Leaving U.K., and the Ride to Amsterdam…

Dinner with the Swanepoels'. A pleasant evening with friends from home...

Posing with Francois and his daughters Eliza and Julia... Photo by Ania.

After meeting with Robyn, I made my way back to Francois’s home where we enjoyed a delicious dinner with the whole family. We chatted about my trip and watched the DVD of my previous ride through Southern Africa. After a few night-caps and a cup of coffee, I was ready for bed. It had been an emotional day and I lay thinking about the few hours I had spent with Robyn, replying the things she spoke about, my mind filled with a picture of her animated face, eyes lit up as she told me about her life in London…

Leaving London, bound for Amsterdam and beyond... Photo by Francois.

I dreamed about a trip we had made to Lion Sands, Roxanne and Robyn sitting high up on the back seat of the Land-Rover, happy smiles on their faces, spotting birds and game, and identifying them correctly, long before I had picked them out myself… Wonderful times…but far too few of them…!!

After breakfast the next morning, I bid Francois and his family goodbye, and made my way back over the Dartford Bridge to Burgess Hill, where I stopped at Borge’s office at Alexander Rose…

I needed to book my ticket on the Eurotunnel on-line, and had forgotten to do so the previous evening at Francois’s place… I was determined not to get caught out again and wanted to avoid paying the standard higher tariff. Once I had got that out of the way, I sat sorting through my photographs and planning my ride to Amsterdam.

High time South African bikers got a better deal...!! Pass this photo on to your nearest Member of Parliament... When he next gets his snout out of the Gravy Boat...!!

Clive Withey, (who I had planned to visit during my time in the U.K., had instead ridden all the way across Southern England to see me), arrived at the ARL offices and made arrangements to spend the night at Borge’s home. That evening we went to dinner at a little Italian restaurant just up the road from where Borge lived. Their children Michael and Sarah accompanied us and together with Clive, we enjoyed a quiet evening out. Michael works at Alexander Rose, and reminds me of the Irish actor Colin Farrell. Michael’s Irish accent completed the picture…!!

Sarah... With just an ounce of your courage, I could ride to the moon and back...!!

Sarah is a wonderful young woman, who was recently involved in a horrific car accident which has left her paralysed from the waist down. Her back was broken in seven places and part of her spinal column crushed… Her brave and positive outlook after such a devastating change to her life left me in awe of her… People think a solo trip around the world is a brave thing to do, but compared to the journey that lies ahead for Sarah, mine is a walk in the park… She laughed and cracked jokes about her condition, (one of them involved changing bra sizes…!!) and after our meal, I pushed her wheelchair home, enjoying chatting to her, all the while trying to avoid any obstacles that might cause her any discomfort… I found it more nerve-wracking than riding a big bike through the African bush…!!

Maximum respect Sarah…!! I wish you all the love and strength for the future, and look forward to meeting you again…!! Get your email sorted, Girl…!!

After the Leth family had gone to bed, Clive and I sat drinking beer on the back patio, chatting about Ghana and the times we had spent there… He had worked there for a few years and then spent a few weeks every year in Mim, developing new products for Alexander Rose. Clive and I had always got on well, ever since his visit to Top-Pine in Swaziland and our subsequent meetings in the U.K. over the following years. I enjoyed h

Lining up to re-cross the English Channel...

is dry sense of humour and that night he was in especially good form… Time flew by, and at 2,30am, we finally called it quits and headed for bed ourselves…

I wanted to get an early start for Amsterdam, but Borge suggested I wait until the early morning traffic had died down before setting out, so after loading the Big Fella, I sat down and enjoyed a second cup of coffee with Antonia, before getting out onto the road at about 9.00am… I would be losing an hour when I crossed the tunnel back into Europe, so effectively, it was 10.00am in Amsterdam…

I was not as lucky with my timing as I had been in France, and spent almost an hour at the Tunnel Terminal before I rode onto the train, along with three other bikers heading for France and Slovakia on their summer holidays…

I had refueled at Maidstone in England, just before boarding the train, and knew that my fuel would last until I got closer to Amsterdam. Today’s ride was a little over 600 km, and my GPS gave me an ETA of 6.00pm… I sped through Belgium, wanting to get into Amsterdam as early as possible, as I remembered all the narrow little streets near the main station, where Michel lived, and did not want to spend the evening riding the Big Fella around in square circles looking for his house…

"You're looking a bit pale, Clarabelle...!!"

"I want my black back...!! This colour shows up all the dirt...!"

The route I had set took me along the coast past Dunkerque and Niewpoort, before ducking inland towards Zwijnaarde and hooking up with the E17 to Antwerp… I rode through the farmland and countryside of Belgium and there uncovered a conspiracy of sorts…!!

Traffic was hectic as we entered this tunnel outside Antwerp...

It would seem that the French, the Belgians and the Dutch are doing their best to breed the “black” out of their cows…!! I think this is a scandalous situation…!! Will somebody please get onto Julius Malema as soon as possible, and ask him to look into the matter…?? Perhaps a boycott and a bit of “affirmative dancing” outside their respective embassies is in order…!!

Go Julius, you stupid thing, you…!!!

Traffic around this big port city was as congested as any I had ridden in before… The highway was clogged with trucks, all heading towards or from the harbour entrances…

I crossed the bridge over the Schelde River, and then another over the Albert Canal, before heading northeast for the border to Holland…

"What's that...? Out of focus...?? At 160 km/h, everythings a bit of a blur, Dudes...!!"

I was happy to note that the garbage collectors were out doing their work...

Could you look someone in the eye and tell them you live in Sint-Job-in-'t-Goor...??

Would have loved to take a closer look at this building... Amazing design...!!

After a longish day, we were almost in Amsterdam...

We skirted Utrecht and then rode into the centre of Amsterdam… There I jockeyed for position amongst what seemed like the world’s population of bicycles, and before long I was in the very middle of the Red Light District…!!

I rode along a narrow canal, trying to keep an eye on the hundreds of pedestrians that strolled along it, all gawking at the girls displaying themselves in the windows of the little rooms that lined both sides of the canal. For the most part I was walking the bike, and after turning down yet a narrower alleyway, I began to think that Michel was having me on…!! Either that or perhaps he was a pimp…!! I could not see how this could be a residential district, and thought that he had played a joke on me by giving me the address of a brothel…!! (It is after all the sort of thing I would do…!!)

Just then Gi-Gi informed me that I was “arriving at destination on right…”…. All I could see was a little Thai Restaurant and the Feel Good Coffee House…! I looked for number 34 and finally made out number 42 on a doorway close to where I was parked… I rode forward, crossed the canal and came back along it’s opposite bank, planning to stop and consider my options… I crossed the canal again and stopped outside the Thai place and was just about to get off the bike and ask if there was indeed a No: 34, when a voice from out of the crowd said,

Entering the hustle and bustle of Amsterdam, with the main railway station directly ahead...

“You made it…!! Welcome to Amsterdam…!”

In front of me stood Michel Jongens, who was just returning from work… My timing had been excellent…!! He looked just as I remembered him from his website, which documented his ride from Amsterdam to Katmandu, through Central Asia and China, skirting the Himalayas into Pakistan, and then up through India…

“You live around here…?” I asked with a disbelieving look on my face…

“You are parked outside my front door..!” was Michel’s reply….

I looked to my right and saw a short flight of stairs leading up to a red door… I could not fault the GPS, that was for certain…!! We carried my kit into his apartment, and then took the bike a few blocks away to where Michel rents a garage, and parked it with his own GS1200… I was sure the bikes would have plenty to talk about over the next few days…!!

The Big Fella finds a like-minded friend in Michel's garage...!!

Back at the apartment, over a cup of coffee, we got to know each other a little better, and then went out for a beer at a place called “The Confessed Nun”… We sat outside the bar, watching people pass by, and I commented on how busy Amsterdam seemed…

“Well, you’ve arrived on a very busy weekend… Tomorrow is the annual Gay Pride Canal Parade and visitors from all over Europe come here especially for this weekend…!”

Then the penny dropped… I remembered Amsterdam as being a hip place from my last visit here years ago, but I’d begun to think that it had turned a lot weirder since then… I had wondered why so many guys were dressed in pink, and stood around hugging other guys a lot more closely than I thought was healthy…!! Now it all made sense…!! Well actually it didn’t really make sense, but you know what I mean…!! Michel also pointed out a few “girls” who were not girls at all…!! I tried to keep my jaw closed, but it kept falling open to hang on my chest at the sight of some of the folks who paraded up and down the pavement before me…

“If you are unsure whether they are girls or guys, just ask them for a light, and then look at their hands… The one’s with the hairy hands are usually guys…”

“Well, I don’t think I will allow my curiosity to extend that far,” I replied…

“Tomorrow they will sail up and down the canals on barges, and then they will have a huge street party…!! It is really something to see…!!”

“What I have seen so far is a bit of an overload already…!!” I told him…

My time with Michel was set to be short, as he was leaving to visit his girlfriend in The Hague on Sunday and would probably miss my departure for Sweden, which I had planned for Tuesday morning… We had a lot to discuss, and I wanted to “pick his brain” about conditions in central Asia, and his ride and route to Kathmandu in Nepal. But that would have to wait for the morning, as it was already past midnight, and we still had to get my sleeping arrangements sorted out. Michel had moved the dining table off to one side, and a large inflatable mattress was then wedged between it and the kitchen, and there, with the sounds of a huge party still going strong in the streets outside, I fell into a dreamless sleep…

©GBWT 2010