Come in late October and the sky over this corner of the Lower Rhine fills with noise. Tens of thousands of geese, mostly white-fronted and bean geese from the Arctic, winter on the wet meadows along the Rhine between Xanten and the Dutch border, and in the evening they stream in over the fields in long, restless skeins. Hochwald 9 sits in the forest just east of the flat farmland where they feed, about seven kilometres from Uedem, so you may well hear them before you see them.
The forest itself is a modest affair, a ridge of mixed woodland that was left standing while everything around it was drained and ploughed. That is why it feels so enclosed: you leave open polder country, cross a belt of oak and pine, and the sky closes over you for a few minutes. Roads in the Hochwald are narrow and often lined with a drainage ditch, so there is little room for error if a tractor appears. The surface is mostly good with the odd patch of heave where roots push up beneath the tarmac.
For a rider the pleasure here is very specific. There are no gradients to speak of, the visibility on the straights is long, and the real hazards are agricultural: mud on the road after beet or maize harvest, slurry smells in spring, and the cyclists who treat every country lane as a shared living room. Wind is the one thing that can really make itself felt, because nothing stops it between here and the North Sea. A headwind on an open stretch can make a small bike feel like it is climbing a hill.
Uedem is the nearest sizeable place, with fuel, bakeries and a few cafés, and Xanten, a larger town with a Roman past, is about the same distance away. If you are visiting for the geese, bring binoculars and stop on a verge well off the carriageway, since the birds spook easily and the drivers do not expect you.
Dusk in November, with the engine off and a thermos in your hand, is the best reason to be here.