Sunday 26 September 2010

Day 8 Germany. 26/09/2010 Kalkar – Xanten – Rheinberg – Alt-Homberg – Duisberg – GroBenbaum. 49.95miles/80.54km, 5hr18min cycling time, averaging 9.4m

Decided to make up for some time today. Sticking to the cycle path along the B57 an old Roman road we forgo the more meandering Rhein route. We even got away quite early in the morning!

Having made good time for the first 20km's we stopped for a very brief walk round the picturesque Roman town of Xanten. Being Sunday most things were closed, but it seemed like a reasonable place to spend a few days given the time.

MattDebs0024UKtoZA

Setting off again, we made good progress to Rheinberg. The whole area is becoming much more industrial now, with huge factories spewing smoke into the air.

It was on our way to Alt-Homberg that things became a little trickier, no matter how hard we tried we couldn't find the right road. The cycle route signs disappeared and at least one was pointing in entirely the wrong direction. With the prospect of trying to navigate through the sprawling Duisberg next, tensions were running a little high!

Finally with the aid of a few helpful locals we eventually made it and managed to find the centre of Duisberg without too much trouble, which of course was closed!

The Germans don't mess about when it comes to Sundays, still I guess it used to be that way in England, maybe it still should be?

More amazingly still with only a little help, we managed to navigate our way to the area that our proposed camp site was in. The only problem was, where is it and is it open.

If the Germans didn't insist on labelling roads 'no through road' when it clearly is, we would have found it sooner! As it was, more stress was had!

Anyway we made it, it was open and they sold beer. Cheers for now!


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