A day to forget?

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Sturzelburg => Duisberg, 66.56kms, Total 2167.44kms, Ride time 3'58""

I'm not sure what to make of today, there was no rain for a change last night, and we woke to Blue Skies, however my backside felt like it had knives in it for the first 10kms, and it was hard to get into the mood of the day.

At about the 15km mark, I managed to take the wrong turn to Dusseldorf, so we ended up crosing the Rhein and heading directly into town, rather than crossing it on the other side. Christie and I had a bit of a spat in Dusseldorf, just one of those one small thing lead to the other things, to be honest it all started with hre water bottle falling off her bike I think, and escalated to her being in tears, and me just being jack of it after us riding past all the toilets and cafes and just turning aorund to have my morning coffee and be dared what she did.

The thing was that we just timed it badly ,because Dusseldorf looked to be an amazing city, there were such cool architecture (I really liked the wobbly/wavy buildings, but didn't take a photo because I was riding off in a huff) and near the main square it was just these vine covered buildings an dlittle cafes everywhere. I just loved it.

Anyways, after we sat down, had a coffee, and reinvigorated we both felt much better, and really enjoyed the next 20kms out of Dusseldorf and into Duisberg (where we had decided to stay the night as neither of us was in the mood for a lond days riding).

The YHA we wanted to stay at turned out to be 8kms out of town, and it took many wrong turns and requests for directions before we finally found it. It was a lovely new YHA, and charged to match it (60 Euros or just over $100 for the two of us). Unfortunately they didn't have a laundry (we had been so excited about staying in a YHA and cleaning our clothes which hadn't had a wash since Basel), they also didn't have internet, and no there was nowhere nearby that had a laundry or internet ... we'd have tocycle the 8kms back into town. There were also no supermarkets nearby to get food. Christie did some more crying, and so I went off or a walk and settled down in a cafe with my book and drank a beer and had some hot chips and basically tried to get some good cheer back into my day.

Christie came out, then went for a walk, so after a few minutes I went off to find her, but instead found that the Industrial Park we were staying in (The YHA was literally part of a new urban park which was based around a giant old Furnace and industrial complex which yo could just wander around and explore)was really, really coold with little byways and alleys, and little paths gpoing everywhere. I climbed to the top of the 60metre furnace complex and could see right out over the whole city. It was beautiful, I also finally saw Christie walking back to the hostel, and as I jiggled the key in my pocket (the only kjey we had to the hostel) I decided that I best leave my wanderings and let her in.

Suffice to say I went out and had dinner alone, and really today was just a day to forget. Every holiday has them.


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