Roermond to the Rhine

If there is one massive downside about German campsites, it is that none of them seem to have Wi-Fi, so apologies for the delay but I'm now back online (even if the "n" button has fallen out of my keyboard). As such, please also accept my apologies for the length - I've been adding bits and pieces for more than a week now, and it's a long 'un. As the first paragraph suggests, I'm now in Germany and am following the warm weather down the Rhine - it's tranquil, hot and beautiful, but more on that later... When I left off I was heading down from Ledeacker towards Liege for the start of the Tour de France. I aimed for the Limburg region where I planned to stay overnight before setting up camp in Liege the following day. The day passed quickly, in mediocre weather (including roughing out a rain-storm chowing down on cherries at the side of the road. I arrived at my stop for the night witht the day passing into evening and took stock. The campsite was, to put it lightly, stunning. Marina Oolderhuuske near Roermond in Limburg is, as the name suggests, a large Marina facility that has a campsite on the side. As such there was a good restaurant, a nice bar, seclusion (it was on an islet accessible only by the Marina's own ferry or (as I found out) a VERY long winding side-road. It was picturesque, the staff were polite, friendly and helpful and the other patrons were also, to a large degree, lovely. Above all however, it was tremendously good value - at €10 a night it's amongst the cheapest of the sites I've stayed at, but undoubtedly the nicest thus far. Among the people that I met were the lovely Hanes and Nadine, a young German couple who teach wake-boarding at the Marina, commuting in each weekend from their home in Germany - their camper is easily the best that I've seen, a very stylish 1976 silver American trailer (I'm not sure of the specifics, but you know what I mean - I hope), kept immaculately polished and neat as you would expect from any self-respecting German couple! The Tour de France part didn't quite go as easily as planned - I had been e-mailing campsites around, but received no positive replies. After calling another half-dozen the morning I was due to set off I had absolutely no luck, so resolved to stay in Oolderhuuske and train down to Liege with my bike as necessary. The trial run on Friday (the Tour started on Saturday) didn't go too well thanks to a wildcat strike by the Belgium railways being called on the morning I was travelling there. With me departing from Holland there were no signs to show that anything was amiss, however the queue for the information desk in Maastricht Station told me everything. A very brief query later, a short bite to eat in the city and I was off back to Roermond. The next day, the start of the Tour, was thankfully more successful. No strikes, no delays, just incredibly packed trains. There were a huge amount of people turned away from stations along the way, as there was just no chance that they could fit anyone in, and as everyone was heading to the same destination, nobody was decamping to make room. Being a Jerseyman I am quite used to running into other Jersey whilst away - this trip has been no exception. For those of you who know him, I bumped into Ken Rondel on the train from Maastricht to Liege. In the same carriage. It was only due to the fact that I had struck up conversation with a couple of his colleagues from EFG as I'd heard a British voice that I ran into him. Of all the carriages on all the trains on all the routes into Liege I run into four of what must have been a tiny number of Jerseymen in the country! You couldn't make it up. The TT stage in Liege was fantastic - the city was wholly geared towards it, huge swathes of streets were shut off for the 6km course, and barriers were up everywhere to keep Joe Public out of the way of the teams who were about their serious business all day. After ogling as many team buses as possible and loading up my camera with photo's I started watching the stage itself in a great position near the start, listening to the crowd count-down, then watching riders, flanked by Police motorcycle and a team car/motorbike (and camera car depending on the import of the rider) speed off down the ramp and pedalling furiously into the distance. Congratulations to Brad Wiggins for his fantastic second place which sets him up well for this year's challenge. (Editors note - unfortunately as at the time of writing I haven't had an internet connection, so am completely in the dark as to who stands where!) I had arrived back in Roermond on the train at 5.52pm after the racing and ridden from the station to the ferry by 6.03pm - a ride that had previously taken me close to 30 minutes - only to see the ferry captain wandering off towards his car. This meant one of two things were happening - either a two hour cycle ride back through Roermond and all the way around the area to get back, or flag down a passing boat and hope for the best (that or swim, but I wasn't leaving my bike and gear there unattended all night). Guess which I chose. After trying to flag down a number of boats, a chap (Marius) in an 8ft rib saved the day. A lack of mutual language didn't slow us down as I threw my gear in beside him, clambered into the back, pulled my bike on top of me and looked worriedly at the water clearance, which ran at about 4mm above to 5cm below the waterline! The river was successfully forded however, and my adventurous day completed! I had been planning, from camping around Liege, to catch the second stage of 198km on the Sunday, however the timings involved really didn't work out. The ferry stops running at 6 pm as mentioned before, and I would not have gotten back to Roermond until it was almost dark, and a two-hour ride in darkness on foreign roads still doesn't appeal to me much. I was still hugely tired out by the previous day, so determined to stay at Oolderhuuske. I spent a free day reading, writing, eating and sunbathing, so it wasn't all bad. On to Germany! I set off from Oolderhuuske on a humid but cloudy Monday morning and crossed into Germany late-morning. The difference wasn't hugely noticeable until I reached Monchengladbach, a very industrial city. Riding through the factories and chemical processing facilities on the outskirts of the town provided a stark contrast to the calm and agricultural Low Countries. My target for the day was the Rhine, which was achieved in early evening. After a quick bite to eat, a chat with my neighbours (a Dutchman who has spent a large proportion of the last 20 years on the road) I fell into a long and comfortable repose. As to now, I'm following the Rhine down - it's a stunning river, but with a lot of action on it. There are always barges and Ferries ploughing through the water, and pleasure craft, canoes and row-boats flitting up and down, and it provides a constantly changing scenery which is very refreshing. My second night in Germany was spent at a very pleasant campsite near Dusseldorf, where I met an Aussie couple also on the road, sharing a tandem tourer! Evan and Sue were lovely - we shared ideas, information on kit and compared notes for a large part of the evening, and some of the advice has been pretty useful. They were meeting a couple of friends of theirs that evening to head down to Switzerland together. Last night was spent in a another campsite on the Rhine (I'm desperately trying to find sites on the river as it's so stunning) - Campingplatz Burger after a day travelling back up to Dusseldorf on Sue's advice to buy a 3G card (not as yet working), then following the river down through Leverkusen and Cologne. The campsite was lovely, plenty of shade (which I managed to miss when pitching my tent, a decent shop on the side and nice people. There was only one problem however, that of many children. With parents ensconced firmly in the bar, their noise carried on into the wee hours of the morning, before resuming at an alarmingly early hour. After catching up on a bit of my blog, and a bit of my reading, I had a nice early night in anticipation of today. In the morning my neighbour, an American come Frenchman come German called PJ shared his morning cup of coffee and his company with me, a great start to the day. As for today, I've travelled down through Bonn. I spent a couple of hours around lunchtime in the city to try and get my 3G sorted (not quite, but hopefully any minute now!), and then headed down to my campsite for the evening on the river. Tomorrow is a day off to try and sort out a few things (washing clothes, bike maintenance and heading back to Bonn if the 3G isn't resolved), and then it's back on the road thereafter. The weather can be summed up in two words. "Hot" and "Humid". It was 32c when I woke up this morning (outside of the tent that it, probably close to boiling point inside). It's been threatening to rain for almost a couple of weeks, but doesn't seem to really want to break. Hopefully soon - all this water's getting expensive. That's me for now - hopefully this will be posted tomorrow afternoon (or today in modern money). That's me for now - until next time.