Trying to get home ....

As always on our adventures, travelling is never without its issues. This last day on our holiday was no exception. 

We travel on standby tickets. We had planned to travel out of Amsterdam, but the one flight a day was very full for a number of days. So we had to look elsewhere for flights. Frankfurt has two flights a day, and there were a few flights that had a few seats. So we needed to plan to get to Frankfurt. In most cases this would be an easy 3 hour ICE train from Amsterdam, or a 4 hour Flix bus ride. However, we had massive bike bags which were not allowed on the ICE trains, and Flix buses could not guarantee us a place with our bikes on the bus. So we needed to look at getting to Frankfurt using regional trains that we could take our bikes on.

We had spent quite a bit of time planning our route and trains to catch and ensuring it all lined up. 

We had a good plan, and for the first 30 minutes, everything went to plan. Then the booked taxi VAN did not turn up at the requested time, 15 minutes later, a Mercedes sedan turned up which was not going to fit in 2 bike boxes and 2 suitcases and a 3 people.

After a quick appraisal of the situation, the driver contacted the company and a VAN would be on its way - in 15 minutes. We had a train to catch in 20 minutes... we did not make the planned for train ... and so the days plans were thwarted from then on. We spent longer waiting for trains than we should have and if the plane out of Frankfurt had not been delayed by 2 hours ... we would not have made that either.... 

The plan was to catch the 8:21 train from Amsterdam Zuid to Venlo. We missed that, and we knew this was going to mess up the carefully calculated plan we had created the evening before, so we went to the ticket counter to see what we could do ... they played with the timetables and really could not find anything that was going to work, and could sell us tickets for about 250Euro to get us through the Frankfurt. Wayne had seen that the German Trains have a special all day deal for 52euro - but we could only buy it in Germany. So we bought a ticket for ourselves and ur bikes and got on the 8:51 train to Venlo. 

This lef of the journey was quite pleasant, our bikes in boxes took up quite a bit of space, and the Netherlands trains are not very good for transporting many bikes, There were three other people with bikes on our carriage, one was standing in the entry and exit with her bike. the Ticket people came along and told her she had to get off at the next stop as the bike was impeding traffic. It wasn't, but as much as the Dutch like bikes, they do not like them on trains. The next stop was quite a way, but it was still earlier than the stop she wanted to get to. I felt a bit bad about that. We had a chat about our trip to the other cyclists and got some top tips for next time.

Amsterdam Zuid - > Venlo train 2:42:00

Wait on Venlo station  - 1:00:00

We arrived in Venlo, waiting an hour for the next train. After boarding the train to Mönchengladbach hbf and crossing the border, we got online and bought our day tripping, unlimited regional train rides ticket for two people for 52euro - we certainly got our money's worth on this ticket.

Train to Mönchengladbach hbf 00:30:00

The train to Mönchengladbach hbf was packed as it was a beautiful Sunday and people were out and about. it was on this train we learned that the plane we had given up on catching was delayed by at least 2 hours.  We were still in with a chance!

On arrival in Mönchengladbach hbf we needed to cross the platform to get on the train to Koblenz. This train was also packed. It was a bit tricky moving across the platform and then finding space for all our bags and ourselves. Sunday probably was not the best day to do this sort of travelling.

There were many tired looking young people on the train who had been staging a huge protest at one of the mines in Germany. 

Train to Koblenz -> 2:32:00

Wait on Koblenz station  - 2:00:00

At Koblenz we needed to catch a train to Frankfurt airport. These only ran every 2 hours on a Sunday and we had just missed the last one by 3 minutes. So we sat on the platform in the warm sun people watching. 

A very old train turned up a couple of times on the same platform and we discovered it was the tourist train to take people to the local train museum in Koblenz. Maybe next time. 

The train journey from Koblenz to Frankfurt was filled with cyclists who had been out enjoying the beautiful weather. German trains are so much better at carrying bikes. 

Koblenz to  Frankfurt Airport-> 2:00:00.

We turned up at the airport after 4 trains, & 11 hours traveling and waiting for connections at stations, (think the butterfly effect of public transport) we check in. It was supposed to be 4 trains and 7 hours travelling in the original plan.

We managed to get to the check in counter within 10 minutes of our check in limit time, the bags were checked and we were able to board the flight - hurried through the check in zone as there was a bomb scare in the departure area of the terminal, and the area was being cleared. We then set on the relatively trouble free journey home. 

Waiting at Hong Kong airport for our connection to Sydney on 24 June, we got home on 25 June at about 2pm after leaving Amsterdam 8am on Sunday 23rd June.