Fair Weather Bikers

I woke up to the pitter patter sound of rain gently falling on the tent. I went for a shower and when I came back the rain had eased a little, Nig got up and we decided to pack the bikes while it wasn't raining too hard and then have breakfast in the undercover area around the bar.

By this time we had become dab-hands at packing and it took very little time. We had a nice breakfast of fresh bread with jam and nice fresh coffee from the on-site shop. We said our goodbyes to Maurice and Margaret, who had offered us more bread when we got up, they were very nice people.

The ride out of the Black Forest to the autobahn was tricky as the rain didn't let up and the roads were very slippery, but as we started to head north on the autobahn the weather improved. Within a couple of hours it was nice and dry again.

One of Nigs ambitions on this trip was to achieve extreme speed legally on the German autobahns, so as soon as we got to a section which was unlimited and fairly clear I waved him by. I was doing around 90 to 100mph and he shot passed me like I was stood still! He told me later he got up to 170mph, which isn't bad considering he was fully loaded up!

We rode at a more sensible speed for the rest of the journey, between 90 and 100mph, and we were making very good progress when suddenly my air-bed started flapping behind me. To keep my sleeping bag dry I had been wrapping it in my air-bed which was waterproof, but unfortunately because we had been in a hurry packing I had not made a very good job of securing it. The bungies had popped off the air-bed/sleeping bag roll and my sleeping bag has shot out at around 100mph. Nig was behind and said it bounced very high!

We stopped as soon as possible on the hard shoulder. Looking back down the autobahn we could see my sleeping bag in the outside lane of four lanes. I told Nig to forget it, I'd either buy another one or do without - we only had one more night left camping after all, but he was having none of it and set off to retrieve it. He walked back, ran across all four lanes and got my sleeping bag, he had to wait on the central reservation for another gap and then ran back to the hard shoulder. I was having kittens just watching him. He told me later he was determined to get it back to pay me back for getting him a new bed in France!

As he was walking back a police car drove passed. He flashed his lights and beeped his horn at us, but luckily didn't stop as I expect we could have been looking at a large fine. We strapped the sleeping bag back onto my bike, making doubly sure it was very secure and set off again.

Shortly before Mainz, we came off the autobahn to look for something to eat. It was quite industrial and there was nothing about, we were about to give up when we spotted a McDonald's. We both had another Big Mac meal, which was much more sensibly priced than in Switzerland. We had just sat down to eat when a German lady asked if she could join us. It turned out she had a SV650, and used to work in England. We had a nice chat. One of the things I really like about touring is these chance encounters.

We headed west after this stop and it wasn't long before we were at the Rhine Valley. The Rhine Valley is very picturesque, with large tree covered hillsides on either side of the river, dotted with the odd castle and quaint little villages. The river itself is large and very busy with cargo barges and pleasure cruisers. By this time the sun was out and it was a glorious day.

After a little bit of trouble we eventually found the camp-site. The GPS co-ordinates for the camp-site where massively out, so we had to resort to asking the very helpful local residents. We pulled up to the reception and a guy came over to check us in. He initially spoke to us in German, so I told him we didn't speak German, at which point he went on a rant about how it was disgusting us coming from our 'little island' to Germany, and expecting everybody to speak our language. I was not amused; I had ridden over 200 miles that day and was very tired, I just wasn't to get set-up and chill out. I looked at Nig who also didn't look very impressed and considered telling the guy where to stick his camp-site, but I was so tired I just couldn't be bothered so we ignored him as best we could and checked in.

Now don't get me wrong, I think he has a point. English folk are not as multi-lingual as the rest of Europe - but there are cultural reasons for that, which I am not going to go into here. The fact is he works in the tourist industry and should be pleasant to his potential customers, especially as the camp-site was nearly empty. I certainly will not be recommending the site to anybody - and will not be putting a link to it here. Ironically there was a sign on the entrance to the site saying 'Bikers Welcome' - you could have fooled me!

The site itself was basic but nice with good views of the Rhine. There was an on-site bar so we set-up and had a few beers.

There was a music festival on at the Castle nearby and one of the bands 'Manowar' was also stopping on the same site as us! The music festival must have been the quietest in the world though as it was no more than a mile away and we never heard a thing!

We had a few more beers, cooked up my last tinned curry and had our own little music festival listening to Nig's MP3 player.