From our window at a little after 7 a.m. we watched our Belgian friend's barge "Absolut" cruise past, on its way up river towards Cologne. It was quite a procession with several barges and one solitary cruise boat going up, or down, the river.
It was extremely windy this morning with a few grey clouds hovering so we donned the raincoats before setting off, mainly to stop the wind going right through us...it was rather chilly. Four or five kms along the path we came to the little ferry
which took us across the Rhine for the last time, to Millingen where we stopped at the ferry stop cafe, hoping to have a hot breakfast but the cook didn't begin working until 11 a.m., so we settled for a slab of delicious apple cake and a large coffee each.
While there, we dug deep into one of the bags to find a fleece each as the raincoats alone weren't keeping us warm. We hadn't been so cold since we left home!
About to leave the cafe, we heard the unmistakeable sound of the Australian drawl being spoken by a trio of men at a table nearby so went over to investigate. Peter, Glen and Gordon are all from Brisbane though Peter now lives in Newcastle, UK.... his mates come over to visit and they all go cycling through Europe for a few weeks each year. We sat and chatted for an hour or so, had another coffee and exchanged stories....
a very entertaining interlude but by this time those grey clouds had darkened and had begun to drop their load, at first a mere drizzle and then a deluge but we managed to take shelter at a service station until it eased enough to continue on to follow the Waal River, which is an alternative to following the Rhine. A couple of kms on and we had to seek shelter once again, this time at a bus stop where we had a conversation with a local lady, a young girl and a teenage boy while they waited for their bus.
On a fine day it would have been a wonderful ride as we rode through some pretty countryside but with the cold, blustery conditions it wasn't always as enjoyable as it could have been and was at times hard work to keep the bikes on track.
It started to drizzle again just before we reached Njimegen on the Waal and when we checked in to our hotel, we booked in for a second night, having decided to do so before we arrived.
Venturing from the hotel up the hill (yes, there is a hill in Holland) to the town,
we had beer and coffee at a bar/cafe and fell into conversation with the barman and one of the customers, a regular I believe. He told us how Nijmegen had been bombed in error by the Americans in 1944 and later rebuilt, about the 4 day walkfest and party to be held here next week when about 1 million visitors from around the world are expected to flood into the town, about the ancient Roman ruins which had been discovered two doors down from our hotel and had been converted into a museum and imparted several other snippets of helpful information....who needs a tourist info office?
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