Day 20

Day 20
Ouddorp - Hoek van Holland 38 miles

Our last day and it started off very cold and windy again. Wrapped up well. We had a stop in Hellevoetsluis where we had a lunch date with my two nieces and Benoit, who was 3 last Saturday. It was lovely to meet again and we talked for 3 hours non stop! Then we started on the very last stretch of our Dutch Round. It wasn't far but we had to go over the Maasvlakte and that left us wide open again to the wind. We made the fast ferry from the Maasvlakte to the Hoek with 1 second to spare. It was about 100 metres to go and we saw the ferry ready to cast off again. What did we do...? We did a 'Cavendish' sprint, we really put all our energy in those last metres. The ropes had already been cast off, the gangway had already been raised. As we sprinted we waved and shouted Wait, wait and they did, let us get on board and we were off. We would have to wait for another hour to catch the next one. That was a great way to finish our total 915 miles round tour! Now waiting for our green jersey........
We are now on board the Harwich-Hoek ferry in our cabin and shall go to sleep soon as we are truly exhausted from all that wind. I mentioned wind force 4/5 yesterday but was told it was actually force 7. When cycling in this wind and a cyclist comes towards you it is as if an arrow just passed your face. They went that fast. Today was a little less and we luckily cycled through the sheltered dunes quite a bit. It was lovely. Now that it is all over we are quite sad as it has been such a wonderful journey and we will miss the excitement and the parts of the Netherlands you just wouldn't see other than on a bike and with the help of the person who actually wrote this tour in such fine detail. All credit to him or her.
We feel very blessed.


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