Langst to Millingen

Yesterday morning was beautiful - cool and bright and fresh after the rain. It began for me with a ride from the riverbank at Langst through some of Germany's older industrial areas with old iron bridges, rusting docks, disused freight railways and vast brick-built factories, which are still going with their mysterious occasional clanging sounds and their steam stacks rising into the sunny morning sky. From a large bridge over the river, factories lined the west bank as far as I could see. On the east bank, I entered and quickly got lost in Duisberg (I never found out how to say it properly so please don't write in asking). A kindly cyclist wearing driving glasses patiently put me on the right track with some complicated directions (in German - I seem to be getting the hang of it) and I made my way to the docks. There was a large Arab-Muslim population there, and given the lack of ethnic Europeans and the Arabic shop names, often without German translation, it seemed to be a very segregated community, almost a ghetto. I get the impression that where there is xenophobia here (and every country has it) it is quite vociferous. It's election day on Sunday and I've seen quite a few party political posters campaigning against mosques. The Green Party is the only one to show posters with anti-fascist messages, the others would rather steer clear of the issue, perhaps. There can't be a lamppost in Germany that doesn't have an election poster on it. Rather than our rather dull Vote Labour or Vote Conservative window posters, here there are big signs showing the smiling portrait of the candidate with their message, which is usually something like 'YOUR CHOICE FOR BURGERMEISTER', which in translation suggests an employee of the month competition in McDonalds but that's not what's going on here. The socialist posters have mini-essays on them about human rights for everyone (what does saying that actually mean as a political choice?) and other favourite wishes of beauty queens. There are so many political parties that it's quite dizzying being told to vote for one of them every time I pass a lamppost. I have looked into the smiling eyes of every candidate in Germany between Switzerland and Holland and I can tell you the effect is it's quite mesmerising. Luckily, I decided a few days ago, somewhere around Breisach, as I looked into the eyes of Dorothy Mogg (or something like that), that she was the one for me, and she gets my vote. And no, she's not beautiful, except on the inside. What I want to know is how all the lampposts are allocated to each party? Is there a great lamppost lottery in which every lamppost is written on a ticket and pulled out one by one? That's how I'd do it, anyway, it might be long-winded but fair's fair.
Eventually excreted from the back end of Duisberg, I crossed the river again onto the west bank and headed north along the dike cycle path. Here the river is very wide, fast-flowing and crowded with barges steaming flat out and overtaking each other. The etiquette is to slow down if you're being overtaken but some don't bother. It's amazing there aren't more accidents - these things weigh thousands of tons and take several hundred yards to stop when steaming downstream.
I was fairly zooming along with the wind at my back, stopping only to eat, gongoozle and look at the map, but something was wrong with Raquel - a little wiggle in the back wheel. Hm. I stopped and found that the outer tyre was starting to split. If it split, it would be irreparable until I could get to a bike shop, which would mean a walk of several miles. I took a bearing, put a finger in the wind, genuflected, said three hail marys, turned around three times without thinking unclean thoughts, offered incense to the sun god (but it didn't want it), and made all haste to the next town with a bike shop, 12 miles away, bumping along. It occurred to me that Raquel had made over 2,000 miles so far, usually laden with most of the weight over the back tyre, so it's not surprising that it had decided to try to burst. Praise be, we made it to the bike shop in Xanten (lovely town) and all was saved, and Raquel was quite combobulated to get a brand new tyre, too - so was I, it was new and I kept wanting to touch it. I get like that with wet paint, as well.
Campsites are few in this bit of Germany and at 5 o'clock I still had 30 miles to go to the next one so I rode on into the evening. The sun mellowed and it became a very peaceful ride to the border town of Millingen aan de Rijn. The campsite was an old farm, the sun was about to set and just catching a few wispy clouds, which shimmered in Holland's vast sky. A woman who was walking next to me started to make strange noises with her mouth, not unlike someone talking backwards, but faster. This was Dutch. I instantly pressed one of my only two dutch phrases into service: Ik spreek keen nederlands. She scoffed at this, held her hands up to the sky and said, Mooi! Mooi! Beautiful!