Do NOT pay the ferry man!

Neil survives the night. My Garmin does not, or rather it remains in its endless boot loop, and there is no fix or reassuring message from Garmin Australia. It seems today I will be following Neil around, rudderless, so to speak.

While he is feeling a lot better today, it has been a somewhat torrid night for Neil, and he doesn’t shut down my idea that we could take the train to Speyer if he’s not up to riding. The weather is looking pretty rubbish today as well, so it could be a bit of a chore riding anyway.

By the time he’s nibbled on a couple of Ryvita-type biscuits over breakfast, he declares himself fit enough to ride – at least to Eggenstein, where there is a train station.

Before leaving Karlsruhe, because it is simply so hard to say goodbye 🤪 we take a tour of the town’s highlights.

First, the pyramid, which sits plumb in the centre of Marktplatz (and was viewable from our hotel). The pyramid is made of sandstone, and is erected over the tomb of the city’s founder Margrave Charles III William. There used to be a church there, but as Karlsruhe grew at the start of the 19th century the church was demolished to make way for the expansion, and a wooden pyramid erected over the spot, which was supposed to be temporary until the founder’s vault could be moved. Well, that never happened, so this more permanent pyramid was built. And there it sits, largely ignored by everyone, as Market Square is definitely used for market-type things still.

The pyramid is regarded as Karlsruhe’s second emblem; the first is the street layout, which is apparently in the shape of a folding fan. You can’t really see what that looks like while riding along, so I nabbed this photo from Wiki Commons (public domain).

The fan shape of the streets starts at the Schloss, so to be fair to Karlsruhe and its attractions, we make a stop in front of the Schloss before leaving. I like the statues better than the Schloss building.

So we make our exit from Karlsruhe going behind the Schloss and through the gardens at the rear before hitting a flat, straight, car-free road that takes us almost all the way to Eggenstein. As I knew it would be, Neil declares himself well enough to ride, so we continue on, making our way back to the river, where we’ll cross and head north to Speyer.

I’m not pleased that I have no navigation device. Neil now rides ahead, calling out notice on turns or changes, and that works, but I feel a bit constrained. I miss having my map, my speed, my distance, all my data in front of me. It’s a bit like driving a car without a speedo or navigation screen.

After around 15km we arrive at the river crossing, and it is a ferry again, not a bridge. Note to self: look more closely at the map before leaving in the morning. The ferry is on the other side of the river, and there it stays. We’ve arrived just after noon, so maybe the crew are on lunch break? But this isn’t France, and the ferry crew yesterday didn’t take a lunch break. Neil notices that the ferry is actually moored. It doesn’t look good.

We wait in the drizzly rain for a while, then move to the nearby cafe and wait some more. According to the ferry website timetable, it should be running. However, after a time I prepare my question in Google Translate and go back inside to ask the woman working there. “Is the ferry running today?”

She consults the same website as I had and shows me the bit I missed, “Außer Betrieb.” That means, for the benefit of the non-German speakers like me, “Out of Service”.

Bugger!

All is not lost, and by now we’ve gained support and sympathy from some Germans who had driven up and also planned to take the ferry and some others who had ridden up, but already knew the ferry wasn’t running. There are other ways to get where we are going, so we plot a route that will take us to the bridge some 15km north at Germersheim and then into Speyer.

It’s in Germersheim that Neil makes an unusual move. At first I think he’s pulling into a Burger King, but instead he stops in front of an Aldi. Anyone who knows Neil knows that he avoids Aldi in Australia, but, I guess when in Germany, and when hungry …

We stock up on bananas and other snacks and eat outside the Aldi, taking advantage of their toilets as well. Then we set off for the last 20km to Speyer. We are well off the EV15 course now, and instead of making a grand entrance into Speyer past the captive Lufthansa 747 (at the Technik Museum) and then sweeping in past the 1200 year old cathedral, we ride along a busy road, through a village on what may well be the longest, straightest main street in the world (yes, that beats you, Heathcote) and into Speyer.

It’s good to get here. Neil is pretty sapped, and it has really just been a “let’s just get there” kind of day. We have a two-night stay here, and we’re both looking forward to a day off the bikes. We have a huge apartment, with kitchen, so after our end of day beer we trek to a supermarket and stock up, then, for the first time in over a month, have a home-cooked (all right, home heated up) meal and a night on the couch.

Stats for today:

• Distance: 48.13km
• Climb: 68m
• Average speed: 16.7km/h
• Average temperature: 17C
• Moving time: 4;42:27
• See our ride on Strava

The beer picture

At the end of a day’s ride, our tradition is to enjoy a beer, and to photograph it for posterity. Today’s beer picture was taken at a (cold) outdoor bar/restaurant in the main street in Speyer, with a view of the cathedral.

Along the way today:

Click on an image to scroll through the gallery at full size.