Friday, April 18 – Dangast – Burhave (Wilhelmshaven) – 37 km

Last night it rained. Around 10 o’clock it is dry again. But it is super chilly today, gray and barely 10 degrees. Hard to stay warm. We (Daan, Linda and I) cycle as close as possible along the dike but the bike gates are not yet designed to accommodate the size of the tree bike, too bad, so we make a detour. Through a beautiful relatively small-scale landscape where you feel that there is also some room for nature. You see woodsheds, reeds along ditches. Four roe deer run ahead of us. Nature reacts somewhat uncomfortably to our initiative to cycle around a tree. Actually quite understandable. Would they pass it on to each other? We don’t know.

Richard and Sanne follow us with the cars, among other things for the battery changes every 15 km or so. At such a switch, we often meet hikers who come smiling to us and ask what is this? We hand out a birthday tree to a lady in a bright yellow coat who is very interested and records a mini video saying she is planting a tree on her birthday. Good for the socials. Richard takes drone shots here and there along the way. After becoming thoroughly cold, we warm ourselves up with a cup of chocolate milk at To’n Diek Cafe-restaurant with a very original living room interior and we eat something because it is already two o’clock. The owner gets all excited when we tell her about the Cycling Tree through Europe, and I join her in planting three little trees next to the terrace in her garden.

We cycle on, mostly on the roadway, to Burhave, almost 50 km today, where just before that Vincent Tiel Groenestege and Liesbeth follow us in an e-camper. They travel with us for two days. Cozy. They have brought two extra batteries. Very nice.

The cottage where Daan and Richard are sleeping is super small compared to where we slept the last three days. Still, we eat delicious mushroom pasta there together and charge all the batteries on this. With Sanne and Linda I drive along to a village 10 minutes away where we sleep in simple hotel rooms, there was little to find this Easter weekend. Fine. That Easter is coming you can also see by the Easter fires we regularly see along the way. Tomorrow morning we take the e-camper to the garage because there is a piece of iron wire in the rear wheel which can cause a flat tire, and of course we have to prevent that.