Archive for October, 2006
Tuesday, October 31st, 2006
66km Schalksmuhle – Denklingen
Another day where we really felt every muscle in our bodies and lacked any real oomph. Maybe it`s winter setting in, with the days being cooler (about 12C), wetter and shorter, or maybe it`s just all that cake. We`re sure we can feel every piece we ate over the past week! In any case, the last couple days have been tough. After a day and a half mostly on the flat, we got into a few hills towards this afternoon and it just about killed us. The scenery improved considerably though, leaving the industry of yesterday behind in favour of farms and tree-lined roads, where fall had turned the leaves shades of gold and brown. By 3pm, we realised we were unlikely to find a camping place and darkness was fast closing in on us. With the clocks having gone back an hour last weekend, darkness now comes about 6pm on a sunny day and even earlier when a few clouds are in the sky. We splurged on the first hotel we`d come across in a while, in a small town, which turned out to be a good idea given the rainy evening. We were also tipped off by the hotel owner that November 1 was a holiday, so we managed to get to the supermarket for enough food for the next day. We thought we also deserved a beer in the local pub after a hard day – can`t have this trip be all work and no play – so we toddled off to sample the local brews and watch one of the regulars buy shots for just about everyone around us. Beer quota filled for the day, we decided a pepperoni pizza was in order for supper. At only 5 euros for a large pizza, big enough for 2, it seemed a good deal. We got a shock though, as pepperoni in Germany appears not to mean meat, but rather whole, pickled green peppers! For a country famous for its meat, that was a bit of a shock. The pizza was good nonetheless, and soon afterwards we hit the sack for an early and hopefully sunny start on Wednesday.
No Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Germany, Journal Entries by andrew
Monday, October 30th, 2006
75km Oer Erkenschwick – Loh camping spot, near Schalksmuhle
Too much cake!
After a week in Germany with Friedel`s relatives, we set off around 10am. The departure was a little hard, as we`d spent the last week getting to know lots of cousins, who are now not just names on a family tree but friends and everyone showed us such good hospitality while we were there. We visited so many relatives and each time out came the cakes, whipped cream, coffee, chocolates, drinks. All delicious and made better by good company. A special thanks to Gerda, who we stayed with and was the perfect tour guide, and Sabine and Achim, who introduced us to many drinks and took us to the Starlight Express musical in Bochum.
Maybe we had a few too many cakes, as we both felt weighed down by lead balloons as we cycled along, and the roads weren`t even hilly. Our 75km felt more like 150km, finished off by a nearly our only hill of the day, a good climb to a camping place. We had hoped to be a bit further south, but between being tired and the days being shorter, we couldn`t quite make the distance. Near the end of the day, we stopped to ask a fellow cyclist if he knew of any youth hostels nearby and before we knew it he was leading the way forward. On his light racing bike, we couldn`t really keep up but thankfully he soon slowed so we could tail along. The youth hostel, unfortunately, was closed but we found a camping spot just a short distance away. It too was officially closed but the owner let us pitch our tent for a bargain 8 euros.
The weather is getting a bit colder now, and the owner of the camping spot here says they could have snow within a few days. Interesting, as in Oer Erkenschwick the camping spots stay open year round and say there is hardly any snow. Hopefully we`ll make it south before it gets too chilly!
No Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Germany, Journal Entries by andrew
Sunday, October 22nd, 2006
Hallo Deutschland — 101km from Emmerich to Oer Erkenschwick
On Sunday we had our first full day in Germany, having just crossed the border from the Netherlands and finding a camping spot nearby the day before. Camping in Germany is a different experience altogether from Canada. Most people have little cottages with gardens, television, washrooms — all the luxuries of home just in a scenic setting. When you come with a tent and nothing else, it certainly stands out. On the upside, however, it is a lot cheaper than in Canada. Between €10-14 euros for a site and a hot shower for two. They itemise everything. One price for the bicycles, another for the tent, then for each person and finally for the shower. You could camp wild as well, at least in the area we are in, but it hardly seems worth the trouble for €10. Much to Andrew’s delight, beer is cheap too. Having showered and packed up the bikes, we headed out from Emmerich am Rhein around 11am with a full day ahead of us. Thankfully, the local bicycle paths were well marked and everytime we thought we might have to get out a map signs for the next town appeared along with the distance. We didn’t get lost once, a real novelty for us. Around 2pm we stopped for lunch, unable to make our own as all stores were closed on Sunday. Surprisingly, though, we found a local pizza spot with very reasonable prices. Spaghetti was just €3.50 for a big plate and a half-litre bottle of beer was the same price as a can of coke, just €1.50 — guess which one we went for?!?! We pushed on and reached another camping spot just outside our goal for the day of Oer Erkenschwick. We camped for a couple nights, before hooking up with Friedel’s relatives and we’ll now stay here until Sunday, when we take off again for the south of France.
No Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Germany, Journal Entries by friedel
Saturday, October 21st, 2006
47km Den Haag, Netherlands - Emmerich, Germany
We were under pressure to get to Germany for a family reunion and didn’t think we would be able to cycle quickly enough to get there in time, so we cheated and took a short train journey to Arnheim. We felt pretty guilty about this and promised to make it up to ourselves with some extra route down the road! We really want to cycle the vast majority of this trip and hope this will be our first and only cheat of the journey.
From Arnheim, we picked up our bikes again and headed a relatively short distance across the border to Emmerich, where we camped for the night.
No Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Journal Entries by andrew
Friday, October 20th, 2006
Leaving London
London`s leaving present to us was a slow drizzle as we eased out of the door in Putney just before 7am. With winter coming on, it was still very dark and we crossed Putney Bridge, onto the Kings Road, feeling slightly vulnerable in the already heavy rush hour traffic.A white van man slowed down just to yell at us, “where`s your lights”, even though we had front and back ones on and plenty of reflectors. On we pedalled, through Chelsea where three young well-to-do women waited to cross the road, the rain splashing off their high-heeled leather boots but their perfectly coiffed hair still protected as they huddled under one umbrella. Through Sloane Square we went, past swanky bars and chic boutiques, then across Victoria with its tangled knot of roads around the train station and into Parliament Square, where a solitary bell rang out from Westminster Abbey. Up Whitehall, past the Cenotaph and Horse Guards Parade, it was still dark but a few more people were walking to work, coming off buses, clutching morning coffees. We opted to walk across Trafalgar Square, before hopping on our bikes again and moving past Leicester Square, then turning right towards Holborn. By now it was getting light and as we wove our way through Leather Lane Market, traders were setting up their stalls for another day. Vegetables, fruit, clothing, fabric, mobile phones, jewellery, all on offer. A left turn put us on the path for the great Saint Paul`s Cathedral and Bank – now we were truly in City of London territory. A sea of suits darting in and out of traffic, preferring to take their chances with the cars rather than wait for the crossing lights to turn green. Only a group of construction workers broke up the wave of black, in their neon safety vests, all of them carrying coffee in a simple styrofoam cup and bacon sarnies from a greasy spoon down a side street. No Pret-A-Manger for those boys. Just a few turns later and we arrived at Liverpool Street, where the streams of people coming off trains was truly a sight to see. For five minutes, hundreds of souls got off the train and headed for the tubes. Once they`d cleared, we got our bikes on the same train and left Britain for the last time in a very long while.
