About a sandwich and a lot of Moselle.


The sandwich refers or the “Sandwich Method”. Most people
are familiar with this. If you have something bad to say or report then you
start with something good, followed by the bad and end with some good again.

While writing my last blog from Vietnam I asked the
question about if I should also report bad things happening while on my
travels.(at that time we witnessed the accidental death of two people at two separate
occasions.

The answers I received back were yes – you should report
them, they are part of life.

A sandwich consist of two slices of bread and a filling-

So here it goes- the bottom slice of bread.

Early in the morning we left our hostel in Luxembourg, which
was situated right next to a medieval castle, and headed for the town of Trier
just inside Germany, Trier is a very old town, with great architecture and
narrow cobblestone streets. The history of Trier started about 400 BC. Roman
ruins including an amphitheater dot the country side as well; all in all a great
place to stop for a coffee in the main square before starting a great ride along
the Moselle River.


The Moselle River twists and turns and folds back upon
itself many times over and runs North-East where it flows into the Rhine.

The excellent road follows the river with long sweepers
changing often to either side of the river. You can almost get drunk without
drinking a sip. With wine stalks are visible as far as the eye can see as it is
the prime growing district for...ahem... Moselle- (funny that!)

I have no idea where they came from but suddenly about 2000
to 3000 motorcyclist headed our way possibly to some sort of gathering. We were
force to stop but pushed our way through, glad to get away from it as it must
have taken 20 minutes for the motorcycles to pass.

We followed the river for several hours getting slightly
drunk from all the turns and decided not to go all the way to Koblenz where the
Moselle meets the Rhine but crossed over via a very steep and narrow road to the
town of Boppard and followed the Rhine from there to the city of Mainz.



We had booked a place to stay but where a bit puzzled by
the other guests; they look like a band of brothers, all the same round faces
with very short crew cut hair and a bleak stares in their faces. They turned
out to be Moldavians working in Germany. The owners of the hostel were
Russians. All in all not a happy lot.



Leaving Mainz the next morning we took the autobahn for
the first 20 km and adjusted the GPS to avoid all autobahns or high speed
freeways. We headed for the city of Nordhausen, roughly halfway to Berlin.

The roads we traveled on were now B-roads and run from
village to village with speed limits
ranging from 60 to 80 km/hour. Nice to ride this way, very relaxing while both
bikes returned a fuel consumption of around 25 km per litre.

The filling of the sandwich. (2 days ago)

As I have a GPS, Gert usually followed behind at a distance
that I can still see his head light. We passed the village of Bosserode and
headed out the next village via an undulating twisting road through the wheat
fields. When the road straightened out I looked for Gert’s light but it did not appear. I waited for two minutes
and decided to ride back and was met by a very confronting scene.

Gert was sitting by the side of the road with blood
running down his face and feeling a lot of pain in his leg and hand, further
down the road the bike was laying on its
side with oil and petrol running out.

I went over to
Gert to check him out and see if there was any major wrong with him.

With the help of a bystander I lifted the bike up and
noticed a hole in the engine cover. Several litres of oil were on the road.

Bystanders had already called an ambulance which arrived
at the scene about 10 minutes later.

Gert was taken care of by the medical staff while I
collected his papers, drivers licence etc in preparation for when the police would
arrive.

The police were very helpful and sympathetic. When they
interviewed the driver I heard the famous international slogan “I didn’t see him!”
to which I added. Because he probably didn’t look.

The police said that that was probably right but it didn’t
matter as the driver had failed to stop at the stop sign and was at fault.

Gert was taken away to the hospital 30 km at the town of
Bad Hersfeld while I cleared the paperwork with the police, meanwhile about ten
people from the fire brigade cleaned up the mess on the road.

I am still not sure what happened exactly other than that
Gert had lost control over his bike and slid down the road on side of the bike.
He had not hit the car. After al was done I rang the Dutch automobile club who
said that they would arrange everything and rang me shortly after to tell me that
a truck would be there in about 30 to 60 minutes.

In the end I waited 4 ½ hours by the side of the road before someone arrived. Some local
people were very surprised by all this and offered me a bottle of water and
some food. It turned out that the truck depot of the German RAC was only 10
minutes away. They had heard the sirens but weren’t contacted by the Dutch RAC
until 4 hours later. Meanwhile I was wondering how Gert was going.

Around 8 pm I was back in Bad Hersfeld and bought some food and water to
take to the hospital, when I arrived I found Gert feeling very sore with his
arm in a plaster cast, leg bandaged up from top to bottom and still a bloodied
face.

Meanwhile Gert’s sons were on their way and were expected
to arrive just after midnight to take him home.

By now it was 9.30 pm; the receptionist gave me an
address of a small hotel nearby and even rang them to make my reservation- all
very helpful. I felt like discontinuing this leg of the trip for the time being
but Gert insisted that I should keep going and do at least the BMW factory tour
in Berlin which I had booked. No more
riding for Gert for the time being, let’s hope that all is healed up before he
arrives in Australia around November 1 when we will ride again. Interesting
that Gert and I had a conversation about how people handle disasters. Whatever happens
it never affects me at the time- I am glad it works like that for me as I am
able to keep my head and thinking clear. But it always affects me the day after
though.

The bottom slice of bread.

After a good night sleep I set of for Berlin. A long ride
via the town of Nordhausen. This city was on our plan as a stopover for the
night which of course did not happen as the accident happened about 200 km away
from there. Nordhausen is (in) famous for a large concentration camp from WW2
and the factories where they manufactured the V1 and V2 rockets which the German
fired on the city of London. Prisoners lasted around 21 days in the factories
which were built deep inside the nearby mountain.

Unlucky for me all was closed as in Europe most museums are closed on Monday, however at the side of
the museum building I saw an open door and explained that I had come a long way
to visit the place. The man looked at me
and said “very well” , and turned on the lights and let me have the place for
myself with two others tourist. The nearby tunnel leading to the factory inside
the mountain remained closed though. Finally at 8 am I arrived in Berlin. More
of that later.

PS Gert is now at home and recovering.