Rain on the Rhin

We woke up this morning to unsettled skies but only a chance of showers in the forecast during the day. We were on our way by 9:15, acutely aware that this was our last real day of adventuring. We may do a bit more cycling in our last few days before coming home, but we knew that by that afternoon, we would have reached our final destination: Basel. It’s hard to believe we started out in Brussels almost 3 weeks ago! The time has just flown by.

We backtracked this morning several kilometres because we wanted to do the first leg of our journey today along the Rhine-Rhône Canal and avoid some busy roads. We were on this canal for 8 or 9 kilometres until it reached its terminus at the Rhine, between the little towns of Niffer and Kembs. At this point, we found a picnic table for our morning refuelling stop.

The Canal du Rhin au Rhône

From Kembs, we took the Huningue Canal, an early 19th-century canal that is mostly unused now and whose locks have been mostly dismantled. But it does boast a lovely crushed gravel bike path used by the EV 6 and 15. Like the Canal de la Brûche, it has begun to rewild and is a beautiful ride. It also runs right through a natural reserve called La Petite Camargue, a series of ponds where aquaculture was once carried out. We had lunch along the canal, opposite the reserve and just a few kilometres east of Basel-Mulhouse airport, from which we will be flying home in a few days.

On the Canal de Hunningue

Dramatic skies over the Petite Camargue

Since we had some time before we had to be in Basel, we decided to go into the reserve itself and walk our bikes around. It made a nice change of scenery, and we saw some lovely birds, including a green woodpecker and a Eurasian jay. Then we pushed on with the final few kilometres of our journey. The Hunningue Canal ends (or rather begins) at the Rhine, and right at that point, you can see three countries. On the opposite shore, to your left, is Germany; to your right is Switzerland; and from your vantage point on the west bank of the Rhine you are still in France

Where three countries meet

We turned right, up the Rhine and soon crossed the border into Switzerland, at which point we texted my friend Catherine, whose apartment we are borrowing for a few days, to let her know of our impending arrival. After settling in and chatting with Catherine for a little while, we went to get some groceries, made supper, and then headed out to wander around Basel for a little bit, a town I was last in in 2009, when I bought my alto trombone and we spent 2 weeks in Switzerland, enjoying the marvellous train system.

Unfortunately, at this point, the skies had decided to open up, and by the time we returned to the apartment, we had received a worse soaking than anything we experienced on our bike trip.

Le Rhin in the rain