We had a great rest day in the fairy tale town of Colmar but it was great to be back on the bikes again.

We left Colmar on a very busy road. Thankfully we had a dedicated cycle path but the noise of the traffic was awful. We’ve been so used the the quiet of the cycle paths that we’re not used to all the noise.

We followed a canal path all the way to Strasbourg. You’d think this would be great, but it was very straight with trees either side and occasional glimpses of the canal. It was very monotonous and it dragged on forever. It was the first day I felt a little bored.

But then we crossed over the canal and it became interesting again. The water was so clear and we saw many fish.

We arrived in Strasbourg and immediately wished we hadn’t. It was big and noisy and we couldn’t wait to get out. We cycled out of it and suddenly we were in Germany! The street signs, the language, the food, all different, just by crossing a bridge!

We arrived at the campground and it was chockers. We are next to a school group, tents packed in tight. It is by far the worst place we have camped due to the sheer amount of people. And the most expensive at 28 euros. That’s almost $60 to put up a tent!

The showers are very flash though with plenty of room compared to French ones where you are crammed into a little cubicle. In fact, the shower was almost as big as our one at home.

We also had a lovely meal in the camp restaurant. We like German food.

We did a massive 80 kms today, well massive for us. Almost bed time but I don’t reckon I’ll sleep much with all the snorers. I think some drums just started up near our camp.

Today didn’t turn out quite as planned.

The plan was to cross over the Rhine river into Germany and follow the Rhine up towards Rotterdam.

The Rhine river separates France from Germany and the cycle route goes up both sides of it.

The first part of the plan worked well. We crossed the Rhine, took some photos and were excited to finally be in Germany. Then we met some cycle tourers backtracking.

They said, ‘The Rhine path is closed on the German side. We’ve just done a 25 km detour for nothing so we’re heading back to the French side.’

So we were in Germany for all of 5 minutes before we decided to backtrack too. But first we ate our pain au chocolat.

It was hot today and we were both a bit bothered by our plans being scuppered and having to backtrack about 10kms in total. It wasn’t far, but in the heat of the day it wasn’t much fun.

My knee is starting to hurt again, my body is screaming for a rest day. But the weather is so nice, we just want to keep cycling.

We rode over 70kms today and arrived at our camp very hot and bothered. After getting our tent up and having a shower we are feeling much better.

We had a goats cheese, walnut and pasta salad for dinner as we are low on camping gas. Not many places in France sell the screw in gas bottles, only bayonet type ones. We’ve been trying to get to a Decathlon for days but they’re always too far off the route.

So tomorrow we have made a decision to spend two nights in a town near here and try and figure out where we go from there.

I had a fantastic nights sleep at the nice quiet campground that nobody could find. Our tent was saturated again with dew, but it soon dried out and we were away by about 10.30am.

I felt so much better today after a good nights sleep and it was such a glorious day cycling along, taking our time. The scenery has changed now too, and it’s looking more like Switzerland, and we’re loving it. We followed a river for most of the day, and it was mostly flat.

We may not go down to Basel now as it’s not the direction we are going. We’d have to go down there and back again (80 km round trip there and back detour), and we don’t really like cities that much. So we may continue heading north from Mulhouse up the Rhine towards Rotterdam.

We’ve really got our fitness levels up now, and we are hurtling along the flat at about 18-22 kms per hour and are doing an average of 60 kms per day. We haven’t had a rest day in 10 days, so we’re overdue, but we just want to keep cycling while the weather in nice.

Tonight we are in the town of Montbéliard and there is no camping, so we’re staying at the ibis in the city centre. We didn’t really look around much, just got a salad for dinner, transferred some footage to hard disks, and got our power banks recharged.

Well, today certainly had its up’s and downs. I think being tired had a lot to do with it. So let’s start with last night.

We stopped at a very busy campsite by a lake beach. We put our tent up and a couple of cycle tourists about our age parked their bikes next to us, draped their tent over their bikes, then went to the camp bar.

We also went to the camp bar restaurant for dinner and the couple were still there when we went to bed at 9.30pm. When we got back to out tent and noticed they still hadn’t put their tent up. I thought great, they’re gonna wake us up when they put up their tent in the dark.

Anyway, I fell asleep only to be woken up at 10.30 by clunking, talking and laughing. But it stopped after only a couple of minutes. I thought they got their tent up quickly in the dark.

Then they proceeded to snore, talk and giggle through the night. So I didn’t get much sleep. But when I got up to go to the toilet, their tent still hadn’t been put up. It was lying flat on the ground with the couple inside it, their heads poking out. It must have been freezing. Either they got too drunk to put it up in the dark or their tent is broken. Weird.

It was a stunning day cycling through a gorge with a river running through it, hills looming on either side. It’s starting to feel like Switzerland with the scenery and chalet style houses. We even heard cows with bells!. Switzerland is about 40 kms to our right and if we keep up our Current pace of 60kms per day we should be in Basel in a couple of days.

We stopped at a town called Besançon for lunch. We were going to look around the town but both felt really claustrophobic. It didn’t help that we had to push our bikes through road works with jack hammers hammering away. But we found a small shop and grabbed a couple of salads and ate them by the river.

I suggested staying in the town, but the weather has been so nice for cycling we’re keen to keep moving.

We arrived at the town of Baume les Dames where there is supposed to be camping according to our Cycle route map, but it was not showing up on either Google or the Garmin. When we got to the turn off where the camping was supposed to be and studied our maps, Google and the Garmin. There weren’t any camping signs pointing us off, so we figured it must no longer be there. Our maps are quite old and we’ve had it before where the campgrounds no longer exist.

No problem we thought, there are a couple of hotels in town. I navigated us to a chamber d’ote nearby but they were full. So I found a hotel only 1.2 kms away so we navigated to that. But the maps didn’t mention the giant hill we had to climb to get there!

It was 5pm, we were hot and tired, neither of us able to make a decision. So we thought our only option was to push our bike up this steep hill. It could easily have been in Wellington, it was such hard work. Walk a few steps, stop, breathe, repeat. We cursed our way up the hill, eventually reaching the top before realising we had to go down again!

We took it easy on the downhill, both exhausted by this stage. We found the hotel but the front doors were locked. I found the chef in the restaurant at the back as asked if he had a room.

‘Oui,’ he said and we both collapsed in relief on the seats of the outdoor restaurant.

Five minutes later he came out and said, ‘sorry we are full.’ Our euphoria deflated like a balloon, wondering what we do know.

‘Are there any more hotels?’ Mike asked.

‘There is one, 6 kms up this road. Want me to call for you?’

We looked at the main road leading up a steep hill, trucks barrelling past and thought there is no way in hell we’d be riding up there in the state we were in. I decided to ask if there was camping, knowing there wasn’t but trying my luck.

‘Oui, just 2 kms from here.’

He showed us on a map and it’s in the same place as our map. So why the heck does Google not know about it! Geez, it knows what time I have a shit in the morning, surely it would know where the campgrounds are!

Both feeling relieved but very pissed off, we followed the main road back down to the river thankful that we didn’t have to go back up that steep hill. It was 7pm by the time we found the campsite and after a shower we felt much better.

This town had a decent supermarket but we were too tired to stop and shop so we cooked macaroni with a pepper sauce and dipped our baguette in it . It was actually really nice.

Woke up early this morning and finally got hold of Dad on his echo show. He was looking well.

We left camp at 9am and started the day riding alongside the river. We saw a lady walking her dog while riding her bike. His lead was strapped onto the bike and he obediently ran alongside. Then she stopped by the river, unleashed the dog, he swam 2 laps of the river width, then back on the bike. Very well behaved doggie.

I’ve been 2 days now without eating a pastry. I’m trying to eat healthier so at the supermarket I bought a chicken wrap for a snack, much to mike’s disgust. And a baguette and tin of tuna for lunch.

We reached the town of Dole and were going to go to Decathlon to get some camping gas, but it was up a hill and we decided not to. We stopped and double checked which way to go when a cyclist whizzed by us towards the campground. I suggested we stop for the day as well and visit the town, but Mike wanted to keep moving.

We found the cycle path again and we’re cruising along when we saw a cycle tourer trying to get his bike down some very steep steps. It was the same guy who went whizzing past us obviously gone the wrong way. I felt a bit guilty as we may have been blocking the sign.

We found an amazing spot for lunch overlooking the river, and made our tuna baguette. After lunch we went to continue our ride along the river but there was a route barred sign in 700 metres and a diversion was sending us inland on roads.

Mike went to check it out but there was nothing barring the route at that distance so we decided to continue alongside the river. It was so beautiful, and I congratulated Mike on being daring and taking this route. After 2km we saw another route barred sign and this was in 5000 metres.

Mike then decided we would backtrack, not wanting to ride 5kms and find we get stuck. As we turned back, whizzy cyclist came along. Remember him, missing signs and carrying his bike down steps? Well he went whizzing down the route barred way, and we just tutted to ourselves. We figure he’s not having a good day.

When we got back to the route barred sign it said 7000 metres not 700!

It was quite a big diversion and when we got to the other end of it, there was no way through so I feel sorry for whizzy guy. He’s staying at the same camp as us so maybe I’ll ask him about his day.

After that we got back onto the nice river paths. And then, blocking our way, was a big scary snake. It had sprawled itself across the path showing no signs of moving. Mike made a move to try and cycle past it and I had to stop him. As you’ll see in a future video, Mike has no snake sense.

I said we should just stay put and hope he moves. Maybe we could throw something at it to prompt it. After a few minutes it made its move and slithered back into the bushes. I got a video of it but you’ll have to wait until it’s out on YouTube.

We are now in a campsite with a river beach. There are loads of day people here and quite a few campers too. I also think I’m being bitten. It’s not the nicest place we’ve camped but it will do.

Despite the torrential downpour the previous evening we managed to pack up a dry tent and were away before ten.

Not such a nice day today. It rained on and off and the roads weren’t as nice as canal paths. It fined up in the afternoon and we followed the Soane river for a while.

We didn’t see any shops but we managed to get a baguette and some quiches. We had some butter left over which had melted and solidified again so we had bread and butter for lunch. We also saw another otter.

After the town of Suerre we lost all signs to the route. One minute they were guiding us nicely, the next they’d left us to fend for ourselves.

We were relying on our map and the route headed inland, so we followed it along crappy gravel roads. Then a nice path next to the river appeared. Google told me the path would take us to the next town so we followed it. Still no route signs and our map didn’t mention this path, but it was lovely and we followed it most of the way to the town, cutting 5 kms off our trip.

In the town we finally found a supermarket, so we grabbed a couple of salads for dinner and headed for our camp.

It’s a popular stop for cycle tourists as the camp is full of them. We ate our salads at 6pm but were still hungry, so went to the camp bar for some fries, beer, and a magnum. It’s a nice spot overlooking the river.

We had a nice relaxing start to the day in our hotel room. We had the hotel breakfast but kinda wished we hadn’t. All the people touching all the food made me cringe. Mike went straight for the bacon and eggs and instantly regretted it, while an American guy was getting upset there was no cheese.

I managed to sneak a whole baguette for me and Mike that hopefully the dirty people hadn’t touched.

It was an amazing day today, following the nice flat canal paths. We got to the town we’d planned to camp at after 45 kms but we were loving the day so much, we continued on. We ended up doing 70 kms today and feel pretty good for it.

We’re at a camping ground in the middle of nowhere, only two other campers here. There are a load of old men getting plastered at the campground bar.

We had macaroni cheese for dinner. We boiled some pasta and dumped a half eaten Camembert into it and stirred it around. It was actually ok for an emergency meal.

It absolutely chucked it down with rain last night and terrifying thunder cracked around while lightning flashed our tent. This went on ALL night. We’ll it started at 11am and didn’t finish until 3.30am so not much sleep. It’s stopped this morning though I’m still in my tent at 7.40am.

Our tent this morning was saturated and it wasn’t from the rain. It was from condensation which had formed on the inside. Although the weather had dropped from 27 degrees to 9 overnight. it took us a while to pack up and dry the tent out and we were away just after 10am.

We stopped and had a quick look around the basilica in town then carried on along cycle paths.

It was a nice day of canal riding and not much happened. We decided to ride on the road that followed the canal rather than the route which went up and down hills through farm land.

There was no camping in the next town so we stayed at a hotel and this gave me a chance to get more videos uploaded and scheduled.

It was nice to relax in air conditioning for the afternoon, clean sheets on the bed. There was an Aldi right next door, so we bought some ready made salads for dinner, and some chocolate.