Day three

I leave my campsite in Erstein just before 10:00. It was a vast improvement on the previous night, despite rowdies on scooters racing through the night, nevertheless I still managed to get some sleep. I continue on the Rhein canal cycle path, which also serves as the Eurovelo route 15. A happy discovery as it save me searching for it. It's a very tranquil setting as the canal appears to be no longer in use, which seems a pity. After travelling over 40km along the canal the scenery rarely changes from that of the image below. That can get rather monotonous after a while. Still, it's far better than traveling on the road with the amount of traffic these days.

I  make excellent progress and plan on a 70km run today, which was easily possible. However by mid afternoon storm clouds had gathered and it became so dark even car drivers had their lights on. My smartphone battery was almost dead and my power bank too. It was cloudy all day so my solar panels had no chance to charge anything. I decide to stop and find a campsite. I found one but it was closed. Close to having no ability to navigate I reluctantly decided to find a hotel. I soon found one on Booking.com but my smartphone only had 3% battery left. My card payment is refused, I forgot it's the end of the month when it's always empty. I note the hotel address before everything shuts down and put it into maps.me with at least some hope of getting close to it. Luckily the hotel is less than a kilometre away and pedalling like crazy through the town I hope my phone battery will not die on me before I get there. Amazingly I manage it thanks to maps.me excellent navigation. I had clocked up 51km today, which was not bad, however 70km would have kept my average up above 60km per day, which was the minimum I hoped to manage. At least now in the hotel I could charge everything and upload photos without using data roaming. The weather can only get better as I head south, surely. It's still August!

All along the canal route there are locks and the lock keepers houses all kept in excellent condition. Some owners offer refreshments but I suspect their days of manning the locks is long gone. In 40km apart from a couple of moored barges I never saw a single boat, barge or canoe moving down the canal.

I discover that the hotel is in Neuf-Brisach, which is an unusual fortress town and a UNESCO world heritage site.

Note that there are some Blogger bugs leading to some words missing in the text. Just don't ask.