Partner In Crime Riding with someone is really different to cycling alone. While I was staying with Jennie, I met an English guy called Kyle who was staying with Jennie's friend Beth via Warm Showers. He is cycling to Istanbul via a different route to me, but the next few days of our journey were in the same direction so we decided to ride together. Kyle had been rough camping along the way, which was something I wanted to start doing. We spoke a bit about the merit of the "no camping" rules and concluded that there are problems which can arise if people are allowed to camp anywhere, but they would usually only become relevant if people were in the same place for a few days. There is a Scandanavian country I can't remember in which you can camp anywhere, but only for one night in the same place. I like this rule. Kyle left Maastricht the day before me so I met him outside Monschau which was about 60km from Maastricht. We aimed to keep cycling until around dusk, then find somewhere to camp. Along the way we saw many wind turbines being constructed. Germany plans to decomission all it's nuclear power plants by 2022, and while it's great that these turbines are going up, they are also constructing new coal power plants to make up the gap. Just after a place called Blankenheim, the cycle path veered off the road in to the woods and we thought we could find a nice spot to camp. I think we were a bit lucky that there was such an ideal place not far from the path and I think I would have camped there or somewhere nearby even if I was alone, but it was nice to have someone who had done this before to confirm the suitability. The next day we aimed for Koblenz. There were a few climbs and a lot of beautiful scenery. It was difficult to look at all the beauty and not take photos of everything. I imagine living there would be similar to living in Hobart where every now and then you look up at the mountain and think wow, that actually looks amazing. As we reached the top of a hill on a highway, we pulled over to check the map for a road with less traffic. There was caravan up there containing a scantily clad female. Years ago when cycling in Spain with Tom, there were girls in bikinis in the middle of nowhere on the highways and it took too much naive thinking time to realise they were prostitutes. What a horrible life. We made it through to Koblenz where we met the Rhein. She was fat and fast from the mountain rains. We were to follow the river well in to the next day, but it was getting dark and had not seen a nice place to camp for a while. We carried on for a bit before deciding on a well hidden spot only a few metres from the path. The next day we set off fairly early and followed the river pretty much all day. The entire way was scenic and my quickly shot and poorly planned photos don't even start to do it justice. There are quite long sections of the cycle path that are surrounded by people's remote gardens. They pretty much look like a front or back yard, but the house is somewhere else. We found a few llikely places to camp just outside of Mainz and picked one fairly arbitrarily. We were totally settled and discussing how nice it was to have camp all set up while it's still light with little to no chance of being disturbed by people, when I noticed some deer wandering through the woods, obscured slightly by branches and undergrowth. We were in a nature reserve, so it made sense for wildlife to be around. I observed that our presence didn't startle them, which I guess meant they were pretty tame. As they came closer, Kyle remarked that they weren't deer, but in fact wild boar. We both promptly decorated our smalls and jumped up trees. The pigs weren't too bothered with our presence and eventually meandered away, but that did not mark the end of our discussion regarding their probable return during the night to relieve us of our food. The stressful early night turned in to fifteen minutes of rearraging the camp to prevent boar attack. As it transpired, the boars weren't interested in us at all and it was a good night's sleep. After getting a bit lost on cycle paths once we left the guidance of the Rhein, we hit highway 3 and powered south to Heidelberg. I met a German girl called Meret when I was doing Workaway in southern France which is why this was a significant stop on the trip. It's always good to see a town with locals, and the people living in her flat were so friendly that it seemed like I was visiting a group of old friends.
Heidelberg is a similar size to Hobart and for me had a similar feel because of the surrounding mountains. There was a buzzing lawn down by the Neckar which was filled with ball sports, barbecues and drinking. I'm about to head down there now to eat a disgusting amount of brat and enjoy some good times with Meret and probably a whole bunch more Class A Germans. Tomorrow morning, I set out to Dresden. Hopefully the Tralfamadorians don't pick me up on the way.
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Chris JonesJust a guy going for a bit of a documented ride. Archives
May 2018
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