The Answer to The All Important Question

So the answer to the question I posed is YES. In 4 hours, I visited all 17* churches in Texel. I'm quite happy with this result considering I calculated that it would take 5 hours.

After completing the demolition of the caravan yesterday it dawned that I would have enough time for the church hunt after all. We were originally going to leave the island today, but we are having dinner tonight in Den Burg with some friends, so this morning I woke up and realised, it's gotta be today for the Church Hunt. With a forecast wind strength of 5 I was a little worried, but went for it anyway.

It was difficult riding into the wind, but then sometimes it was a breeze riding with the wind. I was initially pushing it too much in De Cocksdorp (first stop) where I took a corner too fast and slid on some wet leaves, the bike just fell out from under me. That was a pretty good wake up call to take it a bit more easy.

There were other moments like on the road between Den Hoorn and Den Burg where the sky was just littered with birds flying around in formation. Absolutely breathtaking.
I took photos of all 17 churches and would have uploaded a photo or two, but my usb cable for my camera is in Amsterdam at Teun's house. We dropped off the majority of our gear on Wednesday so that tomorrow when we leave the island we wont have much to bring.

So final thoughts on today. I can't really say that I've completed a marathon or anything, but I can understand why people do marathons. There were times in the ride where it was hard to push through, but to overcome that and achieve the goal is such an amazing feeling. I'm feeling pretty good today.

Oh, and did I mention?

I'm comin home!

My visa application for the uk needs to be finalised at home, so if that means I have to leave the cold and wet holland for a warm and dry Sydney for a few months then so be it.
Can't wait to catch up with everyone.



*Oosterend didn't have 5 churches according to my older map. It's a good thing I ended up buying a new map.