less up the east coast of England and Scotland, as far as we can go.  We have to get back to Amsterdam to fly out, so will look at riding back south through Scotland, and perhaps across England via Hadrian’s Wall.  We have six weeks.

The English Sustrans company produces maps of bicycle routes in England, and there are a few which coincide with this route.

However, if it rains, we may jut go to eastern France from Brussels.

We have sort of planned part of our first day.  The plane arrives in Amsterdam at 6.30am.  We will ride to Utrecht, about 40km away, and then on east from there.  I would like our route to Brussels to include part of the Ardenne region.  At Utrecht we should find the junction of a couple of the Dutch LF major bicycle routes, so will probably follow one of them to the east.  We have maps of these routes.  I also have the TomTom GPS application on my Iphone, and it shows a bicycle path out of Schipol airport and on to Utrecht, so that should do.

So all that has to be done now is a little bit of preventative maintenance on our bikes, and a bit of packing and we are off.