Day 6

Day 6 June 7, 2011

I thought the last night was bad but was nothing compared to the hot noisy room we 'rested' in Cologne. The hotel was near the railway and you couldn't leave a window open but it was a hot and humid night so we had a noisy little fan struggling to keep us cool. Needless to say neither of us was in a particular good mood this morning. We left early without “fruhstuk” preferring to drop in to the local supermarket and pick up some breakfast for on the way. After about half an hour we stopped on the water front just south of the city and had some bread and yoghurt. It felt much better than sitting in the hotel room. It was an exceptionally pleasant ride from for much of the way from Cologne to Bonn (a distance of about 35km on bike) following cycle paths along the banks of the river. There were many beautiful parks and grand buildings. One low light was an major industrial area with what appeared to be a power station (maybe nuclear). We rode straight through Bonn with neither of us feeling like a detour to the city centre.

Soon after leaving Bonn the river valley begins to narrow with the first of the famous Rhine valley castles appears after about 10km. The river has now begun to straighten and our path is also more direct with no more meanders. By mid afternoon both of us were looking forward to finding accommodation for the night. We ended up stopping at Bad Breisig at about 2.45pm having ridden around 74km in the day. After unpacking we went to the local spa baths and soaked the afternoon away. For the first time we have cooking facilities so made our own pasta and salad meal before an ice cream sitting on the river bank in the cool of the evening.

Day 4

We are awoken at around 5.30 to the sound of thunder followed soon by pouring rain.  Rolling over we try from more sleep but the rain keeps coming.  At breakfast the talk turnsto the weather and the host says she will check the internet for us.  She returns saying that scattered showers are expected all day.  The rain continued at this time.  While we had a pleasant host,  the optioin of spending an extra day did not appeal.  AS we spoke the rain became lighter and we returned to our room and packed.  A little rain was not going to put us off.  Bt the time we had finished packing the rain had stopped and we headed off.  It just got better and with the wind behind us we made good speed.. By morning tea we had travelled about 30km and felt we had earned our treats. 

We continued south a bit away from the Rhine, preferring to stay in the countryside as this part of the river is dominated by big industry.  Tomorrow we head back toward the river and by evening shouldbe in Cologne.  From then on we will follow the cycle track along the river.  Tonight we stay in a town calll Willich located just south fo the city of Krefeld.  We manafed around 82km today  and whilst we have very sore bums all-in-all we are handling the challenges of the ride very well and with each day we are becoming fitter.  Chou for now.

Day 3

4 June 2011'

As Graeme and I do alternate days to write this blog, I now add my day to this writing.

Day 3, Breakfast at Jan and Mariette Kastelijn's was as good as the fabulous dinner the night before. It certainly is Jan's passion to look after guests. Jan quit his job as Zoo-ologist and researcher to pursue his passion of waiting on others. He runs a B&B through 'Friends of Cyclist' and has a lounge room restaurant business. We very much enjoyed our stay with this couple but also looked forward to moving on as being so thoroughly waited upon and playing the guest role is not what we enjoy for too long. Anyhow with a full stomach and lunch (all the left over breakfast foods were packed up for us) tucked in our panniers we left at 8.30 am. The first hour was cycling along a dyke and thank goodness the wind was not that strong as yet! From Adelst it was direction Nijmegen and soon after, whilst riding through a beautiful forest, we crossed the border (non-existent these days) into Germany. It was very hot and humid today which meant lots of drinks. Unfortunately we did not time our morning coffee break very well as the place Graeme suggested was on a busy road and not to my liking and if only I knew that that place was the last for a very long time, I would not have been so fussy! In Kleve we had a short stop for a late lunch with a friend of ours who is there at present caring for his family. From Kleve onto Grieth, a wonderful historic town located on the Rhine but as there was no accommodation available for us that night we cycled onto Willens and stayed there for the night. Dinner at a local restaurant where a most friendly frauline (in traditional German dress) served at our table. With her tiny little ability to understand Dutch and my tine little ability to understand German we managed to order our meals and drinks.

We cycled 65km today.

Day 2

Like all days today started with  breakfast.  Having breakfast at someone else's place is normally exiting as you never know what you will get but in Holland everyone has much the same for breakfast.  Luckily we enjoy old cheeses and hagelslag (chocolade sprinkel) on bread as that is universal here.  We left around 9am and as we planned cycling of around 50km we had a fairly leisurely ride.  The morning was a repeat of yesterday, sunny with a wind of the north east.  We planned the cycle as much as we could through forrested areas as we made our way to Rennen for lunch.  The town provided our first few of the Rhine or should I say the Neider Rhine as the main river has split in several branches at this stage.  The town of Rennen was interesting being a place which was severely damaged during WW2 when the allied forces liberated Holland (think of the movie a Bridge to Far).  We ended up taking a ferry across the river to eat our lunch by this time the wind had strenghtened and the last fifteen km where into a strong head wind.  We stayed at a place called Andelst which is about 17km from Nijmegen which is near the German border.  The host is fantastic and has fed us a full four course dinner!!!!!!  We sit enjoying a cup of tea before bed.  Cycled 58km today.

Our first day

2 June 2011 Spokes and Lycra,

Our first day on the bike, and what a stunning day it was!! In Holland it was a public holiday (Ascension day) and most people were out and about. The brother we had been staying with left with his family for a long weekend camping holiday and we took the opportunity to start our cycle trip to Budapest. The gods were with us as the sun shone the whole day, with a light breeze mainly behind us, it was a most pleasant day for cycling. We left at 8am and after the compulsory departure photo's we were on our way. Within 45 min at Hem pond our first ferry crossing for the day, that had us near Amsterdam and with Graeme's brilliant sense of direction and the help of his GPS we managed to pass Amsterdam without getting lost. Past Amsterdam time for morning coffee and after that onwards towards Zeist. We cycled along fields with grazing cows, along the river the Vecht and de Loosdrechtse plassen (large lake) which was great as due to the beautiful weather there were boats of all shapes, sizes and colours floating on the water, it was a fantastic sight! We also cycled through some Forrest (very small but still very nice), saw windmills and wildflowers growing along side the roads, heard birds, smelled farms and just had a joyous days filling all our senses with sounds, sights and smells! After doing approx 80 km we arrived in Zeist and found without any difficulties our guest house. We have become a member of the organisation called: 'Friends of cyclists' and for a small contribution you receive a bed and breakfast. So, here we are in a beautiful home with a most hospitable and friendly hosts sitting in a comfortable and spacious room. We are about to find our way to a restaurant for dinner and will most likely crash early tonight! Breakfast will be served by 7.30am after which we ride to a place before Nijmegen. It is likely to be a shorter distance tomorrow, which is good as we need to ease into this cycling business. In summary a fabulous riding day, leaving us with sunburnt faces, arms and legs and a bit of a sore bum (hopefully that part will settle in soon I hope)! We cycled 85km today.

A week in Vienna and preparing for the cycle trip

Dear Family and Friends,

 Our son Luke helped me a couple days before I left Australia with the set-up of this blog site but as you are all likely to know I (Lia) am not so skilled as yet in the use of the various internet technologies let alone finding my way around this blog site.  Of course I did not immediately use it when I landed in Europe and therefore forgot again how to do it.  Could not remember the full name (remembered Spokes and Lycra (thanks Hannah, did like your name suggestion immediately) we had chosen, but forgot that we also added 'our European adventure' and to make matters worse I could not remember log-in ID and password!!!! Should this forgetful business concern me or will I just brush it off and call it stress of leaving home for the unknown?? Anyhow, I don't know all the bells and whistles of this site as yet but ... I need to start somewhere so here I go.
Most of you received my first email giving you a brief overview of my initial wonderful weeks in the Netherlands which were spend with my family so I won't go on about that. It was great to spend some extra time with my 93 year old mother and my brothers, sister and their families. After Graeme arrived in Holland we did some house sitting for a daughter of my Dutch friend Nora which was great as that gave Graeme a quiet place to continue his work, us some privacy and my brother and his family some space without us. Luke and Hannah arrived on Friday 13^th of May and moved in with us for their first week. Whilst Graeme did his work I joined them on some cycling trips locally and on some sightseeing trips. We visited the Zaanse Schans (a living historic Zaans village (from the area where I grew up)), cycled along the canals, around the dunes, to the beach, along the fields, the dykes and the windmills, visited the cheese market in Alkmaar as well as the fishing village in Enkhuizen and lets not forget Amsterdam, Haarlem and Zaandam to name but a few lovely cities. My plan is now to insert some photo's but maybe this does not work and I may need to post the photo's on an other part of this site (learning new skills here Lia!!!! exciting stuff!!). Luke and Hannah left after this week to go out on a cycling adventure of their own for a week and Graeme and I went off to Vienna.
Week in Vienna: After an uneventful early morning flight Sunday 22^th of May (had to drag my youngest brother Kees out of bed by 5 but he was ever so pleased to take us to Amsterdam airport) we arrive in Vienna Austria. Graeme managed to sort out the Public Transport system to take us to our apartment. The apartment was a fair size with separate bedrooms (2) and kitchenette. Space to move and space for Graeme to do his early morning work. After the initial check in we went into the city for morning tea (delicious Viennese hot chocolate and strudell!) which was followed not that long later by a delicious lunch. Vienna city centre is beautiful, build in a circle with many historic buildings (again I may try to post some photo's here – as they say a picture is worth a thousand words). There are many museums, galleries, concert halls, palaces etc, etc. People in Vienna live mainly in apartment building max. 5 stories high. The apartment buildings are build rather close together, most look the same or very similar (painted dull colours or look like concrete). I would love to have a sticky beak and meet the people who live in these apartments. How is life within their home and within their community, what make these Viennese tick (Aah, forever the OT)??? Whilst Graeme has been attending this oil conference (the reason why we came here for a week) I have been seeing the sights. I have no sense of direction and tend to walk in circles and as Vienna city is build in a circle, I tended to get lost the first couple of days! However, there was always an helpful Austrian (no not in leaderhosen) who would come to the rescue when they saw me on a street corner peering over a map (often the wrong way up!). I have been to the shops in the city, walked along the Danube canal (offspring of the mighty river), visited the Lipzaners horse events, went to the Belverde (magnificent historic building and gardens) and saw stunning paintings by Gustav Klimt ('the kiss'), Claude Monet, Egon Schiele and a painting exhibition called “DYNAMIK” to do with Cubism, Kineticism and Futerism (shattered forms and compositions charged with tension explored movement as a pictorial subject). I found this a fascinating form of drawing and painting life in action/movement (look it up on the net and see what you think). We also visited the museum Huntherwasser Haus which also was fantastic!!! Worth looking this artist up on the net, his art work and philosophy on life is fascinating! As you can hear, there has been enough for me to do and to see. By the end of the week I managed to get around the city without a map and even managed public transport without an issue! We flew back to the Netherlands on Saturday evening and are now preparing for our cycling trip. We hope to be leaving in a few days time.
I am not sure how long a blog should be, it seems as though I have been 'blogging/blabbing on for a bit by now so it is time for me to stop. .
Cheerio for now. We are looking forward to hearing from all of you. Any advice about blogging will be welcome.
Lots of love to you all, Graeme and Lia