Day 15 - Wednesday 15th July
After a very restful nights sleep, I woke up at around 8am. My first thought was my bike; was it still there, so I jumped out of bed, threw some clothes on and went outside to check. Thankfully they were both just as we'd left them - so I went and had a shower. Nig was just getting up when I returned to the room, so he had a quick shower and we went down for breakfast. The breakfast was a very nice continental affair, generally speaking I do actually think I prefer continental breakfasts to a full cooked English now. Don't get me wrong, there are times when a full English breakfast is better than anything else, but for the most part a good continental breakfast is now my first choice; I made my mind up about this on this day!
We then returned to the rooms to pack and re-load the bikes for the last time, ensuring we had our overnight stuff for the ferry in our tank bags. I definitely had mixed feelings about this, the trip was coming to end and and it had been awesome - so much better than I could have hopped for even - but I was getting ready for my creature comforts; own bed, comfy sofa, TV, Xbox, etc. Also both me and Nig had run out of clean clothes!
Our ferry didn't leave until 9pm, we couldn't check in until 5pm so we had a bit of time to kill. We could have stayed in Amsterdam but I knew were that would lead, so I had decided to have a ride to the coast.
Well it was a nightmare - the Dutch roads, or certainly the one between Amsterdam and Zandvoort, are horrible. The roads are truly confusing and traffic lights take an age to change. There were a few nice sections, one memorable one being a lovely road alongside a dyke with dotted with windmills, exactly what you imaging Dutch roads to be like, but these were very few and far between.
Eventually we got to Zandvoort, which I'd read was a very nice beach resort. Well it was crap - like a really rubbish English beach resort, there weren't even any arcades! It was very busy though, so it must be popular. We stopped for a coffee seeing as we were there and saw a very amusing coach.
We got to the docks at around 3pm, as usual there was nothing there so we just chilled out by the bikes and nattered with the other travellers around us. There was an older couple on an old Goldwing; they'd toured down through Germany to Italy and back, on the way the exhaust had broken and the old fella had fixed it with a bean can! Top lad! There was also a couple on a BMW who were really into touring the BMW way. It become very clear that we were the only ones who had encounted consistantly good weather!
We got on board on time, at around 6:30 to 7pm. We decided to watch a film as we didn't want to sit in the bar all night so we went to watch Wolverine. The film was good, but the crossing was very rough and I was feeling more than a little ill by half-way through the film. I came close to leaving the film, but managed to struggle my way through it.
It was around 10pm by the time we got out from the film and we then went to the bar. It was nearly empty as everyone else had returned to their cabins feeling ill! I got a beer and tried to struggle my way through it, but couldn't do it. There was a singer on the stage with a video of a swirling image behind him which really didn't help at all, it's almost as though the staff wanted an early night so they put the 'feel sick' video on. I had to leave Nig on his own so I could go and have a lie-down and that was the end of my night.