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Veluwe - Day 1 : The warming up

I (Bart) gathered all my gear and cycled to Koen at 8:45. Bram was already there. Of course, Koen's mom told (forced?) me to eat something, I must have been starved so soon after breakfast. Koen's brother Stijn gave me Liga cookies, but more about those later. Koen hadn't packed anything yet, all his stuff was spread out over the kitchen floor. We had planned to leave at nine, but he didn't even have panniers.
 

Koen and his mom left to visit the bicycle store while Bram and I waited. At 9:45, they were finally done and almost ready to go, Koen only needed to attach the tent to his bike. In some mysterious way, he had lost one of the bungee cords necessary to do this. Fortunately, we found another one, and after Koen's mom forced us all to take some fruit, we were finally ready to leave.
 

After departing an hour later than planned, the first 40 km of the trip went well, and we decided to have lunch. Between the three of us, we ate a whole bread. We continued cycling along a train track and a marshy area. The road was perfectly straight and about 6 km long. At the end was a village where we bought more bread for dinner and breakfast for the next day. Bram and I waited outside while Koen went to a bakery. Several girls came up to us to talk. They asked if we smoked and if we wanted to buy them cigarettes. Needless to say, we didn't. When Koen left the store, the girls harassed him, but fortunately, he restrained himself. We continued cycling and, after 60 km, arrived at the "Strawberry Land" amusement park.

I don't know what it was about, but it seemed fun. We continued cycling via Tienray, Wanssum, and Meerlo and started looking forward to a break. Fortunately, we came across a map that showed a nearby village with a campsite. After cycling for another 30 minutes, we found it. This day it seemed difficult to find a campsite, but compared to the following days, it had actually been effortless. Although the 80 km we cycled was 5 km more than planned, we didn't feel very tired.

In the front is Bram's tent. We were put on a random piece of grass left after making a parking lot.

In the rain, we started cooking sausages and soup with our friend Stefan's pans and a disposable barbecue. Afterward, we still had enough time and energy to visit the local bar. They sold Hertog Jan beer in a beautiful glass. Before going to sleep, we played cards in the playground.

route1.jpg

This was today's route. We only made a few detours and crossed many natural areas and dirt roads.

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Distance cycled: 80 km.

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