With much sadness today I bid au revior to France. She’s been a wonderful host, apart from her dogged insistence on sprinkling pig on everything except the sweetest of treats, and I will miss her culture and beauty.

However, Switzerland awaits!

After a walk around a now dry Mulhouse and a breakfast watching this vibrant and bustling town wake up and get ready for Friday business, we mount the bikes and make for the frontier.

Today’s ride is along an ever more complicated set of waterways. We are really hitting a hub of river/canal activity as we continue along Canal du Rhône au Rhin to Niffer.

Just before Niffer a huge ship motors almost silently by. The vegetation at the side of the canal bank is thick and high, and all I can see is a ship with a car on it (!) and with a long, long deck that takes some time to go past. This ain’t no ordinary barge. I’m not really sure where it could be going or how on earth it would turn around to get back as I can’t imagine the canals we’ve been along today being big enough for it. But what would I know? I’m no canal-faring shippie.

At Niffer we finally meet the Rhine which will take us into Basel (sort of) and beyond in the coming days. This is where the Canal du Rhône au Rhin effectively meets the Rhine. There is a massive lock here! There are actually two locks: a smaller one for the regular barges/boats that we’ve seen all over the country, and one for the huge behemoths like the one we’ve just seen. 

After Niffer, we are heading pretty much south, now along the Canal de Huningue, which is beside the Grand Canal du Alsace which itself parallels the Rhine. The Grand Canal canal is much wider than the river here. Still I am awed by all this waterway engineering.

When we’re getting close to Basel I message our host to say we have only 11km to go and should be on track to meet our arranged meet-up time. 

Now that’s tempting fate.

Almost immediately we have to slow and inch around a machine that is clearing tree debris from our path. Just a little further on there’s a man with a chainsaw cutting up branches that are lying on the path. Neither of these people say one thing to us!

Last night’s rain in Mulhouse must have been part of a wild storm that has hit this area and brought trees down all over our path. For about 2km (maybe less) we negotiate fallen branches, hefting the bikes over where possible and in one spot having to pull all the bags off and sneak them and then the bikes around the fallen tree(s) on a steep slope where one misstep could land everything in the drink.

“If I’d known,” says Neil, “I would have got the chainsaw attachment on the Leatherman.”

And yet, there is a perfectly unobscured path on the other side of the canal. 

“Trust the French to leave it open,” grumbles one Swiss fellow coming the other way. He’s only on a light bike out for a day trip so I tell him if we got through he should be fine.

Fortunately the tree carnage ends in a couple of hundred more metres and we pedal on towards Basel.

Border crossings are not the ‘fun’ they used to be. Getting into Switzerland from France is easy peasy. The only hold up is a queue where people are lining up to (presumbly) claim tax refunds on items they’ve just bought at a huge shopping centre conveniently located in Weil am Rhein in the tiny sliver of Germany we ride through, unknowingly, before crossing the unremarkable frontier into Switzerland and Basel.

We ride straight along the bank of the Rhine where people are out enjoying their Friday afternoon. As soon as possible we join them, enjoying our post-ride beer in view of the Rhine. 

People are out and about swimming, eating, drinking, sunning, reinforcing my idea that nobody (except people in hospitality) work, ever, in this entire continent.

When in Switzerland, one should never convert CHFs back to AUD. It will give you heart failure, and set your credit card aflame. After realising we have paid something near to $AUD40 for two glasses of – admittedly lovely – champagne to celebrate our arrival into Switzerland we figuratively close our eyes, take a deep breath and resolve to enjoy our time here.

Stats for today:

• Distance: 40.42km
• Climb: 58m
• Average speed: 16.2km/h
• Average temperature: 27C
• Moving time: 2:29:37
• 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 one of the too-cool-for-school bars on the bank of the Rhine where the beer was great but the service less so. It was refreshing nonetheless.

Along the way today: