27k bike ride today in 34c heat so we were not looking forward to that.
It ended up with Al, Fraser and Di only riding today as Jen fell off her bike 50 meters before the end of our bike ride yesterday taking a healthy chunk of skin off her left leg plus parts of one elbow and a hip. It was all hands on deck to put humpty back together and ply her with some medicinal compounds. Her injuries did appear worse than they actually looked but it was still decided that she would remain on the boat and rest for the day.
So Huwey, Dewey and Dumbo set off with a farewell video made by Jen…..ominous start.
Gabby, Linda, Neal and Randa are more early birds than us so they set off ahead. By 10.30am it was beginning to heat up and we were so fortunate to find the fantastic swimming hole which we had been told about by our boat tour organiser. It was certainly early in the morning but the three of up leapt into the water to cool down some.
It was a lot better than a lot of beaches we had swum at in different locations. The bottom was sandy and the water was very clear.
After our stop we then headed through some nice countryside and then caught up with the other guys who had managed to get themselves lost and hence ended up behind us. After some lunch it was then another half hours biking and we were at the spot in Speyer where MS Olympia was moored.
When coming through the town of Speyer we found some buildings worthy of our photographic abilities.
We dropped our bikes at the boat and then met up with Jen and then proceeded to go back into town via a bier garten – we are in Germany after all.
Fras and Al were very taken with the shapes of these beer glasses – had they had room in their luggage, the bier garten would have found themselves shy of two.
We have mentioned how busy the Rhine River is with commercial traffic and this afternoon whilst sitting having a cold bevy we all seriously thought we had had one too many – from where we were sitting it looked like the trucks were driving themselves down the river!!!
The weather is sapping us all. Even though we are not biking very far each day, by the time we get to the boat we are ready for a shower and a lie down.
The weather forecast that takes us up to Friday which will be our last riding day. Not only is it very hot to ride the bikes but the boat air conditioning is struggling big time. We are sleeping on top of our bed clothes with the cooling unit turned to max which doesn’t meet our needs. We are so much looking forward to the predicted cool change over the weekend.
Steps 12,700
Rowkin Rovings Blog 