It's been another day of covering ground on what is essentially now the final stretch of the home straight. Much of the day has been spent diverting around congested sections of autobahn without inadvertently falling foul of umweltzones. A stressful game of pick your poison, if you will. At times it's all been a bit tedious and wearing.
None of the scenery, built or natural, has been especially noteworthy. It's not that it's been particularly unpleasant or anything, just a bit vanilla following some of the truly awesome stuff we've passed through over this past five weeks.
By around 4.00pm we'd made the German-Netherlands border and pointed the truck towards the Rhine. Doing this ordinarily ends well for us and by this stage in the day it's fair to say we both needed an easy and rewarding finish.
Upon parking Emma-the-Quester immediately took to the bike and disappeared off into the distance to look for a stopover spot, whilst I spent the next two hours parked by the mighty waterway lollygagging heavy shipping and birds. There were lots of both and the come-down time helped to calm some of the journey-induced frazzle. Best sightings were yellow-legged gull, green sandpiper, common sandpiper and a single white-fronted goose. Unfortunately the goose had obvious damage to a wing and though it was mobile and feeding may have had its migration disrupted and been left behind by its fellow migrants.
Emma's extended training session / stopover quest proved fruitful, which was a good thing because - as my trudge around on foot had revealed - the areas next to the Rhine in the proximity of where we'd initially stopped were, disappointingly for the Netherlands, pretty darned skanky. There was far too much in the way of litter, discarded bits of fishing tackle and toilet paper for my liking and the multitude of prime suspects bearing rods and lager tins dotted along the bank would do well to sort themselves out. Or at least carry a trowel.
Anyway, heavy shipping, birds, litter and excrement left behind, we moved to the spot we're now at. This spot itself was arrived at via another temporary stop off that overlooked a water body, and which lent itself well to half an hour with the bins (pic). We might even have stayed there but for the fact there were a couple of fishermen, plus a few dog walkers milling around: it all felt a bit too fussy.
So, after more shuffling than we're ordinarily used to, we are where we now are. It lacks obvious attraction but - because of that very characteristic - is satisfyingly unmolested. Less is often more.
At least here I haven't had to create a Princess Pad: an explanation may, at some point, follow...
Post composed at 22:30 on Monday 25th August from our intended overnighting spot N 51.87533°, E 06.05162° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:51.87533%2C06.05162