We awoke to clear blue skies and a pleasant temperature. Packing up our tent and belongings into the car once again, the tent hadn't quite dried from last night's rain, but it will be out again soon. Mrs Garmin( our newly named sat nav) managed to get us on the roads out of Luxemboug and on to the motorway to Speyer in Germany where we had arranged to meet Simon and Elly on their tandem adventure cycling down the Rhine . The motorways were a bit boring so we thought we would take a short cut to Speyer and see a bit more of the German countryside. This was a bad move as the road was not only slow and windy it lead us into a large traffic jam. We won't ignore Mrs Garmin anymore.

We arrived to check out our camp site only to find they didn't take tents. We went to look at the only other campsite in Speyer which hadn't had great reviews. On arriving we could see why , it was a disgusting field with a disgusting looking toilet block which was locked. No showers so not really an option with temperatures soaring to 36 degrees again.

We called into Lidl for supplies and decided to lunch by the Rhine under a tree and look at our options. We hoped to meet the cyclists on the path but by 3.30 we decided that we may have missed them. They had taken a route away from the river but we managed to meet them about half an hour later.. It was good to see Simon and Elly, having been cycling for 8 days they were looking fit and tanned even if a bit hot and sweaty. We discussed the options for sleeping that night and opted for a youth hostel room which offered safe bike storage.

Although the riders were all intact the poor tandem was suffering with the strain of it all , another spoke broken and gears needed sorting, so just the right time to meet up with dad. Once settled into our room the men went off in the car with wheel to be fixed, while the ladies could shower and chill.
The men eventually returned with fixed wheel and Simon looked for some clean clothes in his dad's bag, but even with all this exercise he wasn't going to fit into Graham's 30inch waist shorts, so only a clean T shirt to wear.

A short walk took us to the centre of Speyer with its quaint cobbled streets and beautiful Cathedral. The sun's heat was still strong but a shady restaurant with cool beer and good food was very welcome. Although the large portions left us very full the ice cream parlour on the way home was too much for Simon to resist , with an amazing selection of flavours the " after eight" probabably being the weirdest as it really tasted like after eight mints.

The hostel room was still like an oven when we got back so I wandered off to look at the Rhine where I found a tropical paradise right next door to the hostel. I thought I had stepped into a different World. There really was a sandy beach with palm trees, hammocks , deck chairs and loungers, and with the water in the background you could have been on a tropical island in the Caribbean. I quickly rallied the troops to come for a drink in this quirky bar, it was quite late and no more cocktails were being served which was probably just as well, but it was very nice spot to finish the hectic day.