Made it to South Germany!

Anita here.

Hah! The best laid plans of mice and men blah blah blah.

It was the moment that we’d been working towards for a very long time. We were stood outside our house, about to leave and the battery on my bike was flat! Flamin’ heck! A quick bump start from the guys 2 doors up and off we set. Great.

Half way to Dover my speedo cable stopped working and thinking that we’d never get a replacement cable, we happened to go past the Dover Honda dealer. The kind guy there stripped one off an old bike while Matthew stripped our poorly bike down on the carpark, then cable in place and bike re-assembled…off we continued to Dover. Well, the ghetto of Dover! Thankfully / surprisingly a peaceful nights’ kip. Morning ferry to Calais went smoothly, then a 4 hour ride to a very basic hotel stop-over in Liege the other side of Brussels.

Unfortunately tomorrow brought another hiccup. My tyre was flat in the morning. It must have been just a leaky valve, and we were soon off to Mannheim to see Matthews childhood pal, Richard - who luck of all luck, runs The Shamrockpub in LadenburgerStrasse. Of course we had to do the decent thing and drink copious amounts of beer for the following 2 days. We had a wonderful time and met some lovely people. He even put us up in an apartment - what a great guy.

Hiccup number 4. After the overnight rains, our panniers were swilling with water and the contents soaked. Nice.

We mopped up as best we could and headed towards Mullheim on another 4 hour ride but in a torrential downpour this time. Conditions on the autobahn were interesting but after a while rain ceased and the journey went routinely. Our destination was to see my mum and Bill who we hadn’t seen for a couple of years. We arrived soaking wet, tired and hungry as we hadn’t eaten for hours. An hour later we’d showered, eaten and began to relax. So nice to see my mum again.

A full agenda had been arranged for our 3 days in Mulheim - this included being introduced to many friends, having an interview with a local newspaper and giving a talk to a group who meet weekly. Phew! What it is to be a celebrity couple! We’ve been camping near Mullheim in the grounds of a beautiful hotel thanks to the kind owners, the family Muller.

This is Anties Christine and Karin, Bill, me and mum in Staufen.



And this is the house that Dr Faustus lived in when he is said to have sold his soul to the devil for the secret of making gold. Shame that some twit has cracked all these famous buildings when they were drilling for water.

Several kind friends of mum and Bill in Mullheim have made donations to our charity, and these will be added as soon as we have internet access.

Hiccup number 4.

We left the partition open in the tent to keep cool overnight, and woke up to find a tent full of ants - soon rectified as I mashed every blighter with my thumb - yes it did take me a while! I hate ants.

Today we’re ‘chilling;’…..up-dating our blog and checking the bikes over. Tomorrow will be another adventure - we’ll be an hour further south seeing my cousins who I last saw when I was only 14! They are all living in Lorrach, very close to Swiss border. After catching up with them for a couple of days we’ll start our trip in earnest, we promise. It’ll be across the Alps into Switzerland, then Italy, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia etc etc.. After the home comforts and luxury of being looked after by friends and relatives, this is where things start to get less cosseted!