Another yummy breakfast made by our host Anneke. I love these cute mugs.

One thing about cycle touring, you don’t buy souvenirs, as you have to carry them.

Down to the ferry terminal, the temperature was cool and it was windy. Rain was forecast today.

The bikes are first onto the ferry, last off on the other side. They are simply leaned against the side which works fine as the water is flat.

Ominous skies.

Then just like that, the skies improve.

There is just one drive on deck for cars and trucks. We are amazed at how many big trucks were on both trips. Many walk on passengers too.

We head out of Holwerd and of course, a windmill.

Cruising along and we needed to stop here for five minutes or so whilst this very large herd of cows crossed the farm to the green paddocks ‘on the other side’.

An unusual letterbox?

Many beautiful villages today with gorgeous canals and waterside homes. All looks very peaceful.

Where there are canals there are bridges. These ones I do not like. They are steep. I push my bike up and with a degree of trepidation roll down the other side.

A super cute, young foal.

The biggest junk heap we’ve seen on the trip so far. Two boats that seem to collect …junk! But they are proud Dutch.

Villages and more canals.

This is coming into Leeuwarden the largest town we negotiated today.

A population of around 130,000 and continuously inhabited since the 10th century they, it was also a former royal residence.

These seven metre high white sculpture are called Love. The mist is meant to be around two metres in height, but I think the very strong wind played havoc today.The artist is Spanish, by the name Plensa.

We had been subjected to strong headwinds (a southerly today, and of course, our direction), since the start today. The temperature was in the high 20’s.

We stopped a few times to grab cold drinks.

Some shade was always welcomed.

We saw a few of these towers today, with bells.

A cat statue in a small roundabout. Tony thinks we should have one in Possum for Puddles ( RIP 2013) who was a local ‘identity’ or dog hazard as she launched out at dogs.

More churches. They all have clocks and this looks the right time.

We needed more water and stopped at this farm. Many farms here operate cafes.

A large working farm that has icecream. Very nice too, plus we topped our water bottles up in the bathroom.

Many canals have lift bridges. The first one we’ve needed to wait for.

This yacht sailed through, tacking multiple times to get the line right.

More pretty canals.

Time has moved on. 2.30 pm and another church.

This espalier is impressive.

I took this photo on my iPad. Whilst doing so, an elderly Dutch man approached me, chatting away. We had quite the conversation with neither having a clue what the other was saying. Smiling crosses barriers though.

Another bell tower.

With 34 km to go we stopped for more liquid at a supermarket. We sat outside drinking it and heard thunder. Yet the sky was blue.

Within 5 minutes it was raining and we had our jackets on. The wind was fearsome. I do hate riding when I hear thunder.

Then just like that, it stopped.

We motored on for about 5 km and had a tailwind.

Emmeloord looks like a nice town, but the thunder started again, and the winds got super wild and we were not stopping for photos.

The skies darkened and it was quite dark riding but I did not take my shaded protective glasses off as I needed to protect my eyes.

The last 9 km was unpleasant. We just rode and watched the lightning, counting to the thunder. Around 20 seconds so still a bit away.

The wind was coming from the side now. Gusts of 67 kmh per our data. We watched one lady on her ebike blow right off the path.

I was thankful that we were on a path and not the road where we had more space to control the inevitable sideway push. The trees were dropping twigs and small branches.

I kept counting. The time between the lightning and thunder, plus how many km remained. I was just hoping we could get there in time.

Dirt was being blown from dry paddocks.

In between thunder claps we did stop for one moment to take these two photos.

We were so relieved to get to our overnight destination just as the skies opened and the storm was on us. Our host quickly opened his garage.

Riding you don’t get such alerts.

Hoping for better weather tomorrow, as we wind our way towards Amsterdam.

We are now in a converted bank, including the original safe. It’s been very well done and the owners are a lovely younger Dutch couple who moved here from Rotterdam. They live in the attached former managers home and did this conversion.

There is lots of orange here, walls and curios.

There is also a large bath, and I did enjoy soaking in it last night.

Today we rode 106 km, bringing our total now to 1,419 km.

Thanks for joining us ❣️😳🚴