Day 156: Nearly Foiled in Frankfurt

Before we left Frankfurt in May the hotel we stayed with agreed to look after our empty bags for the 5 months while we cycled. So we packed our trailer bag and other luggage bags into the cycle bag for them to look after. The whole thing was 2.1m x 1.2m x 0.4m, in bright red vinyl. Well on our return they could not find it, after 24 hours of seaching the hotel our bags were declared missing! While the search was on we cleaned up the bike and trailer, see first picture.

We then set off in a small Volkswagen taxi to collect 3 bike boxes from a bike shop in a neighbouring village - picture two illustrates our Volkswagen stuffing technique. We also picked up some new bags at the local WalMart. Then we set about packing the tandem and trailer into two custom made boxes! See the remaining photos.


THE END!

Days 153-155: Back to the source of the Donau

As you will see from the previous posting, we lost 150km due to our bike problem, so we rode 60km from Kelheim and caught a train from Ingolstadt to Ulm for the remaining 140km (only took 2 hours!!) to make up our lost time.

The weather has certainly changed in the last 3 weeks from the high temps we had been enjoying. We had a fantastic final week of weather - every day blue sky and cloudless. But we must also say that each day began with a VERY fresh fog, as you will see from the first photo.

The next photos are us getting excited (yet again) about the lovely autumn colours on the track - there´s one of Beuron in there for you Karl Bull.

Then you will see us back at the source of the Donau River in Donaueschingen, taken on Saturday 15th October. We´re full of smiles due to the FANTASTIC time we have had and all the blessings we´ve enjoyed.
Next day we caught a train to Frankfurt to begin preparing our rig for the return journey home. That is another story again - you´ll have to wait for the final posting to read about this wee technical glitch!!

We are leaving at midnight tonight Tues 18th October for Sydney and then straight up to Townsville on Thursday to see some kiwi friends for 5 days before heading back to Sydney for a couple of days to catch up with some local friends.

Day 152: Kaputt in Kelheim, Fixed by Florian

From Kelheim we had just 4 x 100km days to go to reach our target of 7500km for the trip. This was very achievable due to the flat gradient of the bike tracks. . . . .

Alas - we only travelled 4km the next morning - 2km until our hub "snapped" and 2km to push our bike back into town to find a bike shop. (Boy did Carl´s eyes light up when he saw all the goodies in Florian´s shop!!)

Florian is the owner of Bike Station Kelheim and he saved our bacon! The short story is that fixing the hub wasn´t our best option - we needed a new wheel and Florian had to order the right "bits" for us so he could build our wheel the next day. So we had to unpack again and spend another night in Kelheim. Florian did a great job of getting us underway at about midday next day - thanks Florian!!! You´re the man!!!

Day 151: Bogen to Kelheim

You may have noticed that we enjoy seeing the barges that cruise past us on our travels - this one was taken near Walhalla which is what you see in the next two photos. You might remember Walhalla from our posting in the week of 22 May. . . or not . . . it´s a greek style building that contains the busts of Europe´s famous sons and daughters.

Nestled by the Donau is the lovely town of Kelheim - next two photos. Last time we didn´t stop here but caught a boat up the river to Weltenburg and beyond. We decided that this would be a good place to stop this time, and we enjoyed looking inside Befreiungshalle. This monument commemorates the unification of Germany in 1815.