Today was our first official biking day though it was only 17k which was a gentle ease into it. What was not so gentle was the weather. We have got caught up in Europe’s heatwave and today we experienced a high of 33c which was just slightly ugly weather. There was one lucky break in that half of the bike ride was through woodland so we had a lot of shade.
Di is still struggling with jet lag, so she got up early and headed up on deck to take a few photos of the MS Olympia.
Have done some research on her and she was built in 1984 and refurbished 2015/2016 and so far she is holding out well. She can hold up to 96 people in 49 cabins. She is definitely a purpose built riverboat for one of the high end companies back in the 1980’s and has slowly been concertinaed down over the years.
There is heaps of storage and more than adequately accommodates a couple. Al crashed out after a tiring day.
There is a very nice large lounge up the front of the boat where we have our afternoon tea and any entertainment that is provided on board. It is also where our cruise director gives us updates for our bike ride the next day.
There are two floors of cabins as well as the dining room which is below deck and more than perfectly satisfactory. The food to date has been marvellous. The portion sizes are perfecto and the quality and variety is excellent – we cannot fault it.
The crew are mostly from Singapore or other Asian countries which is unusual. Other times we have been on these cruises, they have been Eastern European staff.
Once we all got our bikes sorted, which was a mammoth task by the crew, we were able to set off. The quality of the e-bikes is perfect without being overpowering and the non e-bikes were also very good. Fraser and Allan set themselves up on non e-bikes and even their bikes were of very high quality.
The instructions we are given each day are via a printed hand book plus hand out maps of each major town/city we are going to pass through. We have also been instructed to download an app called Guibo which is excellent and gives you no excuse to get lost. That does not mean we have not got ourselves confused and lost already!!
Some of our routes are quite complicated and they try to keep us on bike paths as much as they possibly can. The bike path network in many of these European countries is indeed excellent.
We had our usual free loaders for the day. From left to right, Pukekhoe (Al and Jen), Barbie (Neal and Randa), Jerry (Gabby and Linda) and Snakey (Fraser and Di). There is a personal story behind each of these treasured toys but we won’t go into each and everyone of them.
So our ride consisted of only 17k along the Rhine River from Strasbourg to a lock where the boat was awaiting our arrival. It was a pretty cushy ride though it did get to about 32c. Once we met up with the boat, all bikes were man handled back on board and off we went. We then cruised from 3.00pm until 9.00pm and moored up in the town of Gemersheim.
We got to enjoy dinner watching the green countryside of the Rhine River glide by along with all the commercial traffic cruise by us. It is a very busy waterway and good to see it so well utilized. We are travelling downstream and the current is quite significant. Not too sure how many knots we are doing but when the chance arises we will check with Captain Marco who tells us he is from the Netherlands.
After dinner, Fraser decided he would entertain our group with a game of charades – it was about now, a number of our group bailed and headed in for an early night!!!!
Steps – 12,600
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