We have arrived at the North Sea!

Today was our last leg of travelling along the Elbe.

I look out the window to see what the weather is doing today. It’s not raining at least. Glimpses of sun. Squalls of light rain. It is throwing everything at us today.

It’s a nice breakfast. We don’t arrive later than our arranged time of 8 a.m. as we don’t want to upset Frau Don’t-Mess-With-Me.

We cycle to the station across wet cobblestones (ugh!) and buy tickets for the train to Cuxhaven. We plan to use this ticket flexibly and perhaps hop on and off but I have bought the wrong type of ticket. Argh!! Strong winds forecast. What to do? Decisions, decisions.

We decide to get off at Otterndorf; initially it was going to be Cadenberge but the weather was still not looking good. 

We had boarded onto the wrong carriage with our bikes so when the conductor came through, he asked us to move the bikes at the next station - to the other end of the train, of course! He was very nice but we had to cycle rapidly along the platform while he held the train. He had good English. Later I said to him there was no Bike icon on the side of the carriage - he agreed but said the bike carriage is always behind the engine. But we know that is not always so, don’t we?

At Otterndorf we fortify ourselves with a coffee and set out bracing for the headwind but in fact it wasn’t too bad as we were sheltered some of the way. It turned out to be a lovely ride - bits of rain, wind and sun. But shows you can’t always predict how things will work out.

At Altenbruch, when we climb up the dike, we are rewarded with the most fantastic view of the Elbe emptying into the North Sea. It’s a lovely spot with a little harbour. Lots of people are out, hiking and cycling.

Big ships. Lots of industrial and shipping infrastructure.

In Cuxhaven, in sunshine, sprays of rain and squalls of wind, we pull up outside a seafood restaurant (there are heaps of them) and celebrate our achievement with fish and chips for lunch. Lovely waitress - she had worked for some famous International dart players so her English was really good. Am noticing as we go further west, the level of English has really improved. Great fish!

Can’t go much farther west now! 

We have made it! The entire Elbe River from start to finish (with trains!). Mission accomplished.

Our accommodation is at an outer suburb called Duhnen. It had been hard to book anything - the reason being, today is a national holiday: German Unity Day (Tag der Deutschen Einheit). It commemorates the anniversary of German reunification in 1990.

Very odd thing here - there is a ‘spa tax’: we had to pay the owner of our apartment 2.50€ each to be able to go on the beach!!

While Cuxhaven had seemed very quiet, apart from restaurants (even the supermarkets were closed), in Duhnen there were hundreds of people.

We checked in to our apartment and quickly (with unloaded bikes) rode to the Kugelbake Fortress along the path parallel to the beach, threading our way through crowds of cyclists and pedestrians. The Kugelbake is an historic aid to navigation here at the northernmost point of Lower Saxony, where the River Elbe flows into the North Sea.

Cycled back. Shower. Rest! Have our lunch sandwiches for dinner. Good to stay in but later, just as the light is fading to almost dark, we step out and take a short walk up the dike to the beach which is of course: cold, cloudy and windy (no sunset). There are cute, coloured boxes on the beach - presumably the equivalent of beach umbrellas? But there’s heaps of people out and the restaurants - all of them, and some are HUGE - are packed!! A good night to have eaten in!

David buys a hazelnut eis (icecream) and we grab a mixed drink at the little Edeka supermarket which is doing a roaring trade today - all the others we’d seen earlier today (ALDI, Lido) had been closed. Am now sitting up watching TV (BBC News), relaxing!

Cycling distance: 31 kms