Flat is the word for the Lower Rhine, and the Hochwald is the exception that proves it. Near Uedem, on the German side of the Dutch border, a long low ridge of wooded hills pushes up from the plain, the leftover of ice-age glaciers that stopped here, dumping gravel and sand in a long arc. The ridge is not high, but in a landscape where a church tower is a landmark, it counts as a range. The forest is a mix of beech, oak and pine, with sandy paths and cyclists, and it is a favourite of weekend walkers. A scouting label like Hochwald 2 only tells me there are several viewpoints in the same area, so treat the forest as a whole.
The towns around are small and orderly. Uedem has about eight and a half thousand people, a church with a tall tower and, nearby, a NATO air defence base, while Kalkar, to the north, has about fourteen thousand and a market square lined with brick gables. The church of St Nicolai in Kalkar holds some of the finest late medieval carved wooden altars in Germany, made by local workshops, and is well worth a quiet half hour. A mile or two away, the unfinished nuclear power plant of Kalkar was converted into an amusement park, which is surely one of the great examples of German pragmatism.
For riders, the Lower Rhine is easy and gentle, with flat, straight roads between fields, windbreaks of poplars, old farmhouses of red brick and a lot of cyclists who ride three abreast. Surfaces are excellent, speed limits strict and speed cameras plentiful. Wind is the main challenge, and a headwind across open fields can be tiring. There are few curves, so the pleasure is in the pace and the scenery, the hedgerows, the cows and the long light of evening. Fuel is plentiful in Kalkar, Uedem and the larger town of Kleve, which has a castle on a hill, the Schwanenburg, and a fine view over the Rhine plain.
Asparagus season, from April to June, fills the local restaurants with white spears and ham, and autumn brings mist and geese flying in from the north. Spring is lovely, with blossom and fresh green, and mid-summer is warm and busy with cyclists. Winters are grey, damp and cold, but the air is clean and the forest is empty.