Day 12: Supposed to be Darmstadt to Koblenz...

Well... Last night's ride was supposed to end in Mainz, but there was no way I was going to make it, so as you know, I stopped in Darmstadt. This morning I fired up the Garmin and loaded my "Mainz to Koblenz" route and the SatNav asked "would you like to navigate to the start of the route?" Normally I say no, because I am at the start, but on this occasion I said yes. What could possibly go wrong? What should have been a 25 mile ride to Mainz, turned in to a 28 mile ride to Worms! 

No idea what algorithm the GPS was using, but I think it must have been "use the longest and most complicated route to your destination". Proper annoyed.

On the bright side, I suppose I got to see Worms, which looks like a nice place. 

Once I'd manually re-routed, I had a pleasant ride down through a wine producing area of Germany. Plenty of wineries offering sales and sampling. Would have been nice, but would have collapsed by the roadside if I'd started that.

Once I eventually got back to the Rhine at Mainz, progress was good, which made me more annoyed, because I could have been 3 hours further down the valley. 

The River Rhine is a lot different than the Danube. There seems a lot more commercial shipping, although there are still some river cruises. 

I stopped to take a picture at Bingen am Rhine and a youny Dutch lady asked if I could take her photo. We chatted about where we'd come from and where we were going as we rode on together, but I was struggling to keep up, so I made the excuse of taking another photo and she rode off in to the distance. Normal speed then resumed!

Ran out of time and energy at Boppard, so checked in to a hotel using my usual method - find the cheapest hotel available. Hopefully tomorrow I should be able to make better progress, past Bonn and Cologne. We'll see.

Justgiving.com/page/stellasjourney 

Blog.goingtothedogs.co.uk 

Amicii Dog Rescue and Rehabilitation UK 

Amicii Dog Rescue Romania 

#tractivegps