Zeeland delta crossing

It starts and ends at the same node, which is deliberate. The delta is a place where you want your car where you left it, because the return leg into a westerly is a different ride entirely from the outbound one.

The first thirty kilometres run the top of the sea dike. Nothing shelters you here and nothing will for the next two hours. On a still day it is the best cycling in the country: water on both sides, oystercatchers, a horizon that goes on. On a bad day it is a wind tunnel and you will average fourteen kilometres an hour in the drops wondering why you came.

The ferry at node 43 runs every thirty minutes from April to October, hourly in shoulder season, and not at all from December through February. Cash and card both work, bikes go free. Check the operator page the morning you ride, because the crossing gets cancelled in serious wind and the detour around adds thirty-eight kilometres to a day that is already long enough.

After the crossing the character changes completely. Inland polder roads, hedges, actual shelter, and a run of villages where you can get coffee. This is also where the shell section appears — about four kilometres through a nature reserve near node 15. Firm most of the year, soft after a fortnight without rain.

The last twenty kilometres return along the inner dike, lower and more sheltered than the outbound. If the wind was against you on the way out, this is where you get paid back.