Day 41: Wind

The wind today was unreal. It was consistently 25-35mph with gusts up to 50mph. Unfortunately, there's not protection from the wind here, so most of the day was spent battling through the wind (that was accompanied by pelting rain from time to time) north from Ghent to a town called Dombourg, on the North Sea.

The day probably started at 4am, as that's when the party goers got back to the campsite from Ghent. They weren't too loud, but played music and never really went to bed. We also had multiple thunderstorms roll through last night, that luckily for us really dampened (pun intended) the party mood in the campground.

We got up at our usual time around 8, and took down camp in the rain. There was some resistance from Nate, who suggested that we just burn our extra day in Ghent/staying in the tent, and wait out the storm. May not have been a bad idea looking back on it. But at the time, both Matt and Mark were up and ready to move, so we took down camp and headed north.

And it rained and the wind howled. The rain, from time to time would feel like hail on your face with the wind blowing so hard. And the wind could easily blow you off the road if you weren't careful. Through Belgium we booked north as fast as we could, not really stopping for anything.

We crossed into the Netherlands without so much as a passing glance (although all of a sudden the bike lanes did get much nicer) and biked 20km north of the boarder to a ferry. We were pretty sure the ferry would not be running, due to high winds, but we got tickets no problem, and hopped on the ferry. It was a huge catamaran (not a sail boat though) and had no problem in the waves. But the best thing about the ferry, it was enclosed and maybe even heated! The picture at the top of this post is a picture from the ferry to another ferry that was the same type of boat, but going somewhere else.

We got off the ferry, and battled another 20km north to Dombourg. Our original plan tonight had been to stay in a hostel that was a castle, but their website told us they didn't have room for us, so we instead biked to the city campground. Unfortunately, they were full too! Luckily, Dombourg is a major vacation city for the Netherlands and there is plenty of "mini-camping" in the area. Mini-camping is just camping, but they've basically turned their backyard into a campground.

After another full mini campground, we finally came to a campground that had room for us. The host was very nice, as we arrived wet on our bikes, and pointed out the most sheltered spot in the campground. We setup our tent there, and all took hot showers. I know we were complaining about the heat earlier, but it was fairly cold today and the hot showers felt fantastic.

By the time we were done with showers, the rain had mostly stopped, and it was beginning to brighten up. The wind was still howling, but we were pretty protected, and in good spirits. We cooked an early dinner, and we're in bed by 8.

Tomorrow we will stay in Dombourg. We'll try again to stay in the hostel tomorrow night, and then make our final journey back to Amsterdam. We're getting close!