Friday 8 October 2010

Day 19 Germany, 07/10/2010 Phillipsburg-Germersheim-Worth am Rhein-Plittersdorf. 42.55miles/69km, ride time 3hr45mins, averaging 11.3mph!

First of all Happy Birthday Adam we hope you have a good one!

We woke up to another dry morning. The plan was to camp in France tonight, but all the local sites seem to close at the end of September. Never mind we had a back up site in Germany.

As the cycle route looked straighter on the western side, we crossed the Rhein at Germersheim and continued along a well signed route to Worth am Rhein. Spotting a retail park we headed into what I thought was a supermarket to buy some bread. You may not be able to buy bread and cakes in B&Q but you can in the German equivalent! Blushes spared we headed off with our bread and cakes in tow.

As our camp-site was on the East of the Rhein we crossed back over and continued south. It was a few kilometres down the road that we encountered a potentially tricky situation. If I had looked at the map properly I would have seen that there were steps marked. We aren't talking just a few steps either, but two flights either side of what appeared to be an industrial canal.

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The builders had thoughtfully put in a runner for your cycle wheels, but our bikes are very heavy! Stripping everything off my bike, I carried it across the canal and then ran back for my luggage. It was after the 3rd time there and back that I got all of my luggage to the other side. Now for Debbie's bike and gear. It was watching another cyclist that made me realise that if you tilted your bike in the runner you could get it up with panniers attached. With Debbie pulling and me pushing we made it first up and then very trickily down the steps. If only I had realised earlier I wouldn't have had to spend the next 15minutes re-attaching everything to my bike. Good luck to any heavily laden tourer who is on their own though.

The rest of the route was lovely, along a hard pressed down but unsealed cycle path through a forest. The only thing that would have been nice is way markers as it was quite hard to judge from our map where exactly we were.

We eventually rode into Plittersdorf and a very helpful cyclist told us how to find the camp-site. With about 500m to go I got another puncture! Fortunately with a bit of air it held until we got camped.

Really windy tonight so hope this is not the shape of things to come. However the direction it is blowing in would make it a tail wind, so its not all bad. We will be in France tomorrow staying in Strasbourg for a few days, so 'bon nuit'!

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