The day after the Herne show I woke up with that same familiar feeling I've had a few times now on these bike tours. Heat stroke! Not to complain too much but this spell would have effects on me for the entire week, when past episodes only lasted a day or so. Aside from needing to sleep or at least rest during most of the days we were not cycling, I also had excessive sweating during the nights. Not a pleasant experience I hope to repeat ever again to say the least!

Luckily I had two days to try to recover before having to cycle 20km to the next concert.

I managed to get through a very cool bar show in Wuppertal, but had to go straight to sleep after. The next day I slept through most of the day, but that helped me to gather enough energy to play Kai & Pina's house later that night.

All the people who've hosted me during my heat stroke were so wonderfully sympathetic and understanding as I basically slept right up until I played, and again right after selling a couple records and saying hello to the guests. Not my usual style!

Starting the slow recovery process, I was feeling slightly better and we managed to cycle 37km to Düsseldorf with no issues. The first part of this trip was along a great cycle path over an old railway; there was a moment where the path went through what I can only describe as a cave-like hill where lights illuminated the path for cyclists and pedestrians. What was so unforgettable was the temperature noticeably dropped to a point were I felt incredibly cold, until coming out the other side back into the 25 degree heat.

We made it to Düsseldorf for a public concert at a place called Prinz Albert, a fun new bar where they just started doing concerts. My pal Alex came down from Hamburg to open and the awesome Dirk and his friends organized a great night.

The next day was our second of three Düsseldorf concerts, a house show hosted by Anna and it was a great fun night, especially since I was recovering more and more.

The last of the Düsseldorf concerts took place in one of the most unique concert venues, Das Büdchen. It was essentially a kiosk where people came to buy beer, or at least, that's what it was on paper. In reality it was an art gallery and launching pad for the ideas of owner and incredible individual Ökkes Yildirim, a man who not only makes his own coffee, beer and merchandise but displays his artwork and inventions in this space. This place was special and I felt so lucky to experience it. Even when I was playing, customers had an entirely respectful approach to purchase so quietly or just wait for a break altogether, so as not to disturb the concert.

Stay tuned as the tour as the tour leaves Düsseldorf, starts a new and final leg towards the Netherlands!

I played two last concerts in Bonn, one at friend Andrea's, in the communal garden at her place on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and another at a student common room hosted by some very cool girls who were studying there.

Over the next two days we cycled 53km through the industrial areas of the Rhine past Cologne to the city of Leverkusen for a nice Wednesday night concert at Elisabeth's. She also made us an incredible celery curry that we've been talking about since!

Next we cycled 50km to a very small town west of Düsseldorf, called Kleinenbroich, to a show hosted by the sons of past Aschaffenburg hosts Bernhard & Anja. What a night it was! The boys even made some 'Rob Moir' t-shirts with an image of my bearded face. It was hilarious and heart warming all at the same time.

We capped off the week by making our way to Herne to play a fun Saturday night show at friend Janine's before having a couple of much needed nights off.

Stay tuned as the tour does a southward loop on the way back to the Rhine!

We pushed off from Odernheim am Glan after having breakfast with Michael, easily making it to Bad Kreuznach, which wasn't so far, and going straight to Christian's house. A fellow musician himself, he was glad to host a concert and his friends were the perfect audience. He even started off the fun night by playing some acoustic songs with his band.

The following day we were off again, excited to be cycling the "Romantic Rhine". About an hour after leaving Christian's house, I noticed that I had carelessly left behind my hat and cycling jacket, something I very rarely do, having become very accustomed to keeping track of all my belongings as I travel.

I telephoned Christian who was waiting to hear from me, as he had just spotted the items moments before. He kindly offered to cycle up and meet us, promising he was looking forward to some exercise and that the trip wouldn't put him out of his way.

In the meantime, we had bigger worries. We cycled 20km to Bingen, but on arriving, we discovered that the only bike paths on the west side of the Rhine were flooded all the way to Koblenz, and the highways on the east side were closed to cyclists for the day.

So, unable to go anywhere, we waited in Bingen for Christian, meeting up with him about 5pm. Very luckily for us, he was able to find out that the water had receded enough for the bicycle paths to reopen at 6pm; this was great news as we were anxious to start our 140km trip to Cologne in time for the next gig!

When we finally got going, the path was all it promised to be; we passed castle after castle and the views across the river at the picturesque towns on the east side were amazingly beautiful. Since it was now late in the day, it was almost silent with only a few bikes passing us. There were a few puddles along the way, forcing us to lift our feet and cycle through slowly so as not to get too soaked, but it was almost too fun and nearly - nearly - worth all the rain we've endured.

We found camping for the night about 15km up the Rhine, near a town called Bacharach, just in time to watch what was to be Germany's last game in Eurocup, against France.

The next day we continued onwards, stopping in towns Oberwesel and Boppard for lunch, coffee and snacks, all the way to Koblenz where we camped for the night, cycling 52km in total. This was some of most pleasant cycling and most enjoyable scenery - the highlight of the Rhine for sure. We spent the following day cycling 42km from Koblenz to a campsite that we happened upon in a town called Remagen, which actually turned out to be an old allied prisoner of war camp from WW2.

The next day was an easy 10km north along the river; despite the next night's show being in Cologne, we had decided to set up camp much further south, just outside of Bonn, as we had 4 shows lined up there in the next week, and it didn't really make sense to cycle all the way north and back again. So I caught a train to Cologne and back for the show, taking my bike on the train. It seems it's only in Europe that you can take a train, spend an evening in a major city, and return to sleep in a campsite later that same night.

The next day we had another short 10km cycle up to Bonn, our home base for the next few days. We spent the first night in a wonderful space called Basecamp Bonn . It's essentially an old warehouse full of varied campers dating back to the 1960s that you can stay in. It's incredibly designed and easily one of the highlights of the trip so far!

We had a nice house concert at new pal Carmen's, and then another house concert at friend Katrin's (the second she's hosted). I then took another train back to Koblenz to play a special concert at friends Stelios & Nina's house for Nina's birthday.

Stay tuned for the tour heading further north towards Düsseldorf!

We had an easy cycle from Darmstadt, only needing to cycle 30km, crossing to the west side of the Rhine to a small winery village of Guntersblum. Once we got out of the city (which requires the skill of cycling the tight area between the tram line and curb while avoiding passing cars), we were into the countryside, coming upon our first "water taxi" of the trip at Nierstein. This was a new experience; we weren't sure if we needed to ditch our bikes for a ticket office first. It turns out tickets are bought on board while the ferry is in motion, at about 5 Euros for both of us and our bikes to cross.

On the other side of the river we cycled through some small towns (Oppenheim, Dienheim, Ludwigshohe) and the wineries in between, and while the weather was calling for rain later in the evening, we had this absolutely incredible view of the beautiful day it had been with this vicious storm just starting to dog-ear the page of the sky. You could see it growing slowly like a parasite and with only single digit kilometres to go, we could take the time to appreciate what was soon to happen rather than worrying about how to stay dry.

We arrived at Osch's home in Guntersblum, which has been built on top of an old winery. The cellar would be the stage for my concert, and what a sight it was: candles in old wine bottles trailed the stairwell down to rows of seats, old wooden wine crates everywhere. I left my guitar case in one of the huge wine barrels that had been converted into a private dining area for 4. The show was great, and was topped off by playing a duet with Marieke (Osch's partner) on the cello. She had got in touch with me to arrange this as a surprise for Osch! We played a couple of cover songs and he loved it.

After we said our goodbyes in the morning we had quite the trip up to Offenbach, where I had a matinee gig at Hafen 2. This is a venue I've played a few times, it's a wonderful large space situated on the Main River (a competitor river!). The owners and hosts are so welcoming to everyone; they organise concerts, show movies, have an amazing cafe, a sand pit and outdoor areas for kids, and they even have some farm animals.

Not only are there indoor concerts all year round, they have this beautiful area for a stage next to the river. Being summer and not a rain cloud in our way, we were able to do the concert outside, which was perfect. A lot of people had come on the Sunday afternoon and it was such a great time. I played a full set and afterwards some people politely insisted that I play more songs, so after clearing this with the rest of the audience (with overwhelming approval) I played all the songs I had left - cleaned out the archives if you will - and spent the rest of the day selling albums and drinking beer with the audience. It was truly a perfect summer gig.

The owners of Hafen 2 were kind enough to allow us to stay a couple more days pro-bono in their artist sleeping quarters since they had no concerts planned in the next few days, and this served us well. We rested up, cycled into Frankfurt so Eloise (who is Australian) could vote (which is mandatory) in the federal election, and I too needed to vote... on some new handlebars. Mine had all of a sudden, with no notice, broken nearly in half in my hands the day before! I had been able to salvage them for the afternoon by basically pinning the broken part in the stem, but this was an issue in need of serious attention.

After our couple of rest days, we were to head to Wiesbaden. I woke up on that morning feeling off, like I was a step back from where I wanted to be, and I realized I knew this feeling: it was heat exhaustion. This is mostly from not wearing enough sunscreen when outside (which is a large portion of my time), something I tend to do, and have suffered these consequences twice before on bike trips. Without sounding too much like a complaint here, let's just say it would make the next few days more challenging as the forecast was promising very warm weather. However, I somehow made the 50km to Wiesbaden in one piece, and the show took place in a very cool art gallery, a venue I had played once before. The guys Stucki and Andreas are fantastic artists and they have this playground of a gallery where they can do whatever they want. It's a great hangout spot with benches and a bar stocked of all sorts of drinks, and it was another great time had by all.

Next we were onto Bingen, bringing the tour closer to the "Romantic Rhine", a section we'll get to later. We played a house show hosted by the lovely Jacob and his roommates; this was one of the hottest shows I've played as it was 33 celsius and we were on the top floor. I saw the sweat drop off me during the first song but powered through. Feeling the weight of my heat exhaustion at the end, I put myself to bed almost immediately, managing to sleep a full twelve hours.

The next day I definitely felt my strength come back. We cycled 40km along the Nahe River through some beautiful rural land and more wineries, surrounded by huge rocky cliffs: it was scenery that we weren't expecting at all. We arrived in Odernheim am Glan - a tiny, sweet village - making it by just a couple minutes before a brief but heavy thunderstorm hit. Michael was the host of the show; he had been a sweetheart the whole time leading up to the show knowing how bad the weather had been in Germany. This guy has a heart that pours kindness and thoughtlessness; for my brief time with him I watched him set up a gig just perfectly, talk about social work he had done all around the world and observed him with the members of the community who came out, how he interacted with people of all generations. He had this hearty laugh and everyone gravitated towards him. He was their mayor. He even had to leave his breakfast early the next day when he got a phone call from a friend whose house was starting to flood from the heavy rain.

As for the concert, it was lovely, and wouldn't you know, it was in an old wine cellar as well! I managed to book-end the week by playing in two different wine cellars.

Stay tuned as the tour heads continues heading north to Bonn and Cologne via the Romantic Rhine: castles and more castles.

After what felt like an actual pause for once in the last 3 weeks of constant cycling and concerts, the 3 days spent at the Mainz city campsite was a nice break. From here, we made our way east past Frankfurt to Aschaffenburg. We picked the most conveniently located town on the map to stop for lunch, Seligenstadt, and to our surprise, we stumbled across the most amazing German wine festival! Unfortunately we couldn't stop long enough to partake, but it's things like this that we would never get to see if we were travelling by train or car as we usually do on these tours. The day's cycle ended in a very steep hill up to where friends Bernhard and Anja were waiting for us. This is the second concert they have hosted for me and although the last one was really really good, I think this one was even better! We had such a great time with them and their friends and family who are all such wonderful and fun people!

This was followed by a slightly easy cycle, 30km criss-crossing through the countryside to the small village of Otzberg. We had almost dodged the rain completely that day since the forecast was calling for heavy rain all around us, but as we were on our last kilometre (uphill, and on gravel), the rain started falling. Luckily it was more what I call 'polite rain' and when we arrived to meet Jutta, we received towels and world class hospitality right away. Her house was this incredible old-style country house (from memory it was 180 years old) and we felt so lucky to be welcomed there! We played a very nice chill concert, attended by local villagers and her children.

For any geography fans reading, you'll notice we have once again made a small detour from the Rhine. In fact, what we are doing is kind of a funny circle as we will eventually meet back up with the Rhine when the tour heads west in a couple weeks (but more on that later!). This circle was worth it to meet new friends and play some great shows and aside from the weather still being quite something to endure, the skies were just fantastic.

With a couple days off the bike for Eloise's birthday, we spent some relaxing time around the town of Weinheim which was excellent. Weinheim itself was a beautiful little town that we very unexpectedly stumbled upon (a little hilly though, luckily we had left the bikes at our accommodations outside town!). That whole area is very well connected and easy to travel by bicycle, tram or car both south to Heidelberg and north to Darmstadt.

After our couple of days off, we cycled a short 23km west to Ludwigshafen, a town right across the river from Mannheim, all the while watching the clouds (for a change!) to play a show at Dennis', whose house was pretty amazing! It belonged to a 90-year-old lady who had recently passed away, and he and his roommates are now renting it nearly as-is from her children - this includes her furniture, decorations and even personal items - there were even her photos still on the wall! The place had this hilarious feel of a bunch of students squatting at grandma's, but we loved it and the concert and people we met were ace.

We finished the week with a 55km trip back up north to Darmstadt where the very nice and energized Korinna organized a concert for me with her fellow students in a flat run by an Egyptian association from the university. At one point, the owner, an older Egyptian woman, walked right up to me smiling ear to ear to thank me for bringing music and this experience into a room where she never imagined such a thing could take place. She bought a CD and I left with a smile on my face, thinking that this little thing that I do can be a nice surprise to people of all ages from all parts of the world. What an honour.

The adventure continues north - stay tuned!