May 28, 2014

Grey and cloudy again, let’s hope that is all that today has in common with yesterday.  The first part of the route is through a Nature Reserve – a welcome change from yesterday’s housing estates.  There are boards explaining about the wildlife and hides to observe the bird life dotted around; as we pass a tree with a sign showing a picture of a red squirrel on it, a live example pops his head around the tree to look at us.  It was just as though someone had said “cue the squirrel”.

After around 25 kilometres the path reaches the edge of the Rhine – it was just like seeing an old friend again.  The sun breaks through the clouds, another old friend we haven’t seen for a while.  The barges are chugging down the river, so let the barge racing commence!  It doesn’t turn out to be much of a race, after about 3 kilometres or so we see the dreaded ‘Diversion’ sign and the path turns away from the river, inland once again.  Our hearts sink.  In fact, it is not as bad as we fear because we are diverted back into the Nature Reserve and so a pleasant ride continues.

By mid-afternoon we have crossed the border into France, the fifth country of the tour.  Straight away we have a new set of signs to follow and the cycle track changes position from the bottom of the flood defence bank to the top, giving us a better view across the countryside. The surface of the track is in really good condition too.  We should be travelling a couple of hundred kilometres in France before crossing the Rhine back into Germany again, however, a German cyclist we met earlier today thinks that the cycle track may be closed just south of Strasbourg, so we need to try to find out if that is true or not.  If it is true we may need to amend the route tomorrow to avoid lots of diversions and unnecessary kilometres in the wrong direction.