Arnhem to Rheinberg - Day 63

Date: October 20th, 2009
Distance: 112km
Country: Germany
Song of the Day: Drifting - Pearl Jam

Last night was the coldest I have been in since Iceland. Frankly, that is saying a lot. When I got up, it wasn't much warmer. I am glad that I didn't shave last night. A little stubble actually seems to help keep out the cold. I am not planning on shaving until I get to Italy and (hopefully) it gets warmer.

First thing I had to do was go to a grocery store. I was absolutely out of supplies. So I did some shopping and ate my breakfast in the (bike) parking lot. I had noticed a bike shop down the street so I decided to stop in. I lost one of the hooks for my panniers somewhere around Hastings. They had some Ortleib stuff in their window, so I wanted to check if they had a replacement. Sadly, no. They did have a long sleeve under-jersey, though. So I got that. Much warmer. The guy at the shop, Sandro, was also cool. He gave me a cup of hot chocolate and we talked for a bit about my journey and stuff.

I did take too long there though. I really didn't end up leaving the camping site until after noon. I did stop in Arnhem for just a bit. A very pretty town. You might recall it from the movie A Bridge Too Far, which is about Operation Market Garden. I got to see what is now the John Frost Bridge. I can understand why the movie didn't feature it. There isn't anything really around the bridge, anymore. At the time it had nice houses on the north end. Those were destroyed by the Germans shelling the British airborne troops there. Now there are just a couple old warehouses.

It would have been great to stay longer, but I had lots of kilometers to do. Sadly, they were all into the wind. Again. Very, very lame. I don't know how I can draw so much head wind. I have gone every direction possible, yet each way I get headwind. I don't know how that is even geographically or meteorologically possible. But I seem to be doing it. Urgh. It is just really frustrating.

So I made slow progress throughout the day. Even though I didn't do a huge number of kilometers, because of the wind it is like going uphill all day. I did get into Germany. Country six for those of you counting along at home. Actually I missed the actual crossing. All I noticed was that the sings were now a bit different. I did cross over the Rhine though, twice. From then on it was along the Rhine the rest of the day.

I never made it to my destination, Dusseldorf, though. Instead I stopped in a small place call Rheinberg. It was dark by this point, so I was hoping there might be a camping site outside of the city. When I got there, I saw a couple of industrial plants. I didn't know if they were refineries or what. I knew getting a place to stay would be hard though. No one comes to camp next to near an industrial park.

I stopped outside of a truck stop restaurant. There was an information sign. I just didn't see any camping sites on it. I asked one of the truckers walking by, but he didn't know. He said to check in at the restaurant. This turned out to be great advice. No, they didn't know of one, but I could just camp outside. For free as well. How cool is that? Of course I felt obliged to have dinner there. Not that it was hard. I was looking forward to a big German dinner anyway. I had a nice big plate of Schnitzel. Mmmmmm.

The owner of the place, Ivan, was really cool too. I guess he is Croatian. Apparently he was joking with his father (before we got to talking about my trip) and told him that I was heading to South Africa to watch the world cup next year. Hahaha. Not far off actually. (The World Cup is in October though, and I am going to be back in August.) So, if you find yourself in Rhineburg, head to the Trucker Grill, Nordring 58. Though, I am sure he would appreciate it if people didn't bombard him with camping requests...

-Dravis