May 26, 2014

Back to the gloom, black clouds and drizzle again.  Back to the slow start packing up wet camping gear.  We’ve not had our breakfast so we stop at the camping café/restaurant and pay the extortionate price of 12.20 euros for two coffees and two muffins.  Still at least the rain has stopped by the time we’re ready to go. 

The cycle tracks are empty today, a complete contrast with the crowds of yesterday.  We see the occasional cycle tourist going the other way (they’re always going the other way).  The track is a contrast today too – we’re no longer right on the river bank, but a little inland cycling.  So no more racing the cargo barges today.  The morning is spent cycling along the tops of the dykes criss-crossing the flood plains, later we twist and turn through hundreds of little allotment gardens and end up cycling along country lanes with vineyards either side.  This would have been the ideal run to have done yesterday – there wouldn’t have been so many people out and about on this section on a Sunday.  At regular intervals along the river there are small villages, along with constant views of the pointed spires of churches, brooding dark castles and castles with ‘Disney’ style turrets. 

We make better progress because of the lack of cycle traffic and people on the tracks but there are several long stretches of dirt tracks which can only be ridden slowly, which are a bit frustrating.  After lunch we take stock of where we are and where we think we’ll get to.  I have several requirements for tonight’s stop, the most pressing being access to electric to charge up the ‘phone, camera, tablet.  We want to see if we can camp but only if we can get electric and WiFi.  We also need to stop sufficiently early to give me time to catch up on downloading the photos and updating the blog.  We have hopes of reaching Gernsheim, about 18 kilometres shorts of the city of Worms, however, we take what we think is the sensible option at about 7pm of stopping around 10 kilometres short of our target and heading for a camp-site marked on our map at Oppenheim. It takes us a while to find it as there are no signs to it at all.  When we arrive we realise why – it is a private site for members only.  A French couple who, like us, have headed there on their bikes are camping outside the gates on the grass verge but that certainly doesn’t fulfil our requirement for electric or WiFi.  We head for the town confident of finding a hotel or guest-house, but after discovering that two are closed on Mondays, and three others are full, we’re starting to think that we too will be camping with the French couple.  Just as we are about to give up the owner of one of the full guest-houses rings up someone she knows and then directs us to their house. It is always a worry in these situations – where exactly are we going to end up?  As it happens, on this occasion, in an apartment in a magnificent old house belonging to a family that own some of the local vineyards.  Without a doubt, a better option than camping on a grass verge.