View Day 5 - Lanaye to Maasbracht in a larger map
When you arrive, it looks like this:
The pictures they could show would be like this:
They wouldn't show you this:
Yes, another lovely view over-looking a nuclear power plant. I was beginning to wonder if all this would mean my nuts would glow in the dark and I could read my Kindle in my tent.
In any case I got set up and went into town to do some food shopping at the Lidle and the mudguard on the back of my bike finally got to a level of rattling that it was doing my head in. So I stopped at a cycle shop and the guy showed me that it had split in two at the bracket and would always rattle no matter what I did, unless what I did was to replace it. Which is what I did. The set of mudguards cost 20.00 Euros so I bought them, managed to get them and my food back to my nuclear campsite and changed them with my set of tools.
This was all a personal achievement for me as it was the first time I did this kind of operation, which did require two trips back to the cycle shop for them to show me how the washers worked (they are a self-tightening thing that I had never seen before) and to get some degreaser. But the tools were fine. My hands were a mess at the end and I gunged up the sink in the facilities. Luckily another camper had a sponge to lend me. Proud with my accomplishment, I ate a cold dinner on a bench watching the sun go down over the cooling towers, wondering where Antoine was and if the cute waitress that was on duty when I arrived this afternoon thought I looked like a wizened traveler. Probably not, wizened travelers don't drink Sprite and hardly ever stay in campsites that could nuke them.
The day was also memorable for other reasons besides the mudguards and stuff; I saw my first windmill,
And I was officially well and good on the amazing Dutch cycle network. The whole system is amazing; there are signposts, waypoints, excellent maps and all you have to do once you plan where you want to go and how you are going to get there is to just follow the markers and by some massive and collective initiative, you arrive. All hail the Dutch Cycle Network>
The Maas Route was what I started on in Maastricht and would follow it north until somewhere south of Nyjmegen. Once you understand the system - the LF3 is the route, the small "b" is for north, a small "a" would be if you were going south, the numbers in circles are the waypoints that you link up - it is all very simple like following a motorway. It is so complete that it takes away any worry about getting anywhere and you simply enjoy going everywhere and the cycling becomes a true joy. I can't praise it enough.
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