September 1, 2022
Day 23: To Bokeloh
September the first, the start of a new month and almost the end of a country for us. On our last full day in Germany we opted to follow bicycle routes on small roads rather than the bike paths next to the main roads. It was fantastic! “We probably should have done a bit more of this!”
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We took our first break in the town of Haselünne, which we had to go through in order to do some shopping. We therefore spent another two hours on some grass outside a Lidl, and a very fine two hours it was too.
There were some nice bike paths through Haselünne that followed alongside the Hase river. We sort of followed that river all day, but it is so winding that the roads were set away from it and we never actually saw it very much after Haselunne. But we did have some great cycling and it invited us to look and see the sky, which was looking particularly good today. There were really beautiful fluffy white clouds and I remarked at how we don’t look at clouds enough and that they can be as beautiful to look at as mountain ranges. The ones today reminded me of the clouds I had enjoyed on the Mongolian steppe. Coincidentally it has been exactly eight years since I was cycling in that country, and it was events there that led to this moment now cycling in Germany with my family.
Our next break was at a bench in a patch of forest on a very quiet road only really used by cyclists. It was a lovely spot, perhaps even better than our first rest break of the day had been. And there was an added feature to this bench, a fruit tree stood next the bench and a ladder was built into the bench such that you could climb up and pick the fruit. Or at least you could if there were any fruit to pick. Dea climbed up to see what she could find. “There’s no fruit,” she shouted down, something that was quite obvious from the ground. “I think it’s a cherry tree.” We were too late in the season.
More nice cycling from there to our hosts in Bokeloh, that was only put in jeopardy by some murmurings of discontent from the trailer. Kevin had been fussier than normal at the last break, getting upset quite a bit, and we were worried he might not like going back in the trailer, particularly after I tempted fate so very inadvisably yesterday. But luckily for me the noises didn’t develop into anything like that and Kevin napped as usual.
Our hosts were a really nice couple, Peter and Karin, who invited us to sit with them for a while and provided us with everything we could need for the night. It’s really nice when we can be social with our hosts, but it can also be difficult with Kevin, and especially this evening when he was being much more cranky than usual. Maybe he is getting a new tooth or something like that, or maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t have been so stupid to tempt fate. I won’t do that again!
Today's ride: 29 km (18 miles)
Total: 771 km (479 miles)
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