Day 8 - Grave to Rosmalen

Yes, Day 8 already and it seems like it is going very quickly now. You get into a rhythm and just keep repeating it day after day and time disappears, except when it is raining, it goes slow when you are wet.


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Pulled out of the campsite pretty early and rode for several hours before I found a place for a coffee. The cycle path went through miles and miles of countryside and I was beginning to believe that I would never find anything, when after coming around a corner I saw an older guy putting out a sandwich board with the word "kaffee" on it. My time in Holland has taught me that it means coffee and it was a welcomed sight. When I asked him, in English, if he was open he replied that he didn't speak English, but his wife did. When you calm down and listen, Dutch has a lot of similarities with English, kind of like a transition language between German and English, so you can get the idea of conversations.

In any case, his wife came out and told me that things weren't quite ready yet as it was not 9.00am. Christ, what time did I leave. She said that she would get me a coffee and a couple sandwiches, and would I mind if she had breakfast with me? Of course not.

We spoke for an hour; she was a widow and the man was a widower, they met a year ago and turned his farm into a crafts workshop and a kind of museum. She made jewelry and he taught pottery. The picture below is the main workshop.

Years ago there was a dog-fight above their field during WWII and a Canadian pilot was shot down by a German pilot. The plane landed in the field and the man's father recuperated all the wreckage. The engine is on display, with some of the bits and pieces, plus short biogs of each pilot.

That day I saw some animals:

And some art in a field:

After all that excitement, I arrived at Camping de Hooghe Heide, an amazing place with a shower building that filled you with weird Dutch and German pop music, a resto and a swimming-pool.