1000km !!

Tuesday 7th September
We have had lots of unexpected events over the last few days. We crossed over the border into France and we have had problems finding somewhere to stay every night since. Hotels either look like the Bates Motel from Psycho or they are full, there is nothing in between. One night we asked a local B&B owner if he had room, of course he was full but he found us a room in someone's house. The old lady who lived in the house didn't speak English and we don't speak German so we had a lively conversation in the morning whilst she sat at the table watching us eat breakfast.
We then stayed in Strasbourg which was full because the European Parliament was sitting. I managed to find one room (a suite) and my credit card is still yelping! I have to say Strasbourg is a beautiful city and we would liked to have stayed a bit longer to explore it.
We woke up this morning to rain and it has bounced it down all day. Can't complain really as it's been the first day of rain since we left the Pennines behind.
For those who know of Sod's Law, then they will understand when I thought, I didn't say because that would be tempting fate, I just thought that we had been lucky with the bikes. In the next few minutes the spoke on my back wheel snapped. It was also the spoke that needs you to remove all the rear cogs to replace...nightmare! we are on a bike path in the middle of a corn field in the rain and my back wheel's knackered, lovely! Thankfully a local farmer helped me to cut off what was left of the spoke and I straightened the wheel as much as I could. Tina was overjoyed when I told her that she had to carry extra weight so I could take strain off my back wheel. We then limped on to hit a day's total of 115km and we are now staying in the Bates Motel 30km outside of Basel, it goes down as a 'character building' day!!
We have passed the 1000km milestone and we had a group hug to celebrate! I wanted a beer to celebrate but we were in the middle of nowhere. By the way, if you ever feel England is filling up, come to France, there is nobody here! The amount of villages we have cycled through and there are no shops and no people, you start to wonder how they eat and where are they?



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