Wouwse Plantage

Our muscles still in recovery we decided to catch the train to Roosendal and from there cycle to our next campsite in Wouwse Plantage. Again, we left quite late after our last meal and hot waiter at Hotel New York.

Our first night ride in Holland was a little nerve-wracking. There were few people around to ask and no light along some stretches. The church clock struck 10pm as we arrived at Nispen's crossroads, the last landmark that made any sense from the direction we'd been given. Thankfully the owner answered our phone call and we found our way to Ottermeer Hoeve on his corrected verbal directions.

It was 10:30pm by the time we'd arrived and the owner showed us around the larger than expected and slightly spooky grounds. There were a few campervans and a campfire going and the warmth of the orange-yellow light made us feel instantly safe in the the almost total darkness. We decided to pitch within sight of these merrymakers even though the owner hinted that their children were likely to be noisy.

In the morning we could see that it was a beautiful place with lots of fruit trees, a few cute, chubby animals and a very homely atmosphere. As it turned out, the weather turned quite wet and we would spend 3 nights here overall, making occasional trips across the border to Essen in Belgium for food but otherwise trying to keep ourselves dry and the mosquitoes outside of our tent. This proved to be quite an exercise.

Our strategy consisted of waiting for the rain to settle to an acceptable drizzle then shaking the tent to scare the mozzies off, unzipping the flyscreen to put our shoes on, unzip the door, leap outside with our shower things and quickly zip up the flyscreen again. We had few false starts as by the time we'd organised the first steps it started to pelt down with rain again. I was really regretting that I didn't take the advice of the shop assistant at Paddy Pallins back in Sydney. She recommended bringing a small candle lantern which I'm pretty sure had citronella in it. I decided it was one more thing to carry so didn't go for it.

The last night was especially wet and windy. P2 barely slept as she feared the tent would give way at any moment to the rain bucketing down from above. I was worried that the bikes might get blown over as, although they had rain covers on them, I didn't expect the wind so they were just held up in the open on their stands. It was the condensation that rendered the most unwanted moisture. It lined the inside of the fly but thankfully only a few drops made it into our sleeping area. The bike covers had no ventilation so despite being covered, the bikes were still wet in the morning, albeit not nearly as wet as if they'd been left exposed.