Frankfurt | Chaos roaming the world

It only took one afternoon and one morning to make our flat look like a whirlwind went through. No matter, we’ll be back in a couple of days and can clean up then.

Number 3 and I managed to go to the farmer’s market to buy cherries as a road snack and fresh bread at our local bakery.

Repacking was easy as we hadn’t unpacked a lot in the first place. So by 9am, we were back on the road. The distance to our friends’ place in the Netherlands isn’t too bad at 340km, but with two small kids, you have to time everything just right.

The Agent slept and Number 3 was pretty good, which made things easy. Also, he can be distracted by audio books if push comes to shove.

brand new and cool charger – but it did not take my charge card. 5 minutes delay for the call but then for free …

Finding a fast charger was surprisingly hard this time. Only because we started to be a bit picky and also because we wanted to stop next to the autobahn before we got to the sprawl that is the start of the Rhein-Ruhr area marked by Cologne. In the end, we stopped at an e-on charger. Flo couldn’t get the charger to work with his charge card. After calling in to report the issue, they activated it remotely and we charged for free.

Again, there was no shade to be found. Plus, the actual rest stop was still closed on this side of the autobahn. Now we had the choice between a bench in the shade and a toilet at the fuel station or a walk across the autobahn bridge to the open rest stop. We chose to stay and eat our delicious bread and cheese.

With all the kerfuffle in the beginning our stop ended up one and a half hours long, more than enough to fully charge the car again.

This time Number 3 fell asleep while the Agent was awake for a while. We managed to get to the Netherlands before Number 3 woke up and immediately started to complain that he had to live his life in a car and never wanted to go by car ever again. It was quite a long way for kids, we understand that. Once there, we planned to stay put for at least two nights.

As it was, the last 30 minutes dragged with me trying to keep the kids from screaming. And then just like that, we were there. 🙂 A house, a big yard and garden, shade, kids, something to drink and the world looked brighter again for Number 3. Both our kids went off to explore and we had time to talk to our friend Leonie which we hadn’t seen in way too long.

She cooked a yummy veggie meal for us and Peter arrived before we all sat down to eat. All four kids demanded attention to get them fed and ready to sleep. By the time we had our two in bed and asleep (which didn’t take long), the others also were asleep. So, we had until 11pm to talk to Peter and Leonie before I had to fall into bed as well.

The one spot with shade – not in frame, the polish van driver just behind me cooking his dinner o.O

First thing you see in the morning

Our stay in Sommerach was lovely and filled with great food. Breakfast with fresh buns and good coffee gave us an excuse to hang around, spending some more time with family.

At noon, we had to go though…another 180km to Frankfurt. Just a short ride but an important one. Finishing the trip. Throughout most of the ride, our mood was pretty triumphant. Close to Frankfurt, we decided to take a detour so that we’ll come in on the A5 which would give us a view of the skyline. Shortly before we could actually see it, the mood turned sombre. We started to realize that these are the last kilometers of our trip. We had actually done it. We were still sitting on the same bike which had left Clifton Terrace in Wellington all those months ago.

Frankfurt, eh?

When Frankfurt came into view, I started crying. The mix of emotions was just too much: Happy that we had made it, sad that it was over, proud to have made it, happy to be home, missing Wellington like crazy. Just too freaking much. Also, this way I ended the journey the same way as it began: in tears. I’ve come full circle, haven’t I?

Arriving in the suburb of Okriftel where we would stay with more family, we went on a last little detour to the place where we had bought Rocinante. Unfortunately, no one who has anything to do with bikes was around. So we left again for the last couple of meters to our temporary home.

Arrived at Flo’s family’s place. Frankfurt needs to be added immediately

Just to be stopped again when we turned into the road where Flo’s family lives. An unconscious figure lay on the footpath next to a bicycle. A man and a woman were standing at the accident site, too, but it must have happened only moments before. Flo stopped and while the woman told us that she already called the ambulance, we could still offer our first aid kit as no one else seemed to have one. There was a lot of blood from a wound on her head. One of the helpers had just started cleaning the wounds and her face when she regained conscience and the ambulance arrived. Having witnessed nothing and being already the third persons to help, we cleared the road and left to finally arrive at our destination just down the road.

We’re home now. In one of our homes.