Three to four day round trip from Hook of Holland

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lozfuller

Veteran
Hi,

Me and three mates are looking at taking the Harwich to Hook of Holland ferry (seems to have the best ferry times and prices) next June and will have three to four days to explore Holland!

I don't know Holland at all, so could someone give me any recommendation to take in some interesting towns and villages and scenery? Not sure of daily distance but we'll be on hybrids/mountain bikes so I'm assuming no more then 40-50 miles per day.

I know that one of the downsides of Holland can be the headwinds, given it is so flat. I'm assuming these tend to come from the South and West (as in the UK)? As such, I was thinking of either:
1) Taking a train in a roughly South West direction and then cycling back to the Hook of Holland. I suppose this would mean heading towards Antwerp/Ghent - would the cycle back from here be interesting?
2) Cycling North East and then getting a train back to the Hook of Holland at the end of the trip. Would this prove a more interesting option in terms of towns/scenery etc.?

How is the train service in terms of cost and taking on bikes?

Or would I be better to ignore the train and just do a round trip?

Any advice/experience would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks, Loz
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
Some of my local relaxed cycling group did a similar tour last year. Here's our route:
  • Day 1 - disembark, breakfast in the Muziekcafe in the square in the Hook (it opens shortly after the boat arrives), then north-east along the coast, hopefully with a tailwind, to reach Stay OK Noordwijkerhout 31 miles away in the early afternoon http://cycle.travel/map/journey/31123 (you can skip the detour into Katwijk if you don't need bike spares!) - dropped luggage and most of us headed to Keukenhof to look at the tulips (it was early May) while some rode further up the coast to a nature reserve.
  • Day 2 - Noordwijkerhout to Soest 53 miles http://cycle.travel/map/journey/31120 (you can take a ferry from Aalsmeerderdijk point 03 if it's running and save almost a mile). Longest day. Mostly flat lands south of Amsterdam, with a few different types of roads across lakes, including a mile of gravel road. Not long before that, there's an impressively mad corkscrew over a ship canal and railway that takes 2.5 miles to cover 1 mile. Finishes with a trip through a forest into Soest Stay OK.
  • Day 3 - Soest to Dordrecht 48 miles http://cycle.travel/map/journey/31121 - A packed day. Roll through wooded streets to Bunnik with an early coffee stop at Bunnik's more glam Stay OK (this may be a better overnight point if you want to shorten days 2 and 3 by about 10 miles each), then past a fort at Niuewegein, a velomobile track and ski slope at Ijsselstein (early lunch stop) and onto stereotypically Dutch canalside routes to Schoonhoven to catch a ferry over the Lek, along its bank before turning inland past a line of windmills at Groot Ammers, along more canalsides to enter Dordrecht suburbs via a steep climb and sharing a bridge with only a railway. (Again, can be shortened if you pick a more direct entry to Dordrecht than we did.)
  • Day 4 - Dordrecht to Hook 45 miles http://cycle.travel/map/journey/52181 - into Dordrecht centre to have a wander around, then a ferry across to Zwijndrecht, ride around its edge and over bridges to reach the windmill theme park that is Kinderdijk. It's full of tourists but there's still something impressive about so many windmills lined up. Then another ferry and ride the greenest way we could find past Rotterdam with a slight detour to Delft, another cake stop and then back to the Hook for dinner... except I can't tell you much about the end of that intended route because we took at least three wrong turns that day, adding up to about another 10 miles and a completely different route - but at least Dutch routes are so good we didn't end up on any unpleasant roads!
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
... getting a train back to the Hook of Holland at the end of the trip. Would this prove a more interesting option in terms of towns/scenery etc.?

How is the train service in terms of cost and taking on bikes?
https://www.seat61.com/bike-by-train.htm#Netherlands says it's €6 extra for a bike, off-peak only but I've no experience of it. Also, note the comment elsewhere there "Note that with the current bus replacement Hoek van Holland to Schiedam you'll need to cycle this section" - I think that should be over by when you go if it isn't already, but it should have been over by now, so who knows?

Personally, I think you can get far enough from the Hook at that speed in two days to start to vary the scenery. There's also plenty of towns in reach. It depends what you want :smile:
 

snorri

Legendary Member
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Bodhbh

Guru
Maybe just luck, but based on 3-4 trips over there, I think your suggestions regarding the trains and the wind are sound. You can be doing an easy 20mph+ one direction of a loop, turn round and be killing yourself doing 7-8mph. ofc sods law, you plan around the prevailing and the wind has other plans...

Depending on the trans, Ostend >> Brugge >> Middleburg >> Hook should be a good trip, or Hook >> Groningen with an overnight detour to Schiermonnikoog or one of the other islands would work too.
 
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lozfuller

Veteran
Many thanks for all the really useful information. I'll peruse and maybe get back with any further questions! Thanks again.
 

BoldonLad

Not part of the Elite
Location
South Tyneside
Some of my local relaxed cycling group did a similar tour last year. Here's our route:
  • Day 1 - disembark, breakfast in the Muziekcafe in the square in the Hook (it opens shortly after the boat arrives), then north-east along the coast, hopefully with a tailwind, to reach Stay OK Noordwijkerhout 31 miles away in the early afternoon http://cycle.travel/map/journey/31123 (you can skip the detour into Katwijk if you don't need bike spares!) - dropped luggage and most of us headed to Keukenhof to look at the tulips (it was early May) while some rode further up the coast to a nature reserve.
  • Day 2 - Noordwijkerhout to Soest 53 miles http://cycle.travel/map/journey/31120 (you can take a ferry from Aalsmeerderdijk point 03 if it's running and save almost a mile). Longest day. Mostly flat lands south of Amsterdam, with a few different types of roads across lakes, including a mile of gravel road. Not long before that, there's an impressively mad corkscrew over a ship canal and railway that takes 2.5 miles to cover 1 mile. Finishes with a trip through a forest into Soest Stay OK.
  • Day 3 - Soest to Dordrecht 48 miles http://cycle.travel/map/journey/31121 - A packed day. Roll through wooded streets to Bunnik with an early coffee stop at Bunnik's more glam Stay OK (this may be a better overnight point if you want to shorten days 2 and 3 by about 10 miles each), then past a fort at Niuewegein, a velomobile track and ski slope at Ijsselstein (early lunch stop) and onto stereotypically Dutch canalside routes to Schoonhoven to catch a ferry over the Lek, along its bank before turning inland past a line of windmills at Groot Ammers, along more canalsides to enter Dordrecht suburbs via a steep climb and sharing a bridge with only a railway. (Again, can be shortened if you pick a more direct entry to Dordrecht than we did.)
  • Day 4 - Dordrecht to Hook 45 miles http://cycle.travel/map/journey/52181 - into Dordrecht centre to have a wander around, then a ferry across to Zwijndrecht, ride around its edge and over bridges to reach the windmill theme park that is Kinderdijk. It's full of tourists but there's still something impressive about so many windmills lined up. Then another ferry and ride the greenest way we could find past Rotterdam with a slight detour to Delft, another cake stop and then back to the Hook for dinner... except I can't tell you much about the end of that intended route because we took at least three wrong turns that day, adding up to about another 10 miles and a completely different route - but at least Dutch routes are so good we didn't end up on any unpleasant roads!

Hi. Just seen this interesting thread, can I ask a question or two?.

We are thinking of making a similar trip. May I ask what you did about overnight accommodation, ie

- did you camp (cannot see my wife agreeing to that!)
- If you used hotel/B&B/hostel, did you book in advance, or just take "pot luck"

Thank you in advance.
 
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mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
Hi. Just seen this interesting thread, can I ask a question or two?.

We are thinking of making a similar trip. May I ask what you did about overnight accommodation, ie

- did you camp (cannot see my wife agreeing to that!)
- If you used hotel/B&B/hostel, did you book in advance, or just take "pot luck"

Thank you in advance.
I'm not a fan of camping either: it's lugging extra stuff around only to have worse accommodation IMO ;) We stayed in the Stay OK hostels at Nordwijkerhout, Soest and Dordrecht, booked ahead. There were 8 of us I think and one is a particularly experienced cycle-tourist, a couple of others had done some, then there were new ones like me. The main "gotcha" from staying in them every night is not to eat dinner at all of them, as the menus are short and not synchronised across the chain so you could well end up with the same meal twice! You've got a bike, so go ride to a restaurant - just check-in first and make sure you know the after-hours entry method.

On this year's France-Belgium-Netherlands trip, we stayed in non-chain hostels and one hotel. The accommodation was a bit more random, especially for bike parking. Hostels are mostly good, with fair size bike store rooms and some effort to accommodate bikes even when the store's full. The most frequent challenge was finding an immovable object to lock to, as required by most bike insurance - a few times, we decided that if a bike was locked to a bike that was locked to a bike that was locked to an immovable object, that would have to do!
 
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Douggie954

Well-Known Member
Utrecht is nice, Zwolle is also nice. Cycled through Holland into Germany and then back again this summer staying in both cheap hotels (Stay OK) and hostels. I used Booking.com then if you want to cancel or change before you can.
 
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