Dit zijn de afstanden die er per dag gefietst zijn. Dag 4 was de rustdag.Dag 5 en 6 waren de dagen dat we rond hebben gereden in de Veluwe zonder bagage.
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Alps - Day 6 : Bodensee
At night it was dry at first. Around 4 o'clock, it started to rain like crazy, making it impossible to sleep. Around 7, I went to the bathroom to warm up and dry my shoes and clothes with toilet paper and a hairdryer. Bram had been doing the same thing an hour before. The zipper of my 'waterproof' jacket had broken the previous day. The store on the campsite sold rain jackets, but no good ones. We did buy food there. The supposedly closed road was still half open; only the other side of the asphalt had been removed. In Schaffhausen, we went to see the Rheinfallen, which are waterfalls in the Rhine river.
Rheinfallen
You could take a boat to a rock in the middle
During the winter there would be twice as much water.
We arrived in Switzerland early in the day, already the sixth country we visited this week. We quickly noticed everything was more expensive there. During the afternoon we cycled passed the Bodensee for a long time. It was flat, and there were good bicycling paths. The sun was also shining for the first time in 6 days. An overweight German guy who was also on cycling vacation overtook us. He was pedaling slowly but was still going 25 km/h. Probably he had been cycling through the Alps for a while.
Road along the Bodensee.
The Bodensee.
After the Bodensee, we continued cycling at a good pace. We ate behind a supermarket and tried to dry all our gear.
Bram drying his feet
After the Bodensee we could follow a river. Soon we reached a village where we again needed to ask for directions. An old man was mowing his lawn. He came up to us, nearly fell off his elevated garden, and started explaining. We had to go straight, make a right turn, and then take a left near the end. Then we would get to a large road. He said the cars there were riding fast, but he still crossed it every day. That was surprising, as he was 86 years old. He asked where we had come from, he had been in the army and had been stationed in the Dutch cities of Leeuwarden and Groningen, probably during the second world war.
In contrast to the first 160 km, the last 30 km were very hilly. Around nine, we arrived in the village with the campsite. There was a sign saying it was an 'Alps campsite'. We hoped that didn't mean it was on top of a mountain. That was the case, we needed to climb for three kilometers. It was a busy campsite with many Dutch people. We got assigned a spot near the bathroom, which was nice as it meant we didn't need to walk far.
Unpacking
After showering, we sat down on our bivy bags to eat. A few youngsters passed by, primarily girls. They noticed Bram and started asking him all sorts of questions. 'What is that?'', 'Did you come by bike", "How far did you cycle". Most of them thought his bag was weird or sad. There was one girl whose parents had also been on cycling vacations. Then she noticed the bread that Bram picked up because I still wanted to eat. One of the girls thought the bread 'scary'. After 10 minutes they saw I was also there. We were nearly invisible with our camouflaged bivy bags in the twilight. They asked if we needed to pay just to sleep in the bags. They said there were two beds inside where we could sleep for free. Of course that wasn't necessary. Then they left to watch TV.
I ate some bread with chocolate spread before we went to sleep. When we were just in our bags the girls returned, this time they had brought boys. They knew we were inside, but didn't talk to us. When Bram turned around, we heard all sorts of sounds coming from a semi-circle around us. 'ieeee, he is moving, ooh'. Then it was quiet again. Until one of the guys said 'Dare that I will pee on it'. I had to laugh really hard, especially because I knew he was standing next to Bram's bivy bag. The other people said 'no don't do it'. Later Bram said he would have kicked the guy in the balls if he had done so.
Distance cycled : 194 km.