Day 33 Klosterneuburg 2411.19 km Suburb of Vienna

Rained most of the night but bright sunshine in the morning, Had morning tea with a Dutch couple Ans and John, and was pleased to see them again this evening at the camp site its the first time in a long time that I have spoken English, it was quite funny we were speaking German to each other, when they asked where I had come from, when I told them England they said it would be much easier speak English!
Today seemed a lot cooler than it was as it has been very windy. Have stopped in the camp site just outside of Vienna as its nearly 30kms across and it leaves me set to arrive in Bratislava tomorrow night.
Tomorrow will be the first of the country’s I have not visited before so a little tension is growing; perhaps the fear of the unknown or maybe I am just ready for a new country!
Austria has been great really rate it as a place to visit, people have been friendly the food has been good and the route is easy to follow and a pleasure to ride.
But one thing I am looking forward to is the end of the cycle routes! They are great but! you feel you must follow them as there has been a lot of effort put in to create them, and if we don’t use them we will lose them and that would be a real shame, but I do object to being forced through every little hamlet that has a bar or room for rent, more so when the road is flat and you are sent up and down hills just because you might want a drink, I would rather make that choice myself.
It also makes me feel like I’m on a package holiday and I have always traveled independent, so that is not a good feeling for me. So after Bratislava it is all free running and if I make a mistake then that’s my fault and I am OK with that.
I am looking forward to saying farewell to bicycle super highway and hello to the open road

Day 32 Krems 2341.56 km

Well I woke this morning to rain not the cold chilling rain that I saw in Germany but none the less heavy rain, but the motivation is now I am so close to Vienna. When I set off Vienna seemed so far away and strange and far away and now it’s less than a day’s ride away. To me Vienna is the first major mile stone to this trip, why? Don’t ask me it just seems that way!
Well into the Austrian wine growing area so taking all the culture on board  But for all you wine lovers I am only drinking the Table wine, its cheap good and fits the budget, and it must surely be classed as one of my 5 a day:)
Well me and the new saddle are beginning to be come one with the bike again which is really nice. Don’t ever think of doing the as a pub crawl it would last you a life time every last bit of spare ground and any old building or just someone’s garden is put over to being a place to sell you beer!
However it is easy to see why this is the most cycled route in Europe, its easy lots to choose from something for everyone, top route well marked or great warmer settler for a long tour or just a really nice active holiday with plenty of culture, good food and as much beer and wine as is possible to take.

       

 

Day 30 & 31 Grein 2260.32 km 1 Month of travelling

One month on the road and puncture number 2, drawing pin just outside the protected area! but hell who cares the sun is shining and life feels good, the only thing I can moan about is my new saddle, I can see signs of it breaking in but it is still very early.

Grein the river has changed again and it is very nice once again can not believe I will be in Vienna in a couple of days Its strange you spend days heading toward a place and when you get there, its not what you expected, and some of the places are just stunning and you would have by passed in a car as they are not on the route.
Well its been a good month hard at times very wet and cold a lot of the time but good none the less, there have been times where I have missed my family and opening my birthday cards brought tears, but things are settling down in to a routine and I am having a good time.

Well day 2 in Grein has been a really nice day the weather is just fantastic. Went in to the town to post the some kit home and to buy a tyre and replace the mitts I lost, and ended up with a new stand for Gromit too.

Well went to the local imbiss for lunch and ordered coffee and Goulash and potatoes, I had to share a table with some Austrians as the place was very busy full of locals always a good sign in a tourist area. When up rocks a larger than life character Leopold Stahammer the local vineyard owner, clutching some of his wine, told me that I must drink wine with him and his friends as the weather is to fine for coffee and wine is for sharing. So I enjoyed my lunch with some very good local wine. When I said that I had not seen much Austrian wine in the UK he told me it was because along with the Swiss wine it is bottled up along with the Czech wine. So my lunch lasted a good couple of hours leaving slightly the worse for the wine but very mellow.

   

Day 29 Steyregg Austria 2202.72 km

Really nice day in shorts again saddle is pure hell at present. Cycled with no map for about 15 km as mine had run out. Cycled with a German for most of the morning he spoke no English but I was able to talk to him, so much of the German I had forgotten has come back so going through Germany has been a good choice for me.

Picked up a free map of the Austrian Donau it takes me all the way to Bratislava so that was really cool. Saw the original site that Passau used to be on and life feels good apart from the new saddle. Austria is shaping up to be a top place like it a lot already, but a little more expensive than Germany but the scenery is stunning.

Day 28 Krottenthal 2120.4 km Austrian Boarder 5 km

Well woke today to heavy rain , which soon passed and was just showers on and off.

Had to buy a new saddle today 75 Euros Brooks Professional an instrument of pure torture it will be till it is broken in! Slept in a nice camp site overlooking Austria weather really is improving

 

Stopped 5 km short of Austria just cant leave Germany just yet to many good memories for me

Day 27 Deggendorf 2037.76 km

Bright sunshine saw the arrival of shorts today, sunshine is a welcome change from the rain. Had my farewell meal to Germany

Day 25 & 26 Happy Birthday Jane & Me Kapfelburg 1918.77 km

Had a nice day and the last 2 nights camping for free which was a bonus as the site was not fully open yet  Easy day apart from one climb that they run a ferry to avoid but not running on that day:( You know when you are in the middle of know where when you have to open the level crossing gates yourself. Today I ran out of ran out of road, the river had burst its banks and left me with no path, so I had to ford the little stream much to the joy of the Germans looking on the water watching the crazy Englishman cycling through a 0.5 metres of water, was met on the other side by a group clapping and laughing Germans, only disappointed that I had not fallen off, I on the other hand was glad to have stayed on!

Day 24 Neuburg 1828 km

Had a good day fixed my saddle and life feels a lot better:) very up and down today with not much to see, but my arrival in Neuburg was a really pleasant surprise the old town is quite something it also heralds a couple of days of celebration for it is mine and Jane’s Birthdays over the next couple of days!!
Well as night fell a Bavarian band struck up and the music could be heard all over the town it sort of drifted down the river and filled the streets really cool and quite a treat.

Day 22 & 23 Dillingen 1752 km

Day started wet but I was racking up the km when disaster struck my saddle bolt that tensions my saddle broke!

OK I will start you off yes it must have been under a great deal of strain! It left the saddle in normal circumstances un-ridable so I did another 56 km on it, I now know what tenderised steak is like to have as part of your body, and of course this happened on a Saturday and everything shuts till Monday I can fix it but I need somewhere like B&Q to do it.

So to add insult to injury I fell off today and put a hole in one of my panniers, would like to tell you that I was flying down a mountain pass through the woods, but NO I was crawling up a bridge in the middle of a town, the cycle paths in German have a white painted line to mark where people walk and where you can ride your bike well I crossed the line to look over the side of the bridge, but it was not a line it was a ridge not any higher than 4 cm but it was enough, thought I had broken my wrist with the way I hit the ground, but apart from the hole in the bag all is OK and I can fix the bag tomorrow. Well the camp site was not great, its on a main road near a load of noisy flats near a sports ground, I did not care I slept the sleep of the dead.
My rest day was great I did mending, washing (by hand!) cleaned and serviced my bike. Did the first oil change on my speed hub so I have now rode 5000 km with out any problems with the hub just bit of oil for the chain not bad! Did a get you home repair to my saddle or at least till I can get to the shops. All my washing drying in the sun having a beer, best weather so far life is good.

Ah! Cable ties

Have noticed that Nordic walking is massive in Germany presently. One sentence keeps coming up in my mind:

Take nothing but photos and memories and leave nothing but my tyre tracks and the warmth of my smile.

 

Day 21 Erzingen 1695Km

Quite a dull day after yesterday, started of flat through the woods so not much to say, just looking forward to tonight as today is a rest day and I need it, but when I arrived in Erzingen, I realised it was a Zeltplatz which was not open yet and you can just camp there so not much use as the place to do my washing etc…., so I decided to push on another day, when I took my tent down in the (rain:-) I found that I had just slept in a chapter of a Steven King book, The Slugs, they where everywhere I must have removed 200 from my tent.