June 5-8 Chaumont to Freiburg

Three days of cold, rainy weather!

We left Chaumont Thursday morning heading for the village of Xertigny, our longest day yet at 130km. It poured with rain the whole way. The route was beautiful though, taking us mostly on quiet roads through small villages. The "campsite" at Xertigny turned out to be a rough, recently-mown field with a long walk to shower and toilet facilities at the local football (soccer) stadium. We huddled like penguins, cold and soaked, and rebellion was in the air... Fortunately the good citizens of Xertigny took pity on us and opened up the local recreation centre for our indoor camping pleasure. The next day took us through increasingly mountainous terrain and over the Col de la Schlucht (1140m) into the Alsace region. The summit was swathed in a damp mist, with a long, chilly descent into Munster, a charming little Grimm picture-book town with storks nesting on the chimney stacks. The architecture is more German than French, and we began to hear German in the streets. Here the campsite was decent, though the rain continued all night. Saturday's route to Freiburg was relatively short, so I joined my tourism and cafe-oriented cycling companions and we meandered through Munster, Turkheim and Colmar taking photos. We crossed the Rhine into Germany at Breisach and reached Freiburg early afternoon. Our first hotel since we left Paris! Everyone is bright and cheerful again today.

We are beginning to get to know each other better -- it is a very diverse and interesting group. There is the recently-retired chief executive of a large South African company riding tandem with his wife, consultants and academics in various fields, a dentist, an outdoor education teacher, a retired dairy farmer, a lobbyist for the NZ oil and gas industry... about 40 people in all.