Sluggish and Slow

26/05/15 Day 70, Luxembourg to Arlon-Belgium 35kms

Man they had the heater cranked at the Hotel Bristol. Had a restless night of crazy dreams, but all our gear got dry. We were feeling tired and were very slow to move this morning. Breakfast was included, and was a buffet, excellent, and they even had a toaster....super cool, we haven't had toast since Barcelona. No ice cream, though...never mind.

Breaking the kids out of car park prison.

All rugged up and still cold. Better get moving.

We were on our way by 10:30am, working our way through the traffic and out of the city. It was a lot busier, but really wasn't a problem. Bike lanes and back streets were good. It may have been the weather, but it didn't have a very good vibe. It is a smallish city, with a small population of 100,000. But it is also one of the richest in the world. It didn't look how I thought it would look.

Looking back towards the train station.

Just on the outskirts of the city, we stopped at a Lidl supermarket for supplies. Will's turn! I wished I'd gone, it was really cold standing outside with the bikes. About 8C. Brrr!

Nice path to ride on, hope that black sky just holds it all in.

Davo GPS, had us on the cycle routes 13 and then 12, which are part of the proposed EV5 route. It was easy to follow, and nice quiet farm roads. It was really cold and overcast, but thankfully no rain. This meant not so many giant slugs too. Some giant snails though. They are quite pretty, and enormous!

Great signposts for some of our ride today. Makes it so much easier.

Yep, he's size Will, shall we cook him for dinner?

Farmland, a small patch of forest and a few small villages was what we had today. One small "almost" incident, as we snuck in the back door of Belgium, a couple a big black stray dogs came towards us. They looked interested in trying some original Aussie tucker, so I told them in my sternest voice "Bad dogs, go home!" I said it a couple of times, and they did, just stopped and went the other way. Probably asking each other what we said...ha ha ha.

I think we're in Belgium, wow, that was quick.

We only knew we were in Belgium, because the vehicle number plates had changed. Then the villages were a little different, but it still smelt like cow poop. 

It doesn't say Belgium, but it's the best we could do.

Will is inside wheeling and dealing. Hotel Trulli, a winner!

Lots of those rolling hills, and we found Arlon easily. We made our way to a park in the central area and ate lunch while finding somewhere to stay. It took us a couple of goes, going in and asking, but finally Will was successful, breakfast included and bikes in the bosses garage. Nice! Now to seek out a famous Belgian beer. We'd better pick up our game tomorrow.

Ice-Cream for Brekkie?

25/05/15 Merzig-Germany to Luxembourg-Luxembourg 68km

I was surprised to be in one piece when I woke this morning, camped out on mole hill. It is right next to a public park and walkway. It was overcast, and there was going to be a good chance of rain today with thunderstorms in the evening. Ugh, but 60kms to Luxembourg City, should be ok before the worst hits. First we need food. Shopping and breakfast.

Another dodgey campsite survival. Didn't break an ankle.

We head off towards the shopping centre area, with a brief stop for map checking. Two guys out for a scooter ride, were stopped also, so I asked if they new a cafe we could go to. They directed us over the bridge to the marina. Great, not far lets do that then the shopping. Over the bridge, we found the cafe, Closed till 11am, ugh, ok back over the bridge to the shopping centre. It's a bit strange, as it is after 10am, and no cars are around the place. The shopping centre is Closed! The sign says it should be open, but it definitely isn't. It is starting to look suspiciously like a public holiday.....

One last attempt, we ride further into the town, and spot a cafe open. Yay! I asked the lady if they were making food, as I'd seen a menu on the table with words like spaghetti and lasagna. She nodded, so we ordered a couple of cappuccinos, and looked through the menu. The only hot food (it was 10C) were toasted sandwich or waffles. We could manage that, so we tried to order it. Nope, no cooking today. "What about the spaghetti?" I ask. "Yes, yes" she says pointing to the ice cream menu. On closer inspection, they make ice cream Look like real food. In desperation, we ordered some, with fruit, to try and get some goodness. It was massive, half a ton of cream piled high with a ton of ice cream and a few bits of fruit and topping. Oh god, this is going to kill me! All that dairy in one go. As a kid, I would have been in heaven right now.

This is not going to end well in my stomach.

After that disaster, we discovered it is a public holiday for Pentecost Monday. All the countries we could go to today would be closed for it! Poop, and no food. So we decided to head back over the bridge to McDonalds, get some half real food, then go on to Luxembourg City. While we're there we'll book some accommodation. Gees we are feeling good now. Half a ton of dairy and some Maccas! Goodo for dogs, ugh!

A pirate ship adventure playground. How cool is that?

Ugh, now it is starting to rain.....yuk!

Finally we get going, luckily, not over that bloody bridge again, but under it. Along the Saar river again. Before very long, it started to rain. Bloody hell, this is not good. We stopped under the next bridge, where some recreational cyclists were sheltering too. They were three brothers, Kurdish born, living in Merzig. They were really nice guys, happy to be living and working and having their families with them. They were out for a short ride. Medeni had very good English, but they all spoke Kurdish and German. This always impresses me. Language is really important.

Will and shelter sharers, Kadri, Hadi and Medeni. Very nice to talk to.

Will checked the weather, and funnily enough, the rain eased off just as predicted and we farewelled our shelter sharers. The weather was not looking good, and getting darker, as we left the river through the fields, rolling (and bloody long) hills and villages. It started to rain heavily again, so we took shelter in a bus stop. We'd only done about 20kms, and sat waiting for a break in the rain for half an hour or more. It was cold too. Bugger, not my kind of riding weather.

These very long barges are used on the Saar. This one was in excellent condition.

It's pretty dark, and cold, but the Saar is very pretty. Big too.

We seem to be getting closer to the black skies.

The bus isn't coming, and neither is the sun.

Now we are weaving our way through the farms and forests, up and down the hills, more up than down, and it is really hard work. I am completely disorientated, no idea which way is which, and it is just getting darker and darker. Then suddenly, we come out of the fields to the river Mosel, and the little country of Luxembourg. Wow! Cool! Oh and there are restaurants open and lots of people. We decided to eat as it may be our last chance. It was 4pm and we still had about 28kms to go.

Country number nine, and they are serving food, yay.

While we sat and had some food (schnitzel, salad and chips), the weather cleared and the sun came out. So nice. Everyone else was eating ice cream, ha ha ha, but not us! Happier, we headed off again, for one last push. It was 5 o'clock and at the speed we were going, it was going to be 7pm before we got to our hotel. Ugh! But we can do it.

About 20 minutes later, the weather changed again, and it started pissing down. We pulled into a track off the road, whipped out the tarp, and circled the wagons. Just got that sorted and it started to hail. Frickin great! Just to top it all off, our little sanctuary started to flood. So here we are on the side of a busy road, under a blue tarp, in the hail, standing in mud. Gees we're happy!

Rained on, hailed on and now we're flooded out. 

After another 20 minutes, we decided it wasn't going to get better, so we will just have to ride in the rain, and hope they have plenty of hot water. Bloody hell. So, we do what we can, and head up the hill in the pissing rain. Again we are weaving around the farms and villages, more farms though, and bush land. The rain just kept coming, although it did ease a little. We were both very tired, and this riding the hills in the rain was really hard work. We'd given up the slug dodging (they are huge, and disgusting, and all over the paths), as it was too hard to see. 

Friggin, great Davo, you peddle up this shit in the freezing rain.....Bloody Romans!

Davo GPS, had no idea the weather was ruining us, and kept trying to show us the sights. We're blind you dumb ass, our glasses are covered in water, and we can't see shit. Who cares? Oh roman ruins, an archeological dig? Great, nice roman road you want us to ride up...ugh, come on, haven't you heard of straight lines, shortest distance and all that?

The face of a million swear words......

Honestly, I didn't know which way was up. We were both saturated, cold and tired, when we finally came to the city. More bloody hills, traffic, and just as we finally found our hotel, in the Gare district (apparently the dodgey area), the rain stopped and the sun came out. At 7:45pm! Huh!

What a day! A tough one, and we got through it. Everything is covered in slug guts, mud and God only knows what else. We'll have to sort that out...later...for now we can have hot, hot showers and dry some clothes on the heater. No dinner, no beer, but who cares, tomorrow is another adventure day, and maybe another country.

Dialled In Some Weird

24/05/15 Sarreguemines-France to Merzig-Germany, 67kms

Another day, it is Sunday, and everything is quiet. This we are becoming used to. We ate our French breakfast, and packed our things, dragged them down the four flights of stairs, and loaded the machines. 

The quiet streets of Sarreguemines on Sunday.

It was about 10:30am, some people were starting to come out. First stop, the patisserie, for morning tea, then Subway for our lunch. Nothing will be open today, and we'll be riding along the Saar river for the day, best to be prepared. Finally just before 11am we get on the river trail, and take a nice easy warm up. The old knees are feeling a little stiff.

Get that Coke Life into ya, it is the new favourite.

Overcast, good temp, light breeze, and no cars. A few boats, a couple of locks, and we're cruising. Nice. After about 10kms, the bicycle traffic is increasing, the skaters are coming out, and so are the walkers. We are putting on our big Aussie smiles and saying hello to as many as we can. It's fun to see the reactions.

A big hello, and these two were confused! But smiled back.

We stopped to check out one of the riverside sign boards, it had a map and pictures of the fauna and flora, and a cyclist stopped for (what I thought was) a quick chat. 15 minutes later, we all head off towards Saarbrucken. A whole bunch of riders passed us as we started off again, but we had to pass them all, as we were actually going quicker, cool. About 5 more kilometres along, we caught our Mr Have-a-chat, and continued riding alongside him, chatting. He was from Saarbrucken, and asked if we wanted to try Duck Beer! Well, that sounds a bit dodgy, what part of the duck is the beer made of, I was wondering?

Racing for some Duck Beer....yeah ok!

So we pull into a riverside Bar and restaurant. And yes, we had Duck beer. Not actually made from ducks, thank god, just called Duck beer for fun. Ok? There was a large "herd" (I know they're a flock, but they were behaving like cows) of geese, taking over the pathway, and Mr Have-a-chat, kept calling them ducks. His name was actually Gart, and he seemed like a nice man, if a little different. He is working in the Geman Telecommunications, with only a couple of years until retirement. He is going on a five day cycle tour around Lake Constance (The Bodensee) in two weeks time, with a friend.

Cheers Gart, thanks for another great experience on our adventure.

The ducks waiting to be made into beer. Bloody huge geese!

We joyfully wasted an hour or so, talking with Gart, and having a couple of large duck beers, before we all thought we'd better continue or we may need a taxi. Gart was going in our direction for a couple more kms, and gee I'm glad we didn't have anymore beer. The cycle traffic was getting pretty thick, and Gart was all over the path. I was hanging way back, I didn't want to get into any situations. Gart would ride alongside Will, and when on coming traffic came, he would just stay there. All the cyclists going past would speak sternly in German, and Gart would just keep riding and talking. I was laughing so much, at the back. Some poor people had to take evasive action. He finally bid us farewell, and veered off to the left. Phew! Weird.

Will coming out, he was pleasantly surprised. They were very clean inside.

Shortly after that we found a toilet and then a bench, to have some lunch. We'd missed morning tea, so we ate that too. While we were doing that, a jogger passed us, we'd passed him before. Man he'd come a long way. We'd ridden 20kms, so far, and we saw him way back. While eating one of our subway sandwiches, we had the sounds of a midday rave party going off somewhere. Doof doof, doof, doof! That should get us moving. Weird.

We saw lots of these big birds along the canals, but they always flew away.

Following the Saar river all day. Very nice, and relaxing.

Jumping back on the trusty steeds, we got moving again to about 22km/hr. Sunday traffic on the path was still increasing, with more and more cyclists. We're in Germany, weird, we started the day in France. It seems like a very industrial region, with lots of factories, some mine shafts, and a massive dilapidated factory of some sort. 

This is part of some enormous old factory. We rode under it, through it and around it.

Still giving everyone the big smile, and we were getting quite a few Weird looks today. People had that look of surprise, when you didn't expect to see something like us here. It was funny today. We only had about ten kilometres to go and the path veered away from the river, out to a park with benches, so we took the opportunity to have a break and eat the other subway sandwich. Still good, and I probably can go without dinner, which just might be necessary.

Still on the river path.

On we go, and we were passing everyone. This is a nice change. We must be getting stronger. We managed to find our way to the only camp ground I could find yesterday on the internet, called Kanu-Camping Club. It is a canoe club, that allows camping. For 12€, we have a spot out the side, on mole hill (it is full of diggings and what look like mole hills and holes we keep falling in) but the showers are included (no dunny paper) and are good and hot. 

I hope I don't fall in one of these holes in the night....

I asked the caretaker lady if any shops were open close by and she looked at me like I was an idiot, shook her head and said tomorrow. When I told Will, he got that super determined look he gets, got on the Maps.me and then took off on his unloaded bike. Thankfully, he returned about 20minutes later with a couple of cold beers and a couple of Voppers (whoppers to us Aussies). He is now happily tapping out notes for his blog drinking beer.

Tomorrow, hopefully we will get to Luxembourg City. Wow, how cool.

 

The Great Unfinished

23/05/15 day 67, Saverne to Sarreguemines 95kms

Phew, a bigger day than expected. We planned for 84kms, after our very relaxing Friday, and we had a good route along the canals. We even had a map from reception for it. We got up early, had our cereal and packed up, and head off about 10am.

Nice easy warm up for our day. Beautiful scenery.

It was easy to find the canal path, we'd done the reconnaissance yesterday, and away we went. Feeling great, the weather was a bit cool, but we warmed up nicely and cruised along for about 15kms before we stopped for morning tea. Oh, we'd already stopped heaps for photos and personal stops (me, it was cold, ok?). At this rate, we'll never get there.

One of the locks, it even has a couple of boats in it, coming through.

There were heaps of locks, getting closer together, we're going up hill. It was a gentle way to do it.  We came to a road junction, and our awesome signs just stopped! Huh! This is not unusual for France. So we consulted the map, which did show a break in the cycle path, and was a bit confusing. At this point, Will says "We just need a rider to come by who can help us." And voila, he appeared. 

Hey, Mum, they named a region after you, that's how good you are.

What a bridge. It's for the trains, pretty cool.

We showed him our map, and he directed us up the road where we would find the signs again, and they would take us to Sarrebourg, and then we could find the other canal path that went all the way to our destination. Great! Yeah, well, not really.

Found ourselves on the old canal, it was very pretty.

The next 10kms, through some beautiful old forest and what must of been the original canal, a very nice ride, still going up hill, and the old locks about 200mtrs apart. We went through a few small villages, that is when the rolling hills started. First through some farmland, some more villages (One called Bhul Lorraine, after my mum?), and some thick forested area.

Green, green and beautiful.

Rocky cliffs are a surprise in this forest area.

When we came to Sarrebourg, the signs stopped, and Dave GPS took us through the town, which was not pretty, bit scary, and we crossed the canal, got on the path, which seemed positive, then off that path, through some dingy back blocks, up a couple of long hills, and from there we stayed on the minor road D95. 

Huh, wonder if it actually works?

The lovely rolling hills of France....enough now, really!

Searching all our devices, maps and Davo, we decided (after going through three or four small villages that where right on the Sarre canal), that the French had thought about this cycle path, and got as far as making maps for it, but not quite got to finishing the whole idea.....ugh! Typical of France. Nothing is quite finished.

Halfway up this mongrel and we paused at the prison....not for too long though.

It was very pretty countryside, and there was a little village every few kilometres, with nothing open, and lovely rolling hills.......up up up, down down down! Very tiring, and soon Will and I are saying things like " yeah, yeah, yeah, another field, yep, some more cows, oh another great view....pptthh!"

Bloody hell, it's still not the top.

There was nowhere nice in any of the villages to stop for lunch, and we were getting grumpy, so just stopped randomly on the side of the road in the long grass and sat and ate our rolls we'd made this morning. So good!

Onward we cycled, until finally we came to Wittring, and found the canal path. Yay! Only another 14kms to go. Ugh, we were both ready to stop, but there was no accomodation that we could find here, so carry on we did. There was a head wind, so we took turns in front as we were both tired.

Finally found the path along the Saar again. With 14kms to go.

Push, push, push! Not far now.

Yay, we made it somewhere we can stay. Happy days.

We managed to maintain about 22kms/hr and made it to Sarreguemines, just before 6pm. We located a little hotel in the centre of town, and carried our crap up four flights of stairs. Ugh, that was tough on the old knees. After showers, we went back down the stairs, and around the block to find dinner. Lots of closed restaurants, only serving "Midi" (lunch), and finally one who did dinner. By this time we're starving. We ate, had one beer and made it home. Slowly crawled up the stairs, and I crashed, straight to sleep. Totally knackered. Great day.

Rest and Reflection

22/05/15 Saverne-France  6kms

Today we slept in, sat in the sun, washed and oiled the bikes, had an afternoon nap and rode into town to have a look around, drank a beer watching the boats get through the lock and did some shopping. Lazy, relaxing day. It was a good day for riding, but we didn't want to ride today. We had a great day.

A great view, we sat and watched the horses play through the trees.

Cleaned all the slug guts off the kids, we were not good at slug dodging.

Into town to check out the lovely marina, castle and lock.

Castle Rohan, very impressive.

Aah, the lock and a beer. I tried for vodka and lemonade.

Sometimes we just need a break, as we have sensory overload. Everyday seeing new things, navigating our way through the unknown, and add to that pushing ourselves along, it is nice to stop and look at what we have done and how we got to this place. Bloody amazing and unbelievable.