DAY 12: Köln - Rheinberg

The Big One. The Mother. Pain in the Cycle Lane. The Monster. All references to our longest day of the whole trip: a planned 108.5km. I bet you're all dying to hear how it was. Well, it certainly lived up to its expectations, that's for sure. We overslept slightly (I told you Köln was a great place to rest!) so we had a slightly late start. Not a great way to start the day, however, we went straight to Kölner Dom, a remarkable cathedral nearly right on the river. This was where Guy, my uncle, unearthed our first problem, merely 1km max from our hotel: a screw was missing from his luggage holder, causing it rub on the wheel. But, after a slight panic, some lost time, a phone call to the dad and a cunning suggestion to use an unimportant screw on my uncle's bike, which fit perfectly (why didn't I think of that?), we were off again.

We approached Neuss, and we decided to take two different paths from each other. Incidentally, I just thought I would mention that I took the right one, yet I had to go back to make sure. Once we were back on track, after more time wasted (remember, this was our longest day so time was of the essence...) we cycled on, but after 3km, Guy realised he had left the map book a.k.a. the Bible back in the place we got lost. So Guy, the Bible's guardian, made the journey back and came back EMPTY-HANDED. NO. NOT THE BIBLE. 

This was a big blow. We had to find a new one. We went into the centre of Neuss, found a book shop - nothing. At this point, i was actually smiling on my bike at the situation of everything. We were still many kilometres away, it was late in the day, we had just realised we had lost the book and literally a few seconds later, it started to rain. We had it all to do and everything was going wrong. Well, I found it funny. But, looking into a second bookshop, we found a replica of the precious booklet. I snatched it, paid, and it was ours.

After a hurried lunch (it was no 3 o'clock by this point and we had done 45m, not even halfway) we really didn't want to arriver before dark and this encouraged us to step up a notch. But we had trouble finding the cycle path again, having gone into the centre of Neuss, and although we got closer to our destination as we searched, we found the path an hour and a half later. I stopped to take a photo and as I moved off, my foot got stuck on my bike bag, dislodging a piece of it. I had to fix i, and did, but our time was rotting away. This was getting ridiculous. it was nearly 5 o'clock and we were only just over halfway. And it was raining. And the wind was blowing harder than I have seen it yet. Bloody great. 

I have to say, at this point, I was feeling pretty discouraged. But we had to make it to Rheinberg and there was no giving up. Things got better after then. The rain stopped and got heavier at different times, but the wind was changing and started to help us finish the ordeal. Finally, just after 8, we arrived in Budberg, just outside Rheinberg, as it was getting dark. Glad that one's over.