I slept deeply. For about half an hour. And was then woken by the roar of the motorway right next to the campsite. Hmm. I hadn’t quite expected a canoe club to be so well-connected to the transport system.
But I was warm, once my compact half-season sleeping bag was assisted by hat, T-shirt, fleece and socks. I was up and about by six, and packed up over a banana and another coffee from my Dutch fellow cycle-camper. I followed the D9 into the damp and chilly morning, on easy, mostly flat wide paths like it’s all been so far.
Then came the latest in the line of minor disasters, following on from lost gloves, unravelling handlebar tape, and missing socks. After taking a snap of a particularly appealing valley-floor view with banks glowing in the low sun, my camera lens got stuck and wouldn’t retract. Attempts to switch it on were met with the frustrating error message ‘Lens error. Restart camera.’ (My favourite unhelpful error message ever was on an iMac: ‘The document cannot be printed, because it cannot be printed.’)
I pushed, prodded and ran through settings unsuccessfully with the priapic camera in a village cafe (Friedlos, I think) over an excellent brunch roll, pastry and coffee. Well, at least I could take icy, washed-out, wide-angle-only, but just-good-enough images on my phone camera. And I was never going to lose my phone, was I? (Set-up klaxon for later blog entry.)
Onwards and up… well, flatwards. Just out of the village I was delighted to discover a Planets Trail strung alongside the D9 route. It’s on a much smaller scale than York’s excellent model – this one only stretches a few km in all – and I missed out on Pluto because of roadworks and a diversion.
No doubt this was a result of sabotage by the woke snowflake left-wing anti-Pluto brigade who believe its status as a planet is historically offensive, patriarchal and racist, and that it should be downgraded to a Trans Neptunian Object.
My astronomical itch scratched, I plugged along the D9 path contentedly, making progress as rapidly as I expected, ie not much at all. The next photo-opp was Rotenberg an der Fulda, not to be confused with the Rothenburg ob der Tauber of a few days ago. But like RodT, this h-less version had a cute historic centre.
It also had a ped/bike bridge over said Fulda river, with inviting picnic tables on it. An old guy came up and talked to me about his cycling youth. At length. It’s reassuring to know I can be a good listener in German too. This consisted mainly of nodding, looking impressed, and saying ‘ah, genau’ and ‘doch, doch’.
And on. This was all nice cycling along the flat valley floor. Melsungen was rather good: I stopped to admire its historic market square, and the riverside, and stopped for a nibble and drink.
But then came what I’d been waiting for: a fest!
Germany in summer and autumn has lots of these. Parties, essentially, in marquees, with an all-day bar, cheap hearty food, and a band playing oompah versions of 1980s hits. In village outside Melsungen I heard an oompah. I saw a marquee. So I headed for it.
It was very early afternoon. While the band was plugging away gamely, atmosphere-wise things were still to get properly going. There was only two or three dozen people, most tattooed, a good proportion of whom was already well stuck in to the cheap pils. (Yay! Just €1 a glass! I couldn’t resist…) I spent a sociable quarter-hour or so to enjoy what atmosphere there was, made my excuses, and left happy.
I carried on, along easy, wind-assisted, wide, smooth paths. So smooth that there was a skater at one point, who I struggled to overtake. A short cut on the main road saved a km or three, and my final run into Kassel was along more riverside paths in sun, with lots of leisure cyclists out.
A covered wooden bridge took me into the town’s outskirts. At the top of a climb near to my booked guesthouse was a Rewe, where I stocked up on a fishy dinner and a couple of bottles of pils.
Right, to find the guesthouse. Er… hmm… oh. I found the right address, but the building was a rather down-at-heel residential block with no signs or clues what to do. None of the names on the buzzer list matched that on my confirmation email from booking.com.
I tried the contact number they’d given, and was told someone would turn up. Nobody did. Locals shrugged and didn’t know what to suggest. Someone came out of the block; I asked her if this was a guesthouse and she shrugged noncommitally. At least I was inside now. I explored the stairs; half of the place was being refurbed… a building site. There were no signs and no clue which bits might be the guesthouse, if at all.
I knocked on the doors in hope more than expectation, but eventually one of them proved to have someone inside. He called the owner, and five minutes later I was inside my modest but clean, bright room, with access to a kitchen and bathroom. Ah, yes, this’ll do nicely. Now I understand why it was so cheap: the place is mid-refurb, and things are haphazard, but it’s OK.
I did my usual indoors-accomm things – hang up camping equipment to air and dry, do PC-based admin, have dinner and a beer or two, and struggle in vain to access Netflix or YouTube on the TV.
Haphazard nature of check-in aside, I’d made a good choice not to camp tonight. Because just as I eventually got my key, it started to pelt down with rain, and continued all night.
Miles today: 58
Miles from Füssen: 405