Day 9 (off to Worms)

Friday 10 june, day 9

Lia again - My turn to write today's blog. Thank you to all who responded to our first edition and postings, it is lovely to hear from you!! I am sitting on the bed in our hotel and try to recall today's events. This may be a bit challenging as I have a bit of a snoffy nose and a head cold but nothing for any of you readers to be concerned about. We left Mainz around 10 this morning, headed straight to the Rhine and followed the Rhine radweg (bike trail following the Rhine). The landscape has changed from the Rhine valley into more open country again. With the Rhine on our left, the right side was often along wheat fields, canola, hay or even fields with silverbeet although I am sure that is called by another name here. We took a few wrong turns as we had to go around some factories who have direct access to boats on the Rhine but with the help of a kind lady from Wiesbaden (her English was excellent) we were soon back on track. This lady cycled with us for about an hour and joined us for our morning tea of cappuccino and hot chocolate and what ever else the fresh bakery had in store.

I don't believe I have given you yet a description of the various road surfaces we have ridden on. I describe the road surface and you reader may make the sound effects (this will make it more interesting or else you are likely to get bored with all these travel tales). Well, the best road surface is of course the smooth asphalt (the bike goes like: swish-swish-swish) and with wind in the back (pur-pur-pur!!!), then we get some concrete slabs some two metres long then a seam and than the next slab (swish-swish-bump/swish-swish-bump), then we have sandy/fine gravely sort of stuff (knirps-knirps) but if this gets wet and has puddles it tends to become muddy and even slippery (see photo) and sounds like (slish-slush-slish-sluuuuuush) and you hope you don't skid.

Then there is the cobble stones or very big round brick pavers, you seem to cop them when you have to get up a rise so you are madly changing gears whilst you go bumpety-bumpety-bumpety along (just imagine how that feels like on your bum!!?). I am sure there are other varieties which I can't think of at the moment. Good moment to say thank goodness for padded bike pants and thanks Josine for the bike gloves also very helpful! Anyhow, Graeme made a good move and booked tonight's hotel whilst we were having lunch along the road. Unfortunately, he had not checked the location which happened to be on the other side of the Rhine!!! This city Worms (yes, no spelling mistake here) has various different suburbs and one was on the other side of the river. So this meant another 12km ride but never mind that, the hotel is mighty comfortable and it even has a bath so I may fill it and soak the aching muscles!! Did I forget to mention the weather? Fine, little overcast, around 20 degrees and therefore perfect cycling weather. Thanks for reading!