For the first time, the group decided to make their way individually to Rochefort, the destination for the day, rather than drive in convoy. I am not sure that it was a reflection of the state of cohesion in the group, but rather than everyone is comfortable on travelling individually, the Garmins are guiding us to the destination, plus it does give each of us a bit more breathing space. We had previously organised to leave the group for the evening and head to Dusseldorf to catch up with friends.
Before we left Heidelberg I spent some time trying to sort out my booking on the Eurotunnel train from Calais to Folkstone. I had booked it back in early February and could not find the confirmation, nor the email address I had used. I rang Eurotunnel to find that they could find the booking, but I had made it through an agent, AFerry. Not sure why, but it cold have been late at night. I tried to call them, no phone number on the web site or anywhere else for that matter. I could send them a message once I logged into My Account. To do so I needed my email address that I had registered with them. After spending half an hour in an endless loop, I recalled Eurotunnel and they gave me the booking reference number, which is all I hope I need to get on the train on Wednesday morning. It will be sad if we are left behind at this late stage.
A scenic route besides the Rhine was suggested. But the weather forecast was predicting some significant storm activity and I had to get some stuff done, including the blog, so we decided to take the easy way up the autobahn for the 4 hours to get there.
For most of the run, until we neared Dusseldorf, we crossed rolling, wheat covered hills. It levels out around Dusseldorf. The trucks were back on the road again and in different sections, the cars flew past us like we were not moving. We drove in the truck lanes and gingerly stuck our nose out and around to pass each with care.
We stayed with our dear friends Florian and Aurora Koehler and were joined for dinner by Rainer Ester and Markus Frings, long term business associates and friends. It was good to catch up.
