Incredible Journey, Traveling The Rhine-river

We arrive, on this incredible journey, yesterday after a long long journey, late in the afternoon and we’ve just been at city hall. We asked for a permit, and received one! The local authority allows staying here with our fence, horses and wagon. It’s a fantastic spot, 45 yards from the river Rhine.

Short story about Yesterday:

It is boiling hot (about 33 degrees Celsius.) (92 Fahrenheit) and we’re driving on the motorway for hours. Slow traffic is allowed here, but it’s still a little bit weird seeing all that traffic speeding by. People do watch out, but still it’s a daring journey and not very comfortable.

Aysha is having difficulties with the heat, after an hour of walking she is breathing like a horse. Her belly is moving up and down, nostrils wide; we are really feeling sorry for her. We give her plenty of time to recuperate but the will to work remains. Around six we have to take one more hill and Aysha squeezes out one more gallop on own initiative! Incredible!

LahnStein

Somewhere in the afternoon, we’re resting on a parking-lot alongside the road. There’s a woman with a painted delivery fan as well telling us she compose sentimental journey lyrics. Interesting enough but we need a place! We asked her if she knew a place to stay for the night. She arranged a friend and he explained to us that 4,5 miles down the road are lots of grasslands. We headed that way and passed through the centre of the village of Lahnstein.

Affirmation

In the morning, after some journey meditation, we decided the necessities for the horses: hay and oat. Also we wanted a map with cycling routes to avoid, or minimize, roads like mentioned before.Lahnstein is a typical Old-German village. With an old town, centre (Altstadt)

Promenade

Here we stopped to buy a map with cycling routes. While I wait at the yoking, a middle-aged man with overalls comes up to me and tells me the horses are tired and need some food.

I know myself good enough by now not jump into conclusion and think the worst of people, so I keep asking what he means. Remember, we are still in the town centre right in the middle of a promenade. Anyway, in the end, after I bought a map, I’m walking around with a big bale of hay given to me buy this friendly man. This incredible journey is full of surprices!

Ultimate Journey

We’re still not at a spot to stay for the night so we must keep going. The friend of the “delivery-van woman” explained to us a spot with hundreds of meters of grassland along the River Rhine. We don’t know why, but we can’t find the spot that he mentioned, so at the end of the afternoon we ended up in Braubach, this is a town near the river, worth mentioning at this incredible journey is the last knight’s castle of Germany.

We do find a fallow piece of land between to rows of houses. We decide to take a gamble. We have learned in the mean time that the Germans are very friendly, as long as we communicate. Most of time this means, like this example that we ask the neighbors if it is their land, or if they know whose land it is. Therefore, that’s what we did.

Incredible Journey

The horses, and we, are literally exhausted and our fuses are burned up. In addition, here the doors of sympathy open wide. Of course! No problem! The land is owned by the city council but they haven’t used it for years.

Sometimes horses do graze there, but that has been a while as well. We probably need water? Moreover, electricity? We’ll take care of that. If we need anything else just ring the bell at the Holzhauzen family.

City Hall

To be sure, it’s best to visit city hall and tell them we stay here, they won’t have anything against it, they know from experience. Therefore, we went to city hall this morning and they were right: not a problem at all to stay for three nights. This morning I got three more cans of water at the Holzhauzen family, I soaked his floor but he didn’t mind and cleaned it himself. The electricity has been connected and if we need anything at all, just rings! They leave us alone and are as free as a bird. We can’t ask for more. (That is how we every day get what we need on this incredible journey, and sometimes even more!)

John

More hospitality on this incredible journey and places where we stay.

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