July 19, 2013
The Mosel and more: Out of my way, I've got a party to get to
A mere 24 hours after crossing from France into Belgium, I found myself crossing from Luxembourg into Germany. If I could only keep this rate up I would have my 100 countries by the end of the month and we could all go home.
The photographer credited with the above shot of me is a man who introduced himself as burnt. Looking closely at his face it did appear that he had caught the sun a little. Perhaps noticing me peering a little too intently at his reddened features, the German continued, "In English it is Bernard"
Oh! Bernt!
Bernt was a nice guy. He had recently retired and was cycling around the border of Germany, trying to stay as close to the border as possible. (I had seen him earlier cycling on the German side of the Mosel as I rode along the Luxembourg side.) He was doing it in sections of a week or two though because his wife wouldn't let him go out for longer (insert whipping noise here). I thought Bernt was a nice guy and I enjoyed cycling with him but I wasn't sure the feeling was mutual because he had an electric motor supporting his bike and he wasn't exactly waiting around for me. He was only going a little way anyway and stopped at a campground. He actually suggested it as a good place for me to stay but I didn't because firstly I had a party to get to and secondly I'm not a millionaire.
Instead I kept on cycling. I went through Trier which is a city I hardly noticed because I just kept following the river, except for a short diversion to a supermarket to buy some flips. Flips are these friggin' awesome snacks they have in Germany. They are like wotsits but made with peanuts. If you don't know what a wotsit is they are like flips but cheese flavoured. I think they might be known as cheese puffs in other parts of the world. Anyway, long story short, I had some flips.
I had decided to just follow the Mosel because I knew there were these mountains around this area that would be a real pain in the ass to have to cycle over and obviously the river knew the flat way through. The only down side to this plan was that the river twisted and turned and snaked its way to such an extent that the distance I had to cycle was increased significantly. By nightfall on Thursday I was still a loooooong way from Steffen's house. The way I calculated the distance was obviously using my 1:2.5 million map and comparing the distance I had come from Paris in four days to the distance I still had to go in the one day until the party. I was less than four-fifths of the way there. Which was a bad thing.
Having cycled until ten the night before, found a great wild camp and eaten flips on a private beach by the river, I was back up at 5.30am and on the bike by 6am. I did, after all, have a party to get to. I continued to follow the Mosel until the town of Bernkastel which looked like a great place to leave the river and shoot off east, as the river turned north-west. But as I approached Bernkastel, I saw why the river turned north-west - a huge bank of mountains bordered it to the east and I didn't much fancy cycling over that. So I followed the Mosel for another 20km as it sling-shotted around to another town, Trarbach, where I hoped to head east. Same deal. So I followed the Mosel even further north until a town called Enkirch where finally the mountains subsided enough to allow my escape.
There was a tributary stream flowing down to the Mosel with a main road on one side and a minor road the other. I took the minor one which was a not-too-steep climb into the woods along the stream. After a little while I noticed the main road was no longer visible on the other side and the road became a gravel track. With hopeless optimism I perservered, praying the track would join the road further up, or go over the top of the peak and find a road on the other side. It was really wonderful cycling anyway, through the forest on the mountain under a blue sky with no one around. But after four kilometres, the track ended at some sort of kids camp up in the forest. There were no kids around, but some rather wonderful paintings on the wall of one of the huts. I really like the one with the pigs.
So I backtracked to the main road and after a quite pointless eight kilometres I now had to contend with an extremely steep climb up out of the valley under a hot sun with time very much against me. Finally I summitted and continued east, desperate not to miss the party. Fortunately before long I stumbled across a town with a detailed map of the area showing bike routes and minor roads and I was able to plot a course that had me flying across Germany. The map didn't show the last section, however, and I wasn't sure how much further it was to Steffen's little town of Undenheim. Then I stopped to ask for water and I asked how much further it was to Undenheim. I thought it was maybe still 30km but the guy said 10km and I was beaming.
The last hill before Undenheim took me past wind turbines and solar panels (wholly appropriate because Steffen works for the renewable energy company that installed them) After 700km in four and a half days since Paris, it was like a final golden road to my destination.
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18/07/13 - 162km (58km in Germany)
19/07/13 - 173km
Today's ride: 231 km (143 miles)
Total: 698 km (433 miles)
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