My arrival at the family home was the perfect opportunity to revisit the contents of my panniers and offload the more ridiculous objects that I had dragged to the top of those steep Peak District climbs. So amongst other things, it was goodbye to the smart shoes, suit jacket and choral sheet music.
After flicking through the ferry prices from Newcastle to Amsterdam I was disappointed to find no real bargain-basement option, like where you simply sit in a chair for the duration rather than get a bunk. The most cost effective option DFDS offer solo travellers is a private twin cabin, so I skimmed through prices on different days of the week and found the cheapest was Wednesday – perhaps a little early for most stag and hen dos.
After a ‘last supper’ at the local Italian restaurant on a quiet post-bank holiday Tuesday evening, I re-packed the panniers with their now slightly leaner contents in preparation for the morning departure. My family seem satisfied I haven’t gone completely insane in stepping away from a sensible career to embark on such an endeavour, but probably wonder why anyone would voluntarily expose their arse to months in a bicycle saddle? After collecting an envelope of Euros from Ramsdens the final task on my list was ticked off; I stepped onto my (noticeably lighter) bike, said my goodbyes to the family and got the northbound local train from Billingham towards Newcastle.
I wanted to get off at Heworth on the south bank of the river Tyne, so I purchased a train ticket to further away Newcastle to save money (yes you read that correctly, our perverse train ticketing system is a nothing short of an incomprehensible mess at this point). Once off the train I began to cycle my way towards the ferry terminal, dodging endless fragments of broken bottles and dog shit strewn across the cycle paths. Not the most glamorous route perhaps, but it did include a tunnel under the river. You can even ride your bike along the dedicated cycling lane in the tunnel, which is quite a fun activity whilst you run catastrophic failure scenarios through your mind – if the whole thing suddenly collapsed and the Tyne started pouring in, would the water rush in from one end like a raging tsunami? Or would it be more of an implosion from every direction? It’s not a phobia, just morbid curiosity I think Dr. Anyway it was a very nice tunnel with colourful lights and mercifully no river water in sight.
After a short queue at the ferry terminal I boarded the ship’s hull and was directed to the bicycle storage area, where a crew member insisted I could not lock the bike (either to the railing or to itself) for our reasons of our good friend ‘health and safety’. I asked if the cars and lorries were also left unlocked for this reason, and it soon transpired that the underlying reason was nuisance caused by passengers abandoning locks (or entire bicycles) which then need to be angle grinded off. I satisfied myself that the risk of theft was genuinely minimal, then for the first time ever attempted to carry all six of my panniers & bags in one go: awkward, but doable!
The ferry is marketed as ‘Newcastle to Amsterdam’ but actually sails from North Shields to IJmuiden. The double capitalised ‘IJ’ confused me at first, until Wikipedia told me it is a digraph, which confused me further, so feel free to look it up for yourself, but I reckon it would probably be spelled Aimoden if it was a British town.
After a gentle overnight crossing accompanied by a few pints of Guinness in the sparsely attended bar on deck 8, I emptied my pockets of soon to be useless sterling coins in exchange for an overpriced breakfast, peering out the window whilst our Dutch pilot manoeuvred the vessel through a worryingly tight gap between the river bank and a small (but heavily fortified) island.
The call for deck 4 screeched out across the ship’s PA system and I made my way to the cycle storage area where I was greeted by a handful of fellow cycle tourists loading up their bikes. After 10 minutes or so a crew member gave us the knod and we marched our bikes along a narrow gap between the rugged grooves of the ship’s steel floor until on dry land, then cycled the last 200m up to border control.
“Passport please”, delivered from the usual stone like stare of a border force officer. “Where are you heading?”
For some reason it had never occurred to me that I might actually be asked this basic question upon entry, I had been more concerned about the Schengen 90/180 rule upon re-entry and not getting tangled up in visa applications.
“I’m heading to Denmark” blurted my instinctive response, which is where I will cycle before getting another ferry to Norway. I didn’t want to get into the full convoluted plan, and he didn’t want to hear it, so he handed me my passport, wished me well on my trip and opened the gate. I was in Holland and Europe was my oyster.
Every journey starts with a first step
After a careful exit from the busy port I found myself on the south bank of the north sea canal which runs through the centre of Amsterdam, around 35km to the east. Amsterdam is a great city and all, but I’ve been several times before and was not really in the mood to ride through such a busy urban area just yet, so I headed for what looked like a bridge on the map.
Navigation
A quick word on navigation: I have planned a route up to Scandinavia, down to Istanbul, and back through the Balkans and southern Europe. I will not necessarily always stick to the route – and I don’t currently have a route planned for east of Istanbul – but when I am on a route I can simply follow the GPS computer which will show me the way to go. Without a pre-planned route you are left to either follow your nose or rely on a map of some sort, Google Maps in my case. So when I say ‘the map’ I mean the map on my phone (rather than fighting with a badly folded 1:50,000 OS Landranger).
As I pedalled further east along the heavily industrialised canal side there was a distinct lack of any form of bridge to cross. Upon closer inspection the bridge I was seeking was in fact a tunnel for the A22 dual carriageway – which to cycle through would be a trifecta of horrid, dangerous and illegal – but this being the Netherlands there was obviously a cycling friendly solution: a free ferry across the canal. I hopped on board alongside a small vehicle for sweeping street gutters and a couple of french cyclists touring with their border collie in tow (a piece of kit that didn’t make it onto the spreadsheet, not this time anyway).
At this point it began to rain, so I largely abandoned the map and headed north following the cycle paths which complement pretty much every road above a certain size in the Netherlands. The Dutch have cycling tunnels buried under main roads, roundabouts where vehicles have to give way, and the vast majority of paths are in great condition even those in the middle of forests and crop fields. I promise I will stop gushing over Dutch cycling infrastructure, but it really is world class and helped to soften my landing on this trip in so many ways, especially whilst I reprogrammed my brain to ride on the opposite side of the road.
After passing through a few smaller towns I arrived in the city of Alkmaar, famous for its cheese market. Well, not quite famous enough for me to have heard of said cheese market, but maybe I’m just out of the cheese market scene at this point in my life. I did once attend Tavistock cheese market in Devon with a friend who had worked in the local cheesemonger – I’m a complete lightweight when it comes to cheese, strong cheddar I can handle, but when it starts to smell of feet I struggle. In Tavistock I went for the ‘exposure therapy’ tactic and forced down samples of cheese on offer from every single market stall, hoping I would suddenly see the light and walk out a lover of stilton and Shropshire blue: I did not.
I paced up and down the facade of a Jumbo supermarket wondering where to lock my bike and which panniers to remove. A kind woman passing by noticed my conundrum and pointed towards a narrow alley marked by a yellow wooden archway and bicycle sculpture. It was a dedicated bicycle parking lot manned by an attendant, which although a little pricey at €5 was the perfect stress relieving solution in that moment.
Before heading down the alleyway to park up to stock up on groceries, I caught the eye of a local chap of around 70 years age wearing a white nautical hat. He was excited to learn I was from the UK and curious about my about my trip. He soon established that I had absolutely no idea the country was set to celebrate Koningsdag (King’s Day) on Saturday, which by his description was quite a big deal in the Netherlands, where people take over the streets with flea markets, play music and have a drink (or ten). He recommended I get away from the rowdy and sometimes turning violent celebrations in Alkmaar and head east to the more relaxed town of Hoorn, which is exactly what I did.
Alkmaar to Hoorn is quite a straight forward journey but in this instance mhampered by headwinds. I checked into Camping’t Venhop on the city outskirts, a campsite that resides in the armpit of a section of the A7 dual carriageway; not the quietest spot, but the bogs were clean and I had full use of my very own picnic bench right beside the tent, always useful for those travelling without a chair. I tried a special technique to pitch my tent in the rain without drenching the inside, which although a bit awkward was quite effective, then reached for a can of tuna with no ring pull.
“Not to worry” I hushed to myself in an effort to stave off the urge to throw the can into the nearby canal, “I’ve definitely seen a YouTube video on this”. I reached for the old fashioned tin opener on my Swiss army knife and tried to recall each step of that video. Let’s just say I will be revisiting my technique in the future.
After a damp first day in Holland the rain clouds passed and the sun had begun to shine in Hoorn on Friday morning, so I seized the opportunity to leave the campsite and explore the town and pick up a few items. Hoorn was home to the chap who first sailed from Europe to the Pacific Ocean around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America, and this proud maritime heritage is quite clear. The Dutch love a good boat and there is no shortage of them around Hoorn, including some beautifully carved wooden specimens.
One thing you notice about the Netherlands is how precariously close to the waters edge their houses are often built, with much of the waterways subject to some degree of manmade control to avoid flooding. The Dutch have been manipulating this naturally water logged landscape for centuries and exporting their skills to similarly wet places ever since.
After a relaxed day pottering around Hoorn’s canals and small side streets I retired to Camping’t Venhop for a meal and evening walk around the campsite. A large area was dedicated to static caravans, where the size, shape and general condition of each caravan seemed to vary considerably from one plot to the next. I could feel a mild plume of envy rise inside of me as I peered into the window a well-lit living room with cosy soft furnishings and remembered how I hadn’t even brought a chair, “smug gits”.
50 Shades of Orange: Koningsdag
If the friendly man I had met on the street in Alkmaar had not explained to me about the upcoming King’s Day I would have spent Saturday morning packing up my tent and pressing on with the cycle tour. Instead, I lathered myself in suncream and headed into Hoorn for what according to the Google Translated regional news was to be the first warm & sunny Koningsdag for many years (if you forget about 2020, which most are happy to do so).
As I cycled towards the centre I pondered where I might lock up the bike whilst I enjoy the festivities. A recurring problem I had encountered was the surprising lack of ‘railing style’ racks where the bike can be leaned against the railing and you lock your frame to it. The majority of Dutch bicycles come equipped with a heavy duty kick stand which allows you to roll up to your destination of choice, engage the kick stand, and lock the bicycle to itself (often with an integrated lock built around the back wheel), all without any need to hunt down a bicycle stand. When you do find a bike rack they tend to have a slot for your front wheel to slide into, which is great if you don’t have a front rack, so for me to use them usually required a bodge where I either leaned up against the end of a rack or hogged two spaces, sorry folks!
There are three main themes to King’s Day in the Netherlands: flea markets, drinking, and orange.
At the flea markets, ordinary folk can throw down a tarp onto the street, lay out the various items that have been cluttering their house since the last King’s Day for sale, and command their tween children to stand there and deal with the punters whilst the parents kick back and drink beer in the shade – no permits required or VAT applicable, basically one big jumble sale in the street. From what I saw the best sellers were women’s and children’s clothing, but there was quite a variety of offerings, including those trying to make a quick buck with quite obviously bulk-bought new items, especially unopened packets of Pokémon cards.
In Hoorn, the drinking centres around several areas, each with a PA system and space for mingling, dancing, singing, and conga lines at its nucleus. I paid €3.50 for a 250ml plastic cup of ‘bier’ (plus €1 cup deposit), which would have been a bit pricey if the beer was good, but a down right rip off when you are paying equivalent to c.£7 a pint for what tasted like the shittest lager in Holland. No wonder the security chap checked my bag for smuggled alcohol.
The colour orange is inescapable. Bright orange , dark orange, neon orange, pastel orange. Orange clothes, orange jewelry, orange balloons, orange face paint, orange novelty crown hats – you name it, they will orangify it. Anything decorated with the Dutch flag is augmented by an extra stripe of orange to make up for the flag’s curious lack of this national colour.
It had been a fun day, but I decided to pass on partying into the small hours to avoid feeling like crap on my planned morning departure. Although not before a brief dance with the Queen of Orange herself – nope not Beatrix, she abdicated in 2013 – but a woman who held the distinguished title of the most orange person at Hoorn King’s Day 2025. We made a good duo as the only orange on my being was a few accents on my shoes, with shoes her only non-orange garment in sight.
Now it really was time for bed. The plan was to leave Holland in the morning and venture into the Netherland’s lesser known provinces.
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PHOTOGRAPHY: Ferry & North Holland
The Cycling Brit 
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