Near Wijk the river is still called “Nederrijn”

I’m just driving down the Rhine. No way! The closer you get to the mouth of the river into the North Sea, the more complicated it becomes. Everywhere are river arms and somehow they all have to do with the Rhine, but they are no longer called so. But Waal, Maas, Merwede or Linge. With additions such as “Oude” (Old), “Nieuwe” (New), “Beneden” (Lower) or “Boven” (Upper). And then there are also canals, such as the Amsterdam-Rijn-Kanaal, which I crossed today at Rijswijk. So you can easily lose orientation. The time has passed when I was cycling along the Rhine and only had to decide which side of the river I used.

Overland, with plenty of water

Chicken uprising

Without the excellent cards, which were fixed to my handlebar bag, and the signs of the bike paths, I had hopelessly lost my way. So, however, I passed through the water labyrinth, and in fact managed to reach my destination of today, Dordrecht, without any considerable detours. In this part, the Rhine bike route hardly deserves its name because it leads through many rural areas, often along canals or small lakes.

With the ferry

Water taxi to Sleeuswijk

But suddenly you reach again one of the Rhine arms and have to cross the river with a ferry or a water taxi. The system works really perfectly. There are no long waiting times. The crossing costs for a cyclist between 80 cents and 1,50 euros. And such a ferry transfer can be quite communicative. On the way to Kop van’t Land near Dordrecht I got into conversation with another “Fietser”.

Pat on the shoulder

Ferry to Kop van’t Land

The 60-year-old asked me how many kilometers I had traveled today, where I came from and where I wanted to go. “Years ago, I cycled some passages of the tour that you have done by myself,” the man recalled. “I liked particularly the area around Rüdesheim.” Means the Rhine Gorge between Bingen and Koblenz. He gave me a tip for an alternative route to Dordrecht. “But yours is also very beautiful,” he said, gave me for farewell a pat on the shoulder and cycled away in breakneck speed.

Calves damage

Today, there were many fair weather cyclists en route. Since the morning, the sun was shining, the wind was not worth mentioning, ideal cycling weather. If there would not have been this pulling in my calves. They are crying for recovery. They still have to persist one day. Then we – my calves and I as well as my dear faithful folding bike – will hopefully stand in Hoek van Holland on the beach and look together to the mouth of the Rhine.

Still 70 are left

Signs in a garden near Leerdam

This eleventh day of my donation bike tour “School up! River down!” for the reconstruction of the school in the Nepalese village of Thulosirubari lasted nine and a half hours. I rode 124 kilometers from Wageningen to Dordrecht. In earlier times the Rhine trade ended there, what brought the city wealth. Today, Rotterdam has outdone Dordrecht as trade metropolis. I will ride to Rotterdam tomorrow and then continue to the sea. Still some 70 kilometers are missing.

P.S.: When I will have arrived at the beach, I will – if I’ll have an internet connecition – inform you via Twitter and Facebook. The detailed summary of the last day will be available after my return to Cologne.

P.P.S.: Do not be surprised if some pictures are blurry at the edges. The setting dial of the camera had accidentally slipped into the “creative mode”.

Bikers in Arnheim

It was like someone had flipped a switch. As soon as I had crossed the German-Dutch border behind Emmerich on the right side of the Rhine, I felt like I was in a different bicycle world. It all started with the fact that many more people were cycling. Seniors with e-bikes, housewives, with their market purchases on the luggage carrier, opposing the wind, large groups of bycyle racers, parents and their children, all with bikes. After my departure in the morning in Rheinberg-Ossenberg north of Duisburg, I had hardly met any cyclists on the bike paths on the dykes. This time the weather was not an excuse. It was misty until noon, but dry. And the wind blew only moderately.

Climbing wall instead of cooling tower

Leasure park in Kalkar

In Xanten I had to change the brake pads at the back wheel of my folding bike. The pads were completely down. After half an hour enforced break I was able to continue the journey. I passed the “fast breeder” of Kalkar, who never brooded. After strong protests the nuclear power station, which had been completed in 1985, was never connected to the grid and is considered one of the most expensive industrial ruins in Germany. Today, the facility is used as a leisure park, the cooling tower became a climbing wall.

Cyclists are taken seriously

On the border

I crossed the Rhine bridge from Emmerich to the right side of river. So I avoided an overpass with the ferry in the Dutch town of Millingen, which drove only every hour. I only realized that I crossed the border on the dyke because the name of the road on the signs changed. And the quality of the bike paths increased enormously. In the Netherlands you really feel like being taken seriously as a cyclist.

Car only a guest

Cyclists first

No matter where you want to go, whether the road is wide or small, there is always a bike path. Almost always without the road holes or other damage to the covering which you find on many cycle paths in Germany. Also the signposting of the routes is first class. And the car drivers are reminded that they should take care of the cyclists. “Auto te Gast”, the car is the guest, is written on a sign, which marks a „Fietsstraat“, a bike road. The priorities are simply shifted.

Still around 200 kilometers

On the ferry to Huissen

It was a giant fun to enqueue with my little folding bike in the convoy of Dutch “fietsen”. I was rolling quite comfortably. After ten days of my donation ride “School up! River down!” my body is no more able to ride faster. But even so I come forward. Today I stopped after more than nine hours and a distance of 120 kilometers in Wageningen, 25 kilometers behind Arnhem. So I far I have managed to ride 1,292 kilometers since the start at the Oberalp Pass in Switzerland on Monday last week. The mouth of the Rhine near Hoek van Holland is only about 200 kilometers away. Slowly I start to believe that I could reach my goal in the given time window until Friday. Keep your fingers crossed!