Veluwe - Day 2 : The longest day

We all slept well and had breakfast on a bench in the playground. Because it was still drizzling, we had to postpone packing our gear until it had dried. Bram made sure to reemphasize that it would have been easier to bring only one tent.

A little past 10 o'clock, the local store opened so we could buy a gas canister. Afterward, we cycled straight north. In a village, we stopped to buy Ligas, the healthy cookies Koen was explicitly told to eat by his mom. It was starting to get ever more cloudy, so I put the rain cover on my backpack. Soon afterward, it began to rain, and half an hour later, it was pouring. Interestingly, we just happened to cycle on a road called "hell," which was near "purgatory road." We took shelter underneath someone's driveway overhang until the rain stopped. There was a steep hill ahead which we had a hard time climbing because we were starving. Fortunately, there was a bench where we could eat lunch. I had bought a 39-cent poncho, but it was so bad that it fell apart while putting it on. After the first hill, we arrived in a hilly area where we had to climb in our smallest gears. It was pretty there, especially downhill. One time we reached 40 km/h. On the steepest descent, Koen tried crossing the road to reach the bicycle path. With 50 kg of gear and a bike going at 40 km/h, it was a miracle he didn't fall. We passed Nijmegen and continued towards Doetinchem, where we crossed a river by ferry.

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We had already cycled 80 km before reaching Wehl. A map on the edge of the village showed a campsite 2 km back, but unfortunately, we (read Bram by himself) had decided that we wouldn't backtrack, ever. We found a second campsite in the middle of the woods, but it didn't seem nice, there was only a shower and literally nothing else. Luckily, we were helped by a man that knew of two nearby campsites. The first was only a few kilometers further but turned out being also just a field. The second one was another 15 km away. By the time we arrived, we had cycled 95 km. Koen and Bram had already started making jokes about how we should try to reach 100 km, but we still needed to find someone to let us on the campsite. Fortunately, the owner was still there. The man said, "just find a nice place, you can pay tomorrow". We took a look around and found a nice flat field. Completely tired, we pitched our tents and dropped in our chairs to cook dinner. The new gas canister was put in Bram's stove. We were lucky once again, the stove didn't work so that we would be eating fries tonight. "BRAM, how many times did I tell you to check your stove?" Koen said in a not very calm way. This would mean we would cycle 100 km today after all because it was another 2.5 km to the closest cafeteria. Afterward, we were too tired to do anything else, so after showering, we quickly went to bed.