Cologne

Tuesday 13 - Thursday 15 September 2011

We arrived in Cologne around 3pm and headed straight across the river towards our campsite. We did stop to gaze at the amazing Dom, imposing over the city. The site was around 6km from town, on the opposite bank, so we were thirsty for a beer or two once we arrived. We setup and relaxed that evening.

Wednesday we rode to town, making note of the location of the Chocolate Museum (sponsored by Lindt...) before doing a little shopping.

Sand sculpture of the Dom.

The towers peaking above houses near the river.

Lawrie's kickstand came loose so it was removed.

Trees along the river.

Spectacular & delicate looking.

Looking at some of the flying buttresses. 

We decided to climb the tower and do a quick self guided tour inside. The climb was ok, if a little dizzying from the spiral staircases, but they didn't control access very well and we found graffiti all over the upper walls. It was a little disappointing to see such a great building ruined.

Looking down to the Rhine river over the love padlocked rail bridge.

The detailing on the spires up the top was crazy.

Looking up inside the tower.

The building stretches up seemingly forever.

Extremely high ceilings.

Beautiful stained glass work.

After the Dom we rode back along the river towards camp, stopping off at the Schokoladen museum. We decided the entry price was too high so spent the same amount in the cafe, sampling some yum chocolate treats!

Chocolate torte!

Multi layered choc cake!

View of the Rhine.

  We left the next morning, heading further South to Remagen.

Duisberg & Essen

Thursday 8 - Tuesday 13 September 2011

We spent the entire day riding from Xanten to Duisberg and arrived at the hostel around 4pm, competing with rain most of the day. We had a very stressful check in due to the receptionist, who had a knack of causing stress in both German and English! We stashed our gear inside and relaxed a little before going to check out the Duisberg Lanschaftspark, an old coke/steel plant, now a recreational area and artspace. The weather was against us but they had a great restaurant so we grabbed a beer and waited for the rain to stop.

Cool looking bike!

The weather cleared briefly so we climbed to the top of one of the blast furnaces and get a great view of the site. It was very cold and windy!

Kitty at the start of the climb up.

Looking back towards the main hall area.

The old industrial area is now mostly green.

Most of the plant was left intact.

Blast furnace

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Very cool, very high!

Kind of a titanic moment, on land...

Traces of industry still visible in the distance.

We had a very tasty dinner at the restaurant before getting a good nights rest. On Friday morning we took advantage of the good weather and walked around the park and getting some cool photos. Unfortunately we didn't have time to organise a dive in the gas tank or some rockclimbing around old rail lines.

Some semi clear skies!

This would be much more fun at the top...

Lawrie climbing whatever was around

Coal dollie cars.

Very industrial chic.

Lawrie just reading a map.

One of the many stacks.

We left Duisberg around midday and headed towards Essen. Our map showed two campsites located on the river just near town and we rode towards them. Unfortunately there weren't many bicycle lanes on the way so we spent most of our time on the road shoulders. We got to the correct point on the river and headed along for around 7km, both campsites simply did not exist! At this point, circa 5pm, we called it quits and had a beer while we worked out what to do. The guys at the restaurant were great and checked out a hotel for us at a good rate. We used the GPS to take the navigation out of the equation and headed to the hotel. After dinner we checked facebook and found out that our friend, Flo, who we first met in the Blue Mountains lived only 800m away! We caught up for a few beers and met Ina, who had got Flo to check his facebook! We glady accepted the offer of a few nights on their couch!

We moved our gear to Flo & Inas place on Saturday morning, after a fairly late start. We decided to head to the Deutches Bergbau (German Mining) Museum, taking the scenic route, given we had such great weather. A combination of poor maps, signage and stress caused us to abandon this plan and instead go to Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex. This has been converted like Duisberg Landschafts park and also houses the Red Dot design museum. We missed the English tour of the mine but spent the afternoon in the museum, checking out some really cool toys!

The first clear skies in ages!

Lovely morning for a sail

Headframe.

Fully enclosed wash plant...ugly! 

Very cool lantern guys.

Tree style shower head.

Glowing bathtub! 

Vacuums on a coal lift. 

Cool trike with fabric fairing

Lighting concepts abounded here.

One of the stranger designs in the museum.

Anyone can toss a wok like a pro with this jigger!

Old conveyor structure back to the headframe.

Sunday we woke to rain, a big pity given we were going to the Nurburgring! Flo's mate Mario collected us and we drove down to the track in the rain. He had just got a new car, a turbo, AWD Opel Insignia and was keen to test it out! We watched a few laps of old British sports cars before heading to the main pit area and promptly walking into pit lane. As it was windy and rainy nobody cared and we got up close and very personal with vintage F1 cars! The sound of these things was amazing! 

At the track! Hooray for rain!

Yep, officially there!

Yum, sorry about the rain splodge!

Nice looking tow truck!

Pit lane.

Yep, got video of this bad boy!

Small German premium car maker, not shown is the crashed one inside.

BMW 2002 turbo...Crashed Artega behind.

Original Lufthansa BMW Isetta, 3.3l/100km, in 1955...

After walking the pits we drove to the Nordschleife and had cake. Once the car was up to temp we went for a lap! It was great fun, Mario thouroughly enjoyed it and we had a few wiggles coming on power! Not bad for a 'Pamerswagen' (Nappy Wagon)!

Mario with his new beast.

Certainly looks the part, and MOVES...

The boys taught Lawrie some words to describe this.

Monday we caught the train to the mining museum, only to find it was closed! Dejected, we headed back and spent the day planning the rest of our holiday! We had a few beers that evening, once Flo had finished painting one of the rooms! 

Photo from Kitty

An attempt at a timer shot!

Eventually we get a good one!

Tuesday, we loaded up our gear, said goodbye and took the train again to the mining museum. They had some excellent models depicting working methods throughout the ages, though the 'modern' equipment was anything but. It was pretty interesting however and we joined an underground tour, where they essentially built and installed mining equipment in concrete tunnels, complete with expanding foam painted to look like coal.

Looking up the headframe.

Interesting take on a plow.

A very old ladder!

In the treasure room.

The dark and scary underground!

Longwall demo, around 50m wide.

Looking out from the headframe, it was SO windy.

2000yr old cogs...better than some modern builds!

After the museum we headed back to Essen station and onto a train to Cologne. This was a deviation from the original plan but we decided we could spend more time enjoying the nice bits, less time riding through industrial estates.