Phew what a 24 hours. The theme which sounds like a judgement from the I-Ching, is: after much anxiety one can fall on one’s feet. I must say the torrential rain forecast yesterday evening sent me into a tizzy but it made me prepare for the day and I think it was worth it (preparing, not the tizzy which is entirely unproductive). I got up early. It had been raining in the night and the tent was wet but it wasn’t raining when I packed up. It feels like it weighs a ton when it’s wet but I had a cuppa and some chocolate cake and was ready to roll out just after 9am, with my waterproofs at hand and liberal anti fog applied to everything required to see where I am going. I made good progress north via Freiburg and it wasn’t till after ugly Strasbourg that it started to rain and after filling with petrol a yoghurt and couple of croissants from Carrefore at a service station settled my stomach. Under some cover I pulled on the huge overall. Traffic was fairly light apart from in Strasbourg with only some trucks spraying huge amounts of water and caravans for me to overtake. The rain got worse after Saarbruken which is when I realised my boots were getting full of water.
Todtnau to Trier at EveryTrail

When I finally peeled my gloves off I could see that the dye had turned my hands blue. I thought it was from cold at first. I finally got to Trier thanks to the GPS and pulled up completely dripping outside last weeks hotel only to be told they were fully booked but they remembered me. He recommended me the Hotel Astoria just around the corner thank goodness and they had a double room (the manageress has just come in to my room to confiscate the extra bedding strangely, perhaps they are worried that I might try to smuggle an extra guest in, strange though as I’ve paid for a double room – the information clearly forbids guests to take visitors into their rooms). This place is strange. It has an English Victorian name but downstairs is definately an Indian style but the wallpaper in the room is rather twee floral print.

Bertha is parked in one of those underground car parks with a steep slope out and an exit card reader requiring dexterity to get out in the morning with a heavy bike. Nice news I was able to change my ferry crossing to tomorrow night so don’t have to linger somewhere I don’t want to be in the rain. It’s a bit of a treck up to Hook of Holland from here, over 250 miles but I have all day to do it and hopefully while the forecast still shows rain, it’s not as heavy as today. Once I arrived safely in bricks and mortar and under a roof here, the rain got even worse. The other nice touch was the greeting that for my €79 I get a drink on the house, it could be a beer a Fanta or a glass of champaign. Dear reader, which do you think I chose, and subsequently sipped with complimentary nuts on the sofa with Indian design cushions feeling very pleased indeed not to be camping? They have a rather natty cocktail bar here.

So now everything is spread out drying including my map of Germany and my boots perched on the just working radiator, also I’ve been trying to dry out my gloves with the hair dryer. I can hear people scurrying about down on the street in the rain under umbrellas. I just realised how tired I am.

After supper of the breakfast I bought this morning and a nap on the lovely bed, I can see some blue sky outside. It’s half past eight. Time for a quick walk to clear my rather thumping head.

It’s 9.30 am and everything is packed and I’m just waiting for the tent to dry out in the morning sun before heading down south, first to the Touratech shop nearby and then to find the campsite near Heidegger’s hut. Two nights there then I return.

Here I am. Today’s ride was easy. Not so many miles and nearly all on beautiful roads. First stop was the Touratech shop and HQ in the town beginning with N… Niederreschacht. No that’s not right. What can I say. The place had some presence. It had its owns cafe full of Touratech staff having lunch. What’s a hobby for me is the daily grind for them. I could run my fingers over all their lovely aluminium panniers. Interestingly, after a morning with the occasional embarrassing moment of poor control at slow speed I spent some time looking at their BMW 650gs loaded with their kit. It’s about half the bulk of Bertha and looks highly manageable. Even the F800 seems long and high in comparison. Hmm.
Then it was over some high hills and down and up again, through Todnau up to this high campsite where the wind blows occasional strong gusts but I feel really sorted. I have a nice spot with a high view and no one near me, the guy who runs the site is nice and gave me a discount if I didn’t want the freebies of free local buts travel which avoids him paying tax on me. Once I had unloaded Bertha of her bulky luggage I rode down to the nearest supermarket down some exciting hairpins and lovely roads and picked up all the fresh food I had been missing for the last few days including local white wine which will be an interesting experience and some beers, all of which is sitting in one of my metal panniers with a big bag of ice keeping it all cool. Added to that I managed to find a cash machine (after three times trying to get cash out of a night deposit box when I finally looked up to see the proper machine). Todnau is the perfect sized town for trips like this. You can park easily and in one place and get all you need. It is beautiful up here. The sun is shining and the sky is blue and of course the air is so fresh. We are 3400 feet up. No wonder the wind is chilly. Tomorrow I will ride over the Todnauburg – it’s not really walkable – and strike out for Heidegger’s hut. I will take the GPS but still I’m not completely confident I will find it.

Miles 113 average 34.4 mph Max sped 71.4 mph, moving time 3 hrs 17 minutes

It’s a quarter to eight in the evening and it’s twelve degrees. This is one of those camping moments. The recipe is just right well almost, nothing is ever fully satisfying of course. Cooking (inside this huge tent for the first time) fresh produce with chilled local white wine and even some crisps, with a view of the hills of pine trees and sky with whisks of white cloud, my position here is private which is rare when camping (in the previous site, I took down my tent right under the noses of a couple having breakfast this morning barely 4 feet away) and as people staying here walk by on the road just below me I begin to realise this is far from those sites populated by retired Dutch people who seem to come on holidays to watch TV in their caravans in rows of similar white boxes. These holidays are funny! I discover it every year, there are sublime moments but you have to really earn it and work through so much dissatisfaction and anxiety to reach them. Brrr it is getting cold as I thought it would.

I leave in a couple of hours for Harwich for another trip to Europe. The end destination is the Black forrest and a visit to Martin Heidegger’s hut and the Touratech HQ and shop. The first day’s travel is about 400k aiming for a campsite on the Rhein.

Here’s a suggested musical soundtrack:

By the Rhein

same tune at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVcmRR5urFs

then the cowboy version at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRke2ty8Q0Y

Then further south there’s this classic from 1965 – the theme starts at 0:23 so don’t stop before then
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wldcc8uxMLU

then there’s the Hammond organ version