KAREN AND RAYS TRAVELS: 122 Our journey to Lyon

Sunday 16th September.

As usual a nice easy morning. Leon had done his escaping through the tent again during the night, goodness knows what he'll do once we are back in the tent on Gromit. We went into Offenburg again to sit at our cafe with internet, unfortunately it wasn't working so we wandered around the town until we came across some internet and had some dinner. Again our efforts were thwarted and we were only able to post the words and a very unflattering picture of me. Whilst we were chewing on a delicious chicken and chips we were joined in the restaurant by 3 green clad men on horses. When we say in, we mean in. They rode their horses between the the tables, dismounted, were presented with a beer each and chatted to the customers. It was surreal but extremely quaint and funny.

Hay !! Wheres my beer. You've neigh chance....

We are moving on tomorrow so back at the campsite we started loading Wallace back onto the trailer. We were joined by a lovely couple from Norway, Sylvia and Nils Nordhus. It turns out they recognized Gromit from when we were in Norway last year, even down to the fact that we had a new box on the top and now had the bike with us. Sylvia is originally from Dundee, but speaks fluent Norwegian. Her English had a distinct Norwegian/Scottish twang. They spend a lot of their time traveling also. The world really is getting smaller.

Sylia and Nils.....That Landy looks familiar...

Monday 17th September.

The tent was dismantled and Gromit made ready for take off. We said our goodbyes and we headed deeper into the Black Forest to Freudenstadt. The sun was shinning and it looked beautiful.

Make with that sausages...

Freudenstadt town centre

The last time we were here it was raining, cold and miserable apart from all the Christmas lights. We have fallen in love with the place all over again. Our campsite is right in the middle of the forest and is very peaceful. There is Wi Fi here so Ray went and sorted the blog out and I joined him later only to find out that he had received an e-mail from Peter who had arranged our accommodation in Santander, that they did not in fact take cats. He was very apologetic, but it didn't alter the fact that we now had no where to stay. We searched ourselves for accommodation and e-mailed him back with the details, and awaited our fate. We set up the BBQ, and had a meal under the stars.

Tuesday 18th September.

We awoke to the sun pouring in the tent and birds twittering away, it was a nice way to wake up. Better than that was the one time we were glad of the mobile phone ringing as it was Peter to say that he had got us into another hotel nearby and they would definitely take the cat. Crisis averted.

We are headed south today in the Forest and spending a couple of days here before we go into France.

The weather is fabulous and the area is just so picturesque, I love my life. We lunched in Wolfach. It is a beautiful little town and we have been here several times now. However we had never seen it in the sunshine.

Wolfach main street.

Their attention to detail was amazing

We ended up near Rheinweiler in a campsite, just north of the Swiss/French/German border. They served curry wurst so Ray was a happy man. We put our new super duper tent up, but decided to sleep on Gromit.

Leon enjoying the sunshine

It hammered down with rain through the night.

Wednesday 19th September.

The rain had finally stopped when we got up. Ray went to look in our new tent (which had all our clothes in), and found that it had puddles in it. This is not good news, because we spent a lot of money on it because of it's durability. Our all singing and dancing tent was turning into a complete dud!. Several phone calls later we are hoping to get a new one shipped to Billy's place in France, and Billy is going to take our one back. It was basically a quiet day just getting everything sorted. Several more people joined us in our little parking area. They all had motor cycles, so straight off it was something in common. We had Ollie and Christiana from Dusseldorf, and Annie from Copenhagen. Ollie was a loud, gregarious character and Annie had been traveling around Europe on her bike by herself. Brave girl. It was quite an entertaining evening.

Thursday 20th September.

Sun is shining again and we are taking down the tent, it had been cleaned and packed with tender loving care, even if it is rubbish. That's not technically true, in principle it is fantastic, I just think the Gremlins got to it before it left the manufacturers.

The morning mist covering the Rhine. France in the distance.

Poor Annie also had her problems, her bike chain was about to snap, so between them, Ray and Ollie found a dealer who could fix it for her but not until tomorrow. We all left her to her fate.

Annie with a very sick bike.

Ollie and Christiana. Mad as frogs but good fun.

We are on our way to France, but driving through Switzerland just because we can. High up in the hills we found a lovely spot for lunch and for Leon to stretch his legs.

Lunch in Switzerland

Most of the scenery was this good

Our campsite tonight is called Las Fuvettes in Malbuisson, near Champagnole in France. It is on the side of the lake and really quite lovely. We met another British couple, although they might argue that as they come from North Wales. We cooked in the open again and then had an early night.

Friday 21st September

My god it was cold last night, 2 degrees. This is the coldest we've had for a long time. Leon and I cuddled up together in my sleeping bag. It was still cold when we got up, but the sun was out and a low mist was hanging over the lake. It was lovely, but eerie too.