Day 8 – Randegge, Day 9 – Lighten Up

An early breakfast of carbs

Then on the road heading East over the Rhine River ands into Germany again.

First stop was Freiburg where we took a couple of hours and wrang Australia and spoke to the kids and grand kids. Also spoke to my Mum, it was the 9th anniversary of the death of my Dad. He and Mum had travelled a lot of the roads we were travelling in their trips around Europe in converted vans back in the 70s and 80s.

And so into the Black Forest and it’s famed roads. They would have been ok if it wasn’t for the cars, trucks, vans and bicycles. Stopped at Titisee for a break as had about 5 thousand other people.

It’s against the law to park on the footpath in these parts. Norma used her charms to dissuade the gentleman with the camera and official uniform and manner. Not that he could figure what to do with a bike with Australian personal plates.

We rode on through some wonderful countryside and villages.

Into Switzerland where everything is expensive. We visited the Rhinefalls where we paid for parking and bought the obligatory coffee and cake plus icecreams. A$45 later 🙂

 

From Switzerland back into Germany and our overnight hotel in Randegge. This was a traditional German hotel. 215klms for the day.

Today it was time to make some decisions regarding the gear we were carrying. The idea had been to camp as much as we could with the purpose of meeting different people and enjoying the outdoor scenery.

It was a good idea but required a lot of gear to do it properly which in turn meant a lot of extra weight. When the bike was moving this wasn’t a problem but when stationary it was obvious the bike was very top heavy and unstable and possibly an accident waiting to happen albeit at very slow speed.

So today we decided we’d try and get everything we needed into the two panniers with the topbox storing some minor cooking gear etc. The tankbag would continue to store the electronics etc.

This is what 21kg of camping and other gear looks like. We also shed 6kgs of clothes so we could get get rid of the dry bags on top of the panniers. So 27kgs all up.

Took it to the post office and shipped it back to Rotterdam to where our bike crate is stored. So now it’s AirBnB, Booking.com, BandBs and Zimmer Frei / Pensions. At least we won’t have to sleep on those little air mattresses 🙂

After that we rode into Schaffhausen, Switzerland for a coffee and to have a look around.

Hey Harrison the Spiderman is just for you.

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