The Bikepacker: Bikepacking 2025

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Travelogue

We left the campsite and braved the equivalent of the Dartford Crossing once again, to get back to the other side of the Rhine. Once over, it took us a while to find our way back onto our planned route, there being a pesky railway line in the way. But we found our way back onto our route and cycled on.

It had been really windy yesterday evening and there was debris from trees everywhere. Nothing big, just twigs and leaves all over the place. We kept an eye on this, not wanting punctures but there was so much of this stuff, it was unavoidable. Somehow we didn't get a single puncture!

We were soon in Mainz which turned out to be quite a big city. And very much the city it was, too. Lots of traffic. Unattractive. Few reasons that we could see to actually want to be there.

I like to reference The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in this blog, largely because it's a work of genius but also because it's in many ways, so very relatable. Take for example, the Infinite Improbability Drive. When it is first used in the book, a fully grown sperm whale and a bowl of petunias instantly materialise in space and, due to the particular instance of space they materialise in, start to fall.... or rather, plummet towards the surface of a planet. This would constitute a fairly improbable event.

While cycling through Mainz, a similarly improbable event occurred, one which was at least as likely as either the spontaneous appearance of a bowl of petunias or of a sperm whale, but not both at the same time of course because that's just trippy, never mind improbable!

Anyway, M1 was in the lead, riding along a cycle lane by a busy road. To his right, whizzing by, were a series of mature, deciduous trees. All of a sudden, something dropped out of one of the trees and hit M1 on the knuckles of his left hand! M1 got a glimpse of something perhaps beige in colour but no more than a glimpse. It felt quite heavy, striking M1'S knuckles with some force. What the???!!!!!

M1, shocked at being struck by the projectile from above, screeched to a halt about 10 metres from the tree and jumped off The Mule. He told M2 he'd just been hit by something and then noticed a sticky liquid on his knuckles. And then, a larger amount of the same sticky substance which M1 could now see was orange, all down one leg.

What on earth was it?

M2 cracked the code. It was egg, she suggested.

Egg.

Had someone thrown an egg at M1? This was our theory for a while. After all, he probably deserves a good egging for something or other ;-)

But as we cycled away, M1 reasoned that from the pretty much vertical trajectory, it could not have been thrown by a person without us having seen them. How mysterious.

And then M1 realised. The windy conditions the previous evening had probably left some poor bird's nest balanced precariously in the tree and as M1 cycled under it, at that precise moment, improbable as it seems, an egg wobbled out of the nest, plummeted towards the ground like a newly materialised sperm whale and, SPLAT, got M1.

M1 is eggstremely glad it was an egg and not a sperm whale that landed on him!

Eggy mess cleaned up, we cycled out of Mainz and after a while were cycling in less urban surroundings.

Then in what felt like a sudden change, we were cycling along a valley by the Rhine, steep hills on the other side and castle after castle! We'd arrived at that section of the Rhine where river cruises take place and from where most photos you're ever likely to see are taken. We'd entered The Middle Rhine Valley.

And we saw so many cruise boats.

The valley brought scenery at last. Most of Germany so far has been rather bland or worse. But it also brought another gruelling headwind which was being funneled down the valley and into our faces. Occasionally we were sheltered and the cycling was easy. But most of the time the headwind was there, making the down river gentle descent feel like a 4% uphill climb, hour after hour.

Eventually though, we arrived in the city of Koblenz. We'll be here the next two nights.

Today is the last day of our fourth week. And tomorrow is a rest day :-)

Photos