Day 47 Sunday 20/8/16
Rest day
Lovely clear skies, so I washed my clothes and set up a washing line with walking poles and tarp lines.
I went for a cycle ride to town, taking a nice long ride on a lovely sunny day. I did some food shopping then I bought a new stand for the bike, a Cordo Ursus Jumbo 26, this is an extra wide double stand, with larger feet, and rated to 60 kg. The Pletscher stand that I got with the bike was good, but broke, and was only rated to 20 kg, and the cheep halfords one I bought near Folkstone, was practically useless. I also bought some more handle bar tape, and looked into trailer tyres, yes you can get schweebie marathon tyres in 16 inch. In the afternoon I fitted the stand and put another layer of handle bar tape on top of the old tape that was on top of some silicon pads. The handle bars look thicker now, and hopefully l will get less vibrations in my wrists. Today only 15 km and with an unloaded bike.

washing line and bike stand in background

Day 48
Another rest day.
Heavy rain all day so I stayed in the tent, relaxed.
Day 49
Another rest day.
It rained till mid-day, and in the afternoon I went for a ride to town, I needed a cash machine and some meths, according to Google translate methylated spirts is SPIRITUS in Dutch, but I could not find any, but I did find one thing called bio ethanol, that contained 95% ethanol, and one of the things I remember from chemistry lessons over 30 years ago is hydro carbons and alcohol. I know this will burn, but not how fierce. ( burns very fast with a vigorous flame, and hot, evaporates fast ).
Today only 12 km
Day 50

A bright sunny day again, with hardly any wind, but lots of hills, well hills for Holland any well, the North Sea Cycle Route along the dunes goes up and down all the time. I followed the coast up to Scheveningen, where I lost the cycle route around the port due to roadworks, but sticking to the plan when I left home of keeping the sea on the left has worked so far and I found the route again. The campsite at Katwijk allowed no dogs so I carried on and slept under the star’s on a bench, wild camping. Today 43 km.