As planned, the morning train from Dordrecht to Nijmegen, and then a ride to Emmerich am Rhein. It’s a route we’ve done a few times before – but that was always at the end of a holiday and into a headwind. Today we were at the beginning of the holiday with the hope (fervent on my side) of travelling to unknown places and a tailwind. What more could I want? The call of a cuckoo and the sight of storks were the cherry on the cake.

The Dutch-German border was marked by a tiny stream, and the red bridge of Emmerich was visible for miles. The electricity pylons either side are phenomenally high: is it simply to span the river?

The usual 30km ride from the ferry to Rotterdam Centraal – into a headwind, which is just unfair. I’m more familiar with that ride now that routes around my own neck of the woods. Then trains to Amersfoort and then Osnabrück. I just ask people to help me get my bicycle and panniers onto the high trains.

The list of things that can go wrong has grown. Last-minute platform changes I am used to (there was one at Leeds yesterday that set me running), but today I was introduced to the sense of ignorant helplessness you feel when everybody else knows what is going on because they are on the app and act as one – leaving me stranded. We were all waiting on platform 14 when, like a shoal of fish, everyone turned and started flowing down the escalator. No announcement – just a hive-mind connected by the app. Someone said “twaalf” to me, so I dashed to platform 12. There was a train – still no announcement – and I stood by the door with the bicycle symbol. Another mass flow – the train was only the front half.

Anyway I got to Amersfoort – and discovered that I was in time to catch the much-delayed Berlin train that calls at Osnabrück. I had a flexible ticket so that was OK, but I didn’t have a bicycle reservation for that particular train. Since my bicycle was the only one in the racks, I don’t think I inconvenienced anyone.

Upshot: on a day of train traumas, I got to Osnabrück an hour earlier than expected.

But the real depth charge to hit my holiday is today’s announcement that there are strikes on some Dutch trains from tomorrow. I’d already factored in Sunday’s closure of Osnabrück station to remove a bomb (if I’ve translated correctly) and its impact on my vague plans, but the thought of Dutch trains being unreliable when I was relying on them to carry me across the country on Monday is too much. So farewell Bremen and the Geestradweg. I shall be just be pedalling west into a headwind for the next few days.

And making the best of it.

Well, it’s not like I didn’t know the risk:

Tout le malheur des hommes vient d’une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos dans une chambre

A day bookended by storks, just when I thought they must all have left northern Europe. The second pair are at the top of the town hall gable directly opposite our hotel tonight.

Perfect cycling conditions: warm but not too hot, sunny but not scorching, the wind mostly helpful. From the converted railway line out of Xanten I thought again of the parallel universe that the Netherlands and Germany offer me: here I am on a path away from traffic, there, less than a hundred yards away beyond the line of trees, lorries and cars roar along. Kaffee und Kuchen in Kalkar, where I thought of the slow fading of a particular type of Germany. We chose a traditional bakery café in the main square, where the assistants looked of retirement age and all the customers were elderly and knew each other. In many towns now we find that the only bakeries are attached to large supermarkets; we’re happy when we find them, of course, but they lack charm and memorability.

And now back in the Netherlands and on the return to Europoort.