Day Six

Never should have drunk all that coffee last night. It took forever to fall asleep, and I awoke feeling tired and sore. The older you get, the less comfortable a thermarest pad is to sleep on.No shower here, but I washed my hair with cold water in the long troughlike sink. No where enroute to replenish my pop supply this morning, I rode the 25 miles accross the Aufsluitdijk.(Yawn) I then worked my way down the West coast of Friesland to Markum where I had lunch.
I ate outside to keep watch over the bike, and sat next to a lock with a rotating bridge that closes the main road through town when it rotates out of the way to allow a boat to pass. The lock keeper uses a wooden shoe on the end of a thin rope tied to a long pole to collect the toll from the boat below. The people in the boat are busy keeping it from getting scraped on the walls, and when the lockmaster lowers the shoe, they toss their toll in, and get back to the task at hand. Notice the canine first mate on this sailing vessel.

I was routinely passed by old women like the one in the background as I traveled.
I believe this is the town of Hindeloopen, where I was able to get a nice cold coke from a vending trailer near a public toilet. The Coke was 1.50Euro, but the lady filled my camelbak with water for me. I often ran out of pop or food on my trip, but that was the only day I ran out of water. The streets were exquisitely narrow in this old fishing villiage.

Not long after my camelbak refilling, I came on this bridge. I had to wait for it to clear of active pedestrians, but was cheered on by people lingering to the side as I labored up and over. The Versatile just clears the red and white posts.

I had dinner in Stavoren. The best fried fish I have ever eaten, with french fries. I picked up a few cans of pop to go, and headed the wrong way out of town based on directions from someone passing by the streetcorner vending trailer where I got the fish.After a while of not being able to find the Zuiderzeeroute signs I backtracked to town, found the last sign I had seen and started over. It started to sprinkle a little as I headed out of Stavoren the second time, and it was easy to promise myself to stop at the first campsite I found. It didn't rain alot, but I had lots of wet fresh mown grass in the tent with me that night.

Here's a choice view of the second departure from Stavoren. I stayed at de Weyde Blijk campsite. 10Euro the shower house was new and big, coin operated, and free of toiletpaper as are all such facilities. I would suppose it must be a matter of personal hygene that people wish to supply their own paper. "Ik ben moe." I wrote in my journal. I am tired. My legs, my feet, my left hip my lower back. Could use a day off, but I had to be in Assen by Saturday night, where finding the address I needed might take a while, so I wanted to camp the next night as near to Assen as practical.