Xanten to Arnhem. 25th May 2023.

• Mileage today: 45 miles
• Total mileage: 819 miles
• Disasters: Bike falling apart…

It was a cold night but we woke to bright sun. This dried condensation on the tent quickly while we had breakfast and packed.

Breakfast reached a new culinary low – cold veggie donner meat in day old naan bread washed down with instant cappuccino.

The campsite was lovely & we had the tent field to ourselves.

The only downer for the site was that the toilet block was miles from the tent. It was so far we rode our bikes there. It was on one such trip that I noticed a rattle from my front rack.

Investigations showed that one of the bolts holding the rack to the base of the fork was missing. No problem I thought – I’ve packed spares.

Problem was that the bolt wouldn’t tighten into the fork boss thread more than 3 to 4 turns. This left the rack loose – not tight to the fork boss. Don’t know the reason. It wasn’t mismatch threads – tried three different bolts. Maybe the thread was damaged as the old bolt worked lose. Who knows… Anyway to stop it moving on the bolt I used trusty cable ties. 🤞 it lasts the ride else Arnhem could be a bridge too far…

More pretty villages, now with windmills.

Even saw an old nuclear plant that had been turned into a theme park. Check out…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wunderland_Kalkar

More bread and donner for lunch, this time with crisps. Then on to Arnhem.

For those who don’t know Arnhem was the site of a famous battle during operation Market Garden…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Market_Garden

Tha battle at Arnhem was made famous by the film a bridge too far…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bridge_Too_Far_(film)

Anyway this is the famous bridge – now named John Frost Bridge after the commander of the failed attack…

We cycled over the bridge to our hotel for the night.