The barge casts off at 7:00 sharp, and we head up the river. This gives us time to settle in for breakfast, pack our lunches and gather our gear.  The Zeeland drops us off near the town of Heavendorp about 11:30 to start our ride for the day.   Early on in the day we have a very short ferry ride over a river, and then perhaps one of the biggest rainstorms of the trip as we stop to visit the castle near Woofheeze.

The heavy rainstorms turned this 5 minute break, into a 30 minute coffee stop at the cafe, much to the chagrin of our cycle guide Hannamike. Most of the riders were enjoying the shelter of the converted horse stables, and the warm drinks, but she knew how much more riding we had for the day.

The ride then heads north through the De hoge Veluwe national park, with our lunch to be at the Kroller Muller museum. The vegetation of area of the park was sort of a high desert meets the heather of Scotland.   The museum is a large indoor/outdoor art facility, with its main attraction being the largest collection of Van Gogh paintings in the world.  Parking is limited and expensive in the park and for that reason, they maintain a very large collection of white bikes for people to ride in and around the park.  A separate post will cover the white bikes.  We were only given about 1 1/2 hours to have lunch and see the exhibits before we had to start riding again. So we skipped lunch and headed directly to the Van Goghs. That took most all the time we were allowed so we had to skip much of the rest and eat our lunch as we hurried back to the bikes. Returning through the narrow paths through the fields of the park, Honey had her one fall of the trip.  While we were passing some riders, Nadias inexperience caused her to spook and veer, forcing Honey off the path, dropping her a into some rutted muddy area which caused her to loose balance and fall back onto the pathway.  Nothing broken but pavement hitting bare knees is never a good thing.  A little bloodied, but spirits intact, she  rode on.

From there it was back south the Arnhem, on the banks of the Ijssel.

We arrived at the boat about 6:30.   After dinner, there was time for a quick shower and change, before we took a stroll through the town of Arnhem.

Many of the hansaetic towns in the area were fortified with walls, and had a main gate to the city.
This was the main gate to Arnhem.

The Zeeland was docked just down river from The John Frost bridge, site of the Battle of Arnhem, during world war II, and memorialized in the movie “A bridge too far”.