Travel day today. We will be travelling from Wolfgang and Marlene’s boat Old Gilly, which was moored just on the southern outskirts of Schipol Airport over night to Aschaffenburg in Germany.
It was an early start for us all as we needed to pack up our bags, have our final breakfast together and move the boat about a kilometer back down the canal to a mooring on the other side of the waterway.
We were waiting on the side of the canal across the road from this café when we noticed this rather unique road side which gave us all quite the chuckle. The café had table and chairs on the edge of the canal and the wait staff had to cross the road to serve them. One hopes they supplied their staff with very high viz jackets.
Another sad farewell to our wonderful friends Wolfgang and Marlene and once again we are not sure when or where we will meet up with them next but knowing the four of us, it will be something involving water. We had a wonderful week with them on Old Gilly and they gave us a very extensive tour around what is called the Greenway route of the Netherlands waterway system. Once again, we lucked out on the weather. We have been to the Netherlands four times now but feel from this trip that we have a much better appreciation of the Netherlands. It is ranking up there as one of our favourite countries.
Mohammed our uber driver arrived and whisked us away to Amsterdam Central Railway station which was only seven kilometers from where we were moored. It is a very busy transport hub. He dropped us off where the ferry arrives and luck would have it, one coincided with our arrival. It was then total mayhem trying to avoid a plethora of bikes and negotiate our way across the pedestrian crossing which is really just an invitational area for bikes and cars to use you as target practice.
We always try our utmost to incorporate as much train travel as possible whenever we visit Europe or the UK as this is our favourite form of transport on land. Of course it is canal boats by water🤪. We have also learnt that by booking very early, you save a lot of money on the fare and to upgrade to first class is a minimal increment. Amsterdam Central Railway Station also had a lounge for people with first class tickets and most importantly, it came with very clean toilets. We had a couple of hours to kill so we hung out in the lounge and charged all our electronics and by magic we got Di’s Fitbit working again. This bloody thing is our nemesis but Di really likes it so poor Fras has the unenviable task of trouble shooting it when it goes feral, which invariably it does. One day, he is accidentally going to stand on it and grind it to dust.
Our train trip today will take us 4 ½ hours and cover 249 miles or 400 kilometers. When we left the bike/barge trip 10 days ago and we caught the train from Mainz to Amsterdam, we basically did 98% of the same trip we are doing today but in reverse.
We are visiting our very good friends Horst and Elfi who we met 25 years ago in New Zealand when we walked the Milford Track. We have since visited them a number of times in Germany over the years. They visited us in Canada in 2013 and joined us in 2016 on the canal boat in the UK for a week. We have driven the Romantic Road in Germany together, bike/barge down the Mosel River and this time we will be biking between Bamberg and Warzburg along the Mainz River. We just need the weather to continue being kind to us.
We will spend the next couple of days with the guys catching up with one another; Di and Elfi doing their obligatory jigsaw puzzle; much needed washing and going over our plans for the bike ride. Horst has done all the route planning; accommodation booking and rental of e-bike for Di and having Fraser’s bike that has been stored in his garage since 2017, serviced.
Steps – finally got the damn Fitbit working today!! A true win for us.
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