A glorious morning riverside Rhine. First to breakfast so we chose to sit outside, as it was warm already.

The last German breakfast for a few weeks as today we will cross the border into The Netherlands.

Sleepy Sunday morning, was very quiet, with minimal traffic on the roads and paths. That would change later in the day with the most incredible amount of ebike traffic we have ever experienced.

The air quality was awful. Very smoggy. You can hardly see the nuclear power plant funnel ahead. I make sure I take my ventolin regularly. I am an exercised induced asthmatic. However things like pollutants, pollens and cigarette smoke aggravate it.

I liked the church and statue. One person here getting ready.

Quiet roundabouts.

A quiet village.

Excellent signage. We had started just outside central Duisburg.

Ooh other cyclists. Many of the paths today ran along the top of flood barriers, or through farmlands.

We weaved near the river at times, lots of turns today. Left, right, left, right and so on.

Our bike computer makes such navigation easy.

We stopped at a riverside cafe that was open. Being Sunday we were surprised it was open. A popular river crossing place for the e-bikes. There were hundreds congregated here.

At the cafe, the lady a bit less tolerant at my pronunciation of Potte Kakao…..I then stood by the board with my finger against it after my multiple verbal attempts. She rolled her eyes and asked other customers….then she laughed. The customers didn’t and I thanked them. Danke and a smile goes a long way.

We detoured into the village of Xanten as it looked interesting,

Nice church and arches.

Town square.

Cleves gate, dates from 1393, the sole survivor to Xanten’s original five city gates. The upper section had to be replaced after WWII damage.

It has had a varied life of uses, including a prison.

The statue nearby was nice too. Thought it looked a bit like QEII on the left.

As we followed the old wall out of town to return to our route, our first windmill.

A violet lady outside the violet house.

We skirted around two connected lakes. Xantener Sud See and Xantener Nord See.

The dirt tracks had lots of walkers and cyclists. There was a variety of water uses including these swans.

The second lake.

Back riding along the river levee, sheep grazing with plentiful food to eat.

A distant church across nice green farmland.

Farmland to the right, with the Rhine still in sight.

Quirky.

Those barges keep ploughing up and down the river.

A cute deer farm.

Then a roadblock. This was one of those non negotiable types. We do consider how we can get through, but in this case, the pathway was totally ripped up.

We needed to backtrack and detour, adding 4 km to our day.

I liked this one. I feel like that at times.

We stopped in a bus shelter to snack and drink. Shops were closed and I was close to door knocking for water. As I sat there, I spied something up the road and wondered.

Sure enough, our first German vending machine.

We had many attempts to acquire product. We failed. A Dutch couple pulled up in their car, they had many attempts then figured it out.

Soon we had three bottles of nice cold liquid and two snacks we just thought we’d try.

Then the headwinds arrived, a few km before this sign.

Here we are.

The road ahead.

A pretty river. Two boats on the left moored and having a picnic.

And another one.

Unusual cycling traffic. Wide berth ebike.

Lots of bikes at church.

Cycling infrastructure is incredible. There are amazing cycle paths and intersections of high quality. Many people, of all ages, cycle.

Cafe open but we push on. A little further on there was a super busy street and we ended up getting off to push our bikes. There were some very ordinary people weaving all over the show. I did suggest to one man that perhaps he could steer straight and not ride like a drunk man. His wife had already shouted at him multiple times to no avail.

Cute streets.

The town of our destination.

We are staying out of town in an adventure cabin style resort adjacent to the Veluwezoom National Park.

They have an escape room that we won’t be using ha ha.

We have a timber cabin and a great spot for the bikes first decent clean up, oiling chains, more air pressure.

The bikes slept inside with us too.

The restaurant was not open so we sufficed on a panini after 111 km. Looking forward to breakfast.

The weather continues to be amazing and I’m looking forward to the next few days as the cycling looks excellent here.

After 10 days we’ve now ridden 980 km. That’s a solid average per day regardless of flatter inclines.

Thanks for reading 😁🚴❣️