Arriving at Land's End at Last

We had just 6 km to go, today, to arrive at the Land's End Hotel at the ferry terminal to Texel. We first walked below the dike with the churning sea to our left. There was a very stiff wind, but at our back. Soon, we decided to climb some stairs and walk on top of the dike. This was more interesting because now we could admire the sea on one side and the row housing of Den Helder on our right. After about one and a half hours we arrived at our accommodation and it was not even 11 am yet. We asked the reception girl about the town and she promptly told us that it was the dullest town in all of Holland. She strongly suggested that we take a train to Alkmaar or even Amsterdam!

Not to be deterred, we strode off towards what we hoped was the center of town. Den Helder is a naval town with not much else. We sadly had to concede that maybe the front desk girl had a point. We walked endlessly through tired little streets, trying to find some kind of town square with some action. We did find a shopping street in the end and had a bowl of soup somewhere while people smoked around us. 

Then the real fun began. We got completely disoriented and our 6 km day quickly turned into a 14 km day. While Jeff was trying to look at the GPS on his phone we were hit by a fierce wind and rain storm. It was coming at us sideways, as if to make up for the lack of rain all those previous days. 

Somehow, we found the big dike and were shocked to see Lange Jaap right ahead of us. We had left him behind forever this morning, so we thought. Once on the dike, we braved the storm and marched a good 45 minutes to our destination, the Land's End. We have a lovely room overlooking the sea and can watch the ferries come and go. There is even a kettle in this room so I'll make some tea now.

Tomorrow I will do one more blog to summarize the experience.