EPSG:900913 is better known as the google projection and has the property that the world (most of it) becomes a square. The square can be divided into 4 smaller squares, and so on, and this is how the tiling works in google maps.

Unfortunately the projection suffers distortion which makes Alaska look bigger than Western Australia¹, and for technical reasons Father Christmas’ house must be left off the map — this is really what makes the geographers angry.

So you won’t find many free GIS (Geographic Information Systems) software packages that project into EPSG:900913, and up until recently, unless you had a PhD, you couldn’t layer your own data on top of a google map without using their javascript API. Javascript is crap for drawing 90 days’ worth of GPS tracks across Europe, so I needed something else.

Luckily, I found MapServer and TileCache, and some good instructions on how to configure MapServer to render into the google projection.

So after far too much time spent fiddling around with different bits of softare, and lots of cut&paste javascript programming (the best way to write javascript), the end result is this:

(Each colour is a different day, the dots are where I took photos. The gaps are because of GPS problems. Train trips are from Venice to Vienna, and from Zakopane to Wrocław)

Behind the coloured lines are my dodgy collection of scripts which take NMEA data from the GPS, correlate them with photos and my written notes, and arrange them ready for MapServer. Languages in use are Python, Perl, awk, sed, m4, and a big nasty Makefile which ties them all together.

Anyway, that’s enough fiddling and reminiscing about bike tour for now. I hope you enjoy the map, bye!

1. Wikipedia: W.A. 2,645,615 km², Alaska 1,717,854 km²

Got back to Wrocław on Sunday evening after 9 restless hours on the train from Zakopane.

All up it was an 89 day tour, 5750km cycled, through 9 countries, estimated 36kg bread & 13kg cheese eaten, 600L water drank, 460 hours sitting on the bike, est. €2200 spent, stayed in 58 different campsites, about 1 banana per day on average, so 89 bananas…

I’m sorry about the lack of updation since Torino. The only place I had time to write a blog entry was Venice, and the net cafes on that floating bourgeois ghetto were too expensive for contemplation. So here’s a short summary of the last month.

Torino to Venice

Map of Italy

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This was my caffeine-fuelled dash across the plain of the Po river, which started as soon as I received my passport from the courier on Friday afternoon. Highlights were the cities of Piava, Cremona, and Ferrara, and the Po delta national park. The weather was fine enough for eating ice cream, and I frequently did. As you can imagine, the plain is dead-flat, and dead-boring, so I travelled 790km in 6 days, 179km on the Tuesday.

There isn’t much camping in the region, so one night I wildcamped in a tree plantation. It was nice. Another night I was in the wrong place to find a nice wildcamping spot, and as it was getting late a thunder storm came in. I had to stay in a hotel. It had a brothel behind it, and the manager discreetly asked me if the room was for one person, or otherwise.

I was a little unprepared for Venice. When I tried to take a ferry there the ticket cashier told me bikes are not allowed at Piazza San Marco, the place where the tourist office is, the only place where I could find out about hostels/camping places, etc. So I was a little bit stuck. I decided to take the ferry to a camping I knew about on terra firma. On the way was Lido de San Servolo (island next to Venice), and there was a camping here, so I took it.

Venice

The camping on this island was the best in Italy, apart from it being really full and the thick swarm of mosquitoes. As it happened there was some Venice international film festival or something going on. Limos, red carpet, press, everything. I entertained the notion that I was sharing the island with Pierce Brosnan. What an honour for him! In reality I was just sharing a campsite with a lot of non-celebrities and film students. And mosquitoes. Received a small amount of amusement from my co-campers who were typing up assignments on their laptops, talking passionately about film while chain-smoking cigarettes, parading between their tents and the grubby showers in their bath robes, doing make-up and using their hairdryers, etc.

Met a Victorian girl called Debbie who was bike touring her way from Poland to England, with a little train trip here and there.

The city of Venice was nice and it didn’t even smell too bad but I kept thinking “it’s a bit of a slum” because it was, albeit a slum where rent is about €100 per m² per second. On Saturday I had an evening in Venice… alone of course. The original plan was to sit at the back of a ferry and look at the grand canal, but some Germans made this intolerable for me, so I jumped off and ran into a big dinner being put on by the local communist party. I got a plate with about 8 different kinds of dead sea creature and sat down at the benches with the comrades.

After dinner I went back to San Marco and listened to the bands playing in the restaurants and cafes. A crowd had assembled in the square to look on, and it moved between the restaurants as the bands started and stopped playing. Out of four bands I saw, one was definitely off their game, two were average, and one was good and quite enjoyable to listen to. They were all putting on a big act, appearances count the most in this case. Along with the gondoloas, it seemed like a bit of a tourist circus.

I bought a ticket for the 8:46AM train from Venice to Vienna, and on Saturday morning I got up reasonably early in order to catch it. Took a ferry from San Servolo at about 7:48, and according to the timetable it is a 56 minute trip to the train station. Had to endure a “leisure cruise” on the ferry along grand canal, putting along at 8km/h, stopping at every stop, waiting for every slow old person to get on board. The Germans from last night also got onto this ferry. After an agonizing hour looking at my clock and the map, we got to the station, somehow on time. I ran with my bike past the departures board, to platform 14, the furthest away of course. Conductor told me “1 minute until departure” and I got on. I was putting my bike on the rack in the luggage compartment as the train pulled out of the station.

Getting onto the train was like stepping into Austria. They are nice trains, except I accidentally asked for a coffee instead of jagermeister. It was a truly horrible coffee after becoming accustomed to the nice, cheap, coffee in Italy.

Vienna

I returned to my old favourite camping place in Vienna, the one near the river, in between the autobahn and a porta-loo depot. This time it was full of drinking yoofs, there for the DonauInselFest. It’s a big free festival on the island, lots of different music on different stages, alcohol, unhealthy food, other things.

On Sunday I resumed my sight-seeing from where I finished when I was last in Vienna. Ran into the “Dankfest”, which was an agricultural/food/folk tradition festival. I hovered around the free tasting tables for a while, then had a glass of “sturm” which was very refreshing. The red sturm is best. I think it’s apple cider. There were a couple bands playing, in various humiliating band uniforms. The best was a 5 man brass band who were very good until someone kept buying them rounds of schnapps. On receiving their glasses from the waitress they had to stand in a circle and sing a song before drinking the schnapps.

Also during the day there was a vintage car rally, which wound up at the dankfest. Various cars were represented, including an old U.S. army jeep. The two drivers wore uniforms to go with the jeep, I have a photo of them. Also participating was a man driving an old BMW motorcycle, wearing an unmarked dark green army uniform. For some reason he wasn’t quite as popular…

Slovakia

Map of Slovakia

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(Sorry, GPS failed on 2nd last day, so some track is missing)

From Vienna, I cycled down river to Bratislava, then north through the Male Karpaty (the small Karpaty mountains), along the Váh river for a while, over the Demänová pass, along the Kysuce river, through the Liptovský region, then to Vysoke Tatry (high Tatra mountains).

The Tatra mountains form some of the border between Poland and Slovakia. There is no road through the Tatras, but there is a nice way around their base, at about 1000m high.

Slovakia is pretty nice for cycle touring. There are some marked routes but they are a bit annoying sometimes. Unfortunately it’s often necessary to use busy roads and roads with lots of trucks. There are lots of beautiful forests, hills, and rivers. However I noticed that most rivers have a lot of rubbish in them, even the ones quite high up.

The towns are similar to those in Poland. That is, high apartment blocks, and large pedestrian malls, large parks, open squares, and many people always around going to the shops, etc. There is lots of public space, and people using the public space. It is quite pleasant for the visitor to see some life in the place they’re visiting. Towns in other countries have hardly any people around — they are mostly in their cars if outside at all. Particularly in France and Italy, the towns are completely dead from 12-2PM.

I was warned by some Poles about the existence of gypsy ghettos in Slovakia. These were something that I planned to avoid, however I was unlucky one night; in the beautiful Manin gorge I managed to find a campsite completely occupied by the Roma people. When I arrived at the campsite (the only camping within 100km, by the way) there were lots of big caravans, and some people were at work washing big drill bits, etc in plastic tubs. It took me a while to click about who I was camping with until the lady told me seriously “Pozor” which means “warning”. She seemed a little unhappy and stressed about her guests. She also suggested I might take a bungalow instead of the tent.

Anyway it wasn’t too bad, I had nothing stolen and I don’t believe any gypsy woman put a curse on me. The main problem was that they drove their cars to go to the toilets/showers which were 100m away. The campsite had two fields and two ablution blocks. One side was occupied by the gypsies and their caravans, and the other was completely empty, except for me. And I had put my tent quite close to the block. By the way, they all drove big Mercedes or BMWs. So all night they were flogging their mercs across the grass, parking right next to my tent, sometimes leaving the engine going and the stereo playing gypsy music. Then talking loudly in gypsy Slovakian, opening and slamming closed the car doors, doing their business, then reversing out and gunning it across the grass back to their side of camping, cutting up just a little bit.

Nonetheless, I was glad I visited the Manin gorge, which consists of two limestone mountains – Velký and Malý Manin (big and small Manin) cut in half by a little brook. It’s quite popular with rock climbers, and probably quite challenging too, judging by the number of memorials placed at the bottom of the cliff — about 20 over a period of 60 years. Supposedly lynxes live there, but I only saw lynx food (deer).

The Tatra mountains were impressive, of course. However, the weather in Europe just turned bad, and at 1000m it was quite cold. Thankfully it didn’t rain. On my last day, the sky was clear, except for a little cloud around the mountain peaks, and there was no wind. It was a really crisp morning, and the sun was shining but it hardly warmed you up. Though my hands and wrists went numb, I really enjoyed cycling under the mountains. After a long 7% slope, I crossed the border at Lysá Pol’ana.

Zakopane

The roads are considerably worse in Poland than in Slovakia, and they aren’t particularly good in Slovakia. I had a bumpy and freezing cold ride down from Jaszczurówka (it’s a hill), into Zakopane. Stayed at the Goodbye Lenin Hostel again. Apart from the stupid name, it’s really nice, due to the two girls who run it.

I was glad to stay in luxury again, and in a way I was glad that tour was over and I could return to a more or less normal existence. I was also glad to be back in Poland. Strangely I feel at home here. I didn’t feel like doing any hiking (besides I had no shoes), and there being nothing else to do in Zakopane, the next day I caught the train back to Wrocław.

Survived the tour

Thankfully my bike survived the tour (i.e. I didn’t completely wreck it), except for needing to replace the back wheel, and replacing worn parts such as the chain and gears, brakes, tyres. I am probably lucky that nothing major went wrong because I really didn’t have many tools. The cable ties were essential.

This year I didn’t have any crashes or injuries. I have numerous scars from last year and during the final weeks of last year’s tour my left knee was painful all the time and I had to pop ibuprofens (this was from a crash). This year the knee was a little sore at the beginning but it got better. My worst problem was that by the time I got to Venice my bum hurt like anything because the padding in my cycle shorts had worn out. Wearing both pairs at the same time gained a small amount of comfort. But it got better after four days rest and of course washing and drying the shorts.

What now

In the next few weeks I am going to continue a few of my programming tasks, and hopefully finish them. I am going to enter some of the cycle routes I took (EV-9 in Poland and Czech Republic, and the Destra Po in Italy) into OpenStreetMap, and of course do more mapping in Wrocław. In November, a trip to Stockholm to visit Stu, then back to sunny Perth.

Torino is pretty ordinary. I would never have come here if it wasn’t for the passport. I arrived here 2 days ago. On the roads around the city there are African prostitutes waiting for truck drivers. Not sure which country they’re from but the one I spoke to gave good directions in English. Last evening in the city I saw a junkie sitting on a park bench shooting heroin.

Yesterday I got a new chain and gears for the bike, a new tyre, a new tube, and new brakes. So the day wasn’t completly wasted. One of my tubes is a bit leaky which is annoying because it was new.

The camping is up on the hills on the other side of the Po river. It is situated on a decadent estate called Villa Rey. Apart from being next to a nice old mansion (which seems to be used as offices or something) with a view over the apartment blocks to the north of the city, the facilities are horrible. And it is the most expensive camping I have been to, even more than Vienna. Also it’s a long steep hill to cycle up to.

I wasn’t sure what to expect of Italy. Perhaps olive groves, vineyards, arid mountains, friendly people, Italian style residential architecture like in the suburbs of Perth, clothes drying hanging out of windows and balconies. Well it was all of that. The houses even have little lion statues — or eagles, or doves — on the front gates. Passed by a lot of car horn beeping and shouting outside a restaurant in a little village. Thought it was an argument but it was actually more or less normal conversation.

Came in from France along the coast, which is busy. Finally I had a swim in the mediterranean. It was warm and quite salty. My camping was 2 minutes walk from the beach… but most of it was private beaches were you had to rent a chair and umbrella!

Cycling was at times exhausting, because I headed inland (into the hills) to avoid the traffic near the seaside. I am now going in the general direction of Venice.

So yesterday while browsing the local Fnac, seeking a small respite from the 6-senses oppression that is Nice, and with the faint — alas vain — hope that I might find in there a Nokia N810, I wandered into the libraire’s Romans Anglais corner.

As expected, choice was limited if one isn’t interested in Harry Potter. The literature books either seemed too academic, too thin, or too heavy, or I had read them already, or I didn’t like the picture on the front.

Eventually I instantiated a shortlist, length 2. One — a woman’s nostalgic story of colonial life in Kenya; the other a troubled ex-colonial woman’s short stories about life in New Zealand, abroad in Europe, and on the French Riviera.

Perhaps I should explain why I made this a colonial female writers list, and not a 17-books-by-John Grisham list. Firstly, at Fnac they have a noticeable preference in this direction, though I ruled out everything by Jane Austen. Secondly, I’m staying next to Rue de George Sand, and clearly this means something.

Thirdly, I have recently been told that in Poland, the news from Australia — apart from the usual crocodile wrestling stories — is that the mayor of Mount Isa has called on the ugly women of the world to move there, and help address the 5:1 male to female ratio. So I thought they should send Germaine Greer there, and it put me on a slight sympathy for feminism bent.

After a short contemplation, and comparison of price stickers, I chose “The Garden Party and Other Stories” by Katherine Mansfield. Will let you know how it goes.

Apologies for the shortage of full stops in this entry. I have a tendency to waste them on ellipses. Further and sincere apologies for the underlying chauvinist tone and hidden assumptions about classic authors’ genders that have been left unchallenged in this blog entry.

My lodgings are campsites or youth hostels, though I have received a good handful, of accomodation offerings from locals, which for various reasons I couldn’t make work. I would like to try warmshowers.org but unreliable access to e-mail, or fiddling with public telephones, the necessity to meet a schedule, has made me reluctant so far.

At camping, if I talk to anyone, I talk mainly to Dutch people on holiday, but there are not often campers my age. So then there are the hostels with foreigners who have pretty much the same idea to me, but it has been a bore and I’m starting to dread the dorm friend process — hello, where from, where to, standard questions, leaving tomorrow, oh by the way are you on facebook? No, well I guess we can’t be friends then…

And the majority of conversations I have with the locals are related to business transactions. These are usually enjoyable and return useful goods and services, except in France where contempt for anglophones (or is it just me?) is de rigueur. I dread every time I need to ask a baker for a yummy long white loaf of bread. My ineptitude with the language is obvious, but they can sense fear, and know the meekness which belongs to my culture. Anyway, these
are only genuine European experiences within the scope of doing commerce in Europe.

So unless you are exceptional or willing to fool yourself, the European experience is an unattainable ideal, so one should at least be comfortable while spending money to be fed the tacky tourist lie.

Which brings me to the hostel I’m staying at today. It has an intense holiday vibe and there seems to be some enthusiasm for the well-being of guests. At breakfast, the normal din of conversation, cutlery on china, chairs scraping, the occasional glass smashing… today was mixed with assorted piano sonatas by Beethoven, some movements from some of his symphonies, and one song by Chuck Berry. I appreciated this small effort (though they could have had all movements, and in the right order), but the best breakfast music I have enjoyed was in the Boomerang Hostel, Antwerp, where the hostess Megui every day played one Norah Jones CD, on repeat. Every day! Because she liked it. I imagine when I come back to the Boomerang Hostel and sit at the big circular table in the smokey living room, Norah will still be singing for breakfast.

So today, I will sit in this hostel on the hill and not go out, because I think I’ve seen all I need to see in Nice, and the noise is really stressful after the solitude of the mountains. Tonight I will probably go into to the hostel bar, make an effort to talk to someone I will never see again, tomorrow I head along the coast, and try to grasp the European experience.

So, aglow with the accomplishment of having crossed the alps and reached the mediterranean, and setting eyes on it for the first time, I rolled down, around the switchbacks, past the bright green foliage of the occasional tree on the dusty brown hill. Bathing in the hot wind, I reached the outskirts of Vence and stopped to refold my map.

The noise was horrible. This came from expensive cars and SUVs coming and going from the disgustingly expensive houses perched on the hill, speeding removal trucks and furniture trucks, motorbikes, and — worst of all — scooters. Then into Vence, another historic and picturesque walled town built for the medieval tourism industry, and still continuing the tradition. The traffic was crazy, and all the drivers were in a hurry, flooring it, beeping horns. This is August, so high tourist season, and the carnival is at its worst.

Nice is pretty much the same. I came in on the 4-lane palm-lined boulevard, along the sea, past the airport with f. loud jets landing every 2 minutes, endless traffic lights, exhaust fumes, scooter drivers always with fully open throttles. This is actually worse than I remember L.A. being.

Then to centre ville which is just a lot of old hotels, villas as everywhere, and one measly strip of public space in the middle of a road.

The whole idea of this place is to get sunburnt on the beach, then stuff your face with expensive food and drink, then maybe drive somewhere in the car.

I went to the hostel, which is up the hill a bit, where it’s not as busy. The streets smell of either dog poo or urine. There is dog poo everywhere because this is France, and the urine I suppose because the public toilets are expensive, or maybe it’s the dogs again.

Nice is an assault on the senses and sensibility. This is not a holiday. I’m here at the wrong time, and doesn’t fit in with my bike tour. I have to get to somewhere quieter and not as stupid.

Do you like muddy grass on an awkward slope, with views of the dripping sewerage pipe of the caravan next door?

Do you like earwigs? They like sleeping bags and towels, and I’m told the way to get one out of your ear is to shine a torch at it.

Do you like self-deflating mattresses?

Do you like dusty clay and gravel to pitch your tent on, bent tent pegs, and banging your finger with a rock?

Do you like swimming pools? Do you like swimming pools infested with screeching tourist spawn, running, jumping, splashing, floaties, shouting, screaming, bawling?

Do you like the smoke and smell of steaks grilling, well done, seasoned, hot, juicy, not for your dinner?

Do you like the sound of a child bawling, due to some illness, injury, or injustice done to it? From 6PM–10PM, then from 7AM–

Do you like BYO TP, and holes in the ground?

Do you like it when the couple in the tent closest are singing songs from “The Sound of Music?”

Do you like cold lonely nights in your tent when an unseen German couple in a caravan have showed up, parked far too close and… “if the van’s rocking, don’t bother knocking?”

Do you like presto taps? 6-second ones, 8-second ones, or 60-second ones?

Do you like being in a place where everyone is watching TV; the nearest: a French version of Braveheart?

I like camping. I’m not sure of the reason why.

For some reason it’s necessary to point out what’s wrong and what makes me unhappy. To complain. Don’t read if you don’t want to. Actually, do read or there’s not much point me writing this. Just don’t be mislead by the tone of some of the blog entries.

Lastly, avoid inconvenience: load this into your feed reader.

Went to the ATM in Bischofszell to withdraw some Swiss Franks, and discovered that I had most probably left my card at the Chinese restaurant the night before. Oh well, no worries. I have a second card and can cancel the lost card. Must get going, to get to Zürich early so there’s time to visit the bike shop. Oh and by the way the restaurant was bloody expensive, more than twice what the same dish would cost in Perth.

Then I was cycling through the nice woods, and my foot came out of the pedal and I kicked my front pannier bag. The cleat on my shoe had finally worn out. My foot kept coming out all day, and I would either kick the bag, or hit my ankle on the crank.

Arrived in Zürich and, with only moderate difficulty, found the centre, then the camp site. And it wasn’t cheap camping. Plus you had to pay for warm showers, so I had a cold shower. For reference, I visited the youth hostel. They were 48 franks for a night in a 5 bed dorm (the exchange rate for AUD to franks is 1:1), so that made me feel better about the price at camping. There was an internet cafe for 18 franks / hour. Daylight robbery! Since then I found one for 6 fr. Still, not cheap. So be thankful, you’re getting a gilt-edged blog entry.

Everything is closed on Sunday. A lot of bike shops are also closed on Mondays. I found one which wasn’t, but they had no room for repairs, until next Monday! But the guy offered to change the wheel on his own time Tuesday (today) afternoon, which was pretty nice.

Anyway this morning I checked one of the smaller bike shops which was closed yesterday. He replaced the wheel today. The rim he had is slightly wider, but I think that’s OK, because it should be stronger. Wasn’t too expensive either.

Found VB in a supermarket for 2.60 franks. Had to buy one for me, and one for the dude in the bike shop.

Despite these troubles, Switzerland has been a really lovely place to visit. It’s obvious how stinking rich this country is. I believe this is because they all have Swiss bank accounts. The countryside is great. Outside the alps it’s hilly but not soul-destroying. All the cows have bells. The cycle route signs are so good I got from Austria, through Liechtenstein, to Zürich with only a 1:4.000.000 map of Austria. (On it you could see a few Swiss towns on the Rhine). There are also good rollerblading routes. Whatever tickles your fancy I guess. There are national routes as well, so you can look ridiculous and rollerblade across the country.

Back to how disgracefully rich the Swiss are. I had to check the Omega shop on Bahnhofstraße. All the display watches were set to 10:10AM, but the prices were wildly different, and some prices were just wild. This totally put Heinz’s €20.000 each speakers into perspective for me. There are a handful bums and beggars around but they are negligable, compared to the total wealth. Perhaps the rest all got ran over by BMWs.

I haven’t got time to upload my GPS tracklogs and photos. Take my word, the photos are gorgeous, and the altitudes are quite high. Last Wednesday afternoon I took the bus from Krimml to Königsleiten (the top of the Gerlospaß), saving a 500m climb. It was raining that day and bloody cold on the way down. But on Saturday I pulled the finger out and cycled Arlbergspaß. This was my exit from the alps for tour 2008. From Feldkirch I went through the top of Liechtenstein, across the Rhine to Switzerland, north to the Bodensee, then across the middle land to Bischofszell then Zürich.

(Unfortunately google have eaten my map. So this only shows the route up to Innsbruck. Sorry.)

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Wet morning. Most of my things were wet because I let water get on the groundsheet under my tent, and it just soaked up through the floor. Wet.

After an easy downhill with the wind, I spent a while finding an imaginary “Inntalradweg” — the bicycle route which supposedly follows the Inn river. It just isn’t there. So instead of the bicycle way I took a couple B roads, which are fast and direct, but noisy and stressful. At times there were some local routes haphazardly signed, but it was just easier to use the main road.

Got to Innsbruck — it was pleasant enough, with a cute rathaus and a big colonade with mountains behind it, but I thought the tourist interest — the number of tourists around — was unjustified for what it was.

Anyway, the evening was fine. In the Subiaco-like neuestadt some local marketing company put on a “New Orleans Festival,” which seemed to be a blues band playing, and a beer tent, and all the oldies rocking on. I sat nearby and listened for a while and ate a take-away Thai green chicken curry I got inside the yuppie supermarket nearby.

Tried to upload some photos from the world’s slowest net cafe. Returned to camping 6km away, in the dark, with my headlight. It was nice and peaceful cycle. Got back to my tent which was pegged onto a muddy slope with views of the sewerage outlet of the neighbouring caravan. Some Korean boys in their tent were singing to pop music, which was funny.

Dep 10:30, arr 4:45, dst 83km.

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A ski resort town is essentially a lot of guesthouses, shops to buy or rent sporting gear, and places to booze up and eat. The end result is a bland, expensive town, with the picturesque mountains obscured by slightly too quaint guesthouses.

During a break in the rain, I went for a walk around. The town was just full of bored old people. I went back to camping and in a rush finished Anna Karenin for the second time. This was because the post office closed at 6PM and I wanted to send the weight away, along with some old maps and 2 pairs of socks which I inexplicably brought with me.

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Reached the start of the Tauernradweg today (was doing it in the wrong direction), got rained on at the Krimml wasserfall, and the best spent €3.80 ever.

It was a slightly rainy morning; the highlight was passing the valley entrance to a national park. At this point the sun came out ever so teasingly.

Got stuck for several minutes at an electric cattle gate, pondering how to get through without getting zapped. I supposed beast or human would get zapped if it connected the circuit between the two sides of the gate… but then again they had insulators over the ends… what if one made a circuit between ground and gate? Ended up using the bike wheel to push it open.

The last climb up to the Kriml waterfall was on a gravel track through the forest. I was pretty slow on the climb, not sure why. During a break I had a proper look at the map to see where to go after Krimml. And I realised the pass towards Innsbruck was 1600m — another 400m on top of the rather pathetic 200m I had just done.

It was 3:30 and just as I saw the waterfall and was getting out my camera, it started raining cats and dogs. So I stood under the Tauernradweg start point shelter for a while feeling quite helpless, wondering whether to attempt the pass in the rain or go back down to camping in Lahn.

But I visited the tourist information office in Krimml town and found there would be a bus to Königsleiten, the top of Gerlospass at 4:20. So I got on the bus with bike and tried to hold on as the driver flogged it around the hairpins up the pass. Beautiful views of the waterfall.

Got dropped off and the bus driver flogged away in another direction. I was a bit disoriented and left off down where we came from. The big blue road signs aroused my suspicions however and I corrected my bearing, passed back over the top of the hill, and began my descent.

Really nice views flashing past, but the rain stung my face and eyes. Also it was quite cold up there and my hands and legs and nose were cold and wet. If it wasn’t for the spectacular lake and valley panoramas I would be quite miserable. The road flattened out at about 1200m and I passed through some rubbish ski resort towns. Then, just before the day’s final descent I got a great look at the towns spread out over the valley. I’m afraid my photography doesn’t do it justice but here is the picture anyway:

Reached another ski resort town of Zell am Ziller, saw a camping sign, and took it. Unfortunately it was one of those expensive 4-star campings: open winter and summer, almost fully occupied, swimming pool, restaurant, things for the kids to do, etc. And they are usually laid out for the convenience of caravanners, which means the muddy debris-strewn remains of lawn on an awkward slope for me to put my tent.

At least the showers were hot… but I forgot to bring my towel and had to dry myself with my undies. No worries. Even though I wussed out and took the bus, I felt another section of the tour was complete.

Dep 10:00, arr 5:45, dst 98km.

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Took the bus from Krimml (1100m) to Königsleiten, the top of Gerlospass (1600m).

Rain today, decided to rest after yesterday’s mountain conquest, and — more importantly — stay dry.

No such comforts for the pair of becherovka drinking, smoking, Czech cyclists camped next to me. They were touring their way back to Prague, and on a deadline. So they set up their tent during the rain last night, and packed it up during the rain this morning. What’s worse, they only had a drop left in their bottle of becherovka, and 500km to go!

Not much of interest happened today, except during one of my rests by the lake, I couldn’t help noticing the various recreational sailors, clothed in burkas, repeatedly barging an giant innocent promotional wooden swan.

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No time to write any other entries, but here is the high point of my tour so far: The Großglockner High Alpine Road. As you can see in the photo, all bags bar one were off.

It took about 5 hours of cycling to get to the end of the 50km road, and I certainly had my doubts about finishing, in fact these doubts were well formed at the 11km mark — before I even reached the toll gate at the entrance of the national park. Somehow things got better even though the road stayed a pretty much constant 12% (I think) until Fuscher Törl (2400m). At about 1200-2000m I went through some clouds and visibility was at worst about 15m.

A quite thrilling descent after Fuscher Törl, though I regretted dumping my hard-earned altitude so quickly. Of course I checked my brakes before going down. Next up through two tunnels to the highest point, Hochtor (2504m).

Here were some breathtaking views. In the sense of being astonishing as well as causing breathlessness. All the time I wish for another gear on my bike. I never seem to have a granny gear easy enough for the present slope. I adopted a strategy of “micro-rests”. That is, climbing a short distance then stopping to take a photo, or eat something, or pretending to admire the view. Probably not optimal from an athletic perspective but it got me there.

It was a very quick ride down from Hochtor through endless switchbacks. A few times I dared to take my eyes off the road and look at the speedo, and it was by far quicker than I’ve ever gone on two wheels. The view opened up over a valley, impressive.

Now, down at the bottom, below 2000m again, and passing the 36km mark. It wasn’t long ago I was battling past the 12,4km mark, then 12,5km, etc. From this I gained the mental energy necessary to complete the final ascent… well except for pushing the bike the last 500m because it was so f. steep and I was knackered.

At the end at 2369m, seeing a glacier for the first time, and revelling in my personal triumph, I felt like I could do it again, but nonetheless opted to take a bus back to Fuscher Törl. This somewhat diluted the purity of my pedal-powered victory over petrol, but I bowed to pragmatism and sensibility.

It was a beautiful seeing all I had conquered once more, from the comfort of the bus. However I was quite worried that the driver would drive the bus over the side, he was that quick. Also I wondered what peril awaited my bike which was rather flimsily attached to the rack on the back of the bus.

Nonetheless, bus, bike, and myself survived, I was dumped on the top of the hill, and the bus sped away. I took off my beanie, jacket; put on gloves, sunglasses, helmet. Checked the brakes again, then rolled down, to take revenge on Fuscher Törl. As I dropped altitude it got much warmer, and I could feel it had been a lovely hot day by the lake.

When I got to Bruck, the town at the very start of the road, a big dark storm was gathered over the Zeller See. I rushed towards camping, but about 3km from home, had to shelter under a bridge while hailstones bigger than 1cm diameter pelted everything. I found hailstones under the opening of my tent when I got back. Had a nice hot shower then went out for a pizza.

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Dep 7:30, arr 1:30 at Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe, dst 55km.
Bus to Fuscher Törl dep 3:10.
Fuscher Törl to Zell am See, arr 4:45, total dst 86km.

(Unfortunately my GPS “froze” due to some software problem, just before the end. So the profile and map only show my ascent… I suppose that’s no big issue but I’ll never know what my max speed was going down.)

Today, a food crisis, unpleasant slopes, and the initial psychological conditioning for Grossglockerstrasse.

For a change, it was perfect weather this morning. I went into a bit of a buying frenzy at the supermarkt the night before and as a result couldn’t fit everything into my panniers. Had to offload a banana and tin of fruit to the Dutchies nextdoor.

Since Heinz’s BBQ in Vienna I was excited by the idea of cycling the Grossglocknerstrasse. It was a suggestion of someone there. The road is a monument, built for cars. So to cycle it would be a symbolic message about the destructive pointlessness of automobiles. The neighbours expressed their reservations about the slope, but Holland is flat so I could safely discount their opinions.

However, during today’s first slope I started to reconsider the necessity of rising to any challenges, and/or sending symbolic messages.

I think my difficulties were just due to a lack of warmup and perhaps too much traditional Dutch cuisine the night before. After that climb, the route took the contour of the hills, and the scenery was quite pleasant. I lost my vertical orientation again. Sometimes I wondered “why am I going so slow? The ground is level, there is no wind. Are my brakes stuck down? This is hard work!” Then I looked at my GPS and saw I was actually ascending. Similarly, it always seemed that when I went downhill, I lost more altitude than I had climbed.

It was a short day, reached a great camping spot next to the Zellersee. Relaxed in the afternoon with a view of snow-peaked mountains (wow!), wondering which one was Grossglockner, and which way the road would go.

Honeymoon over, today was my entry into the alps. I saw snow-peaked mountains in summer for the first time, and almost wore out my camera snapping pictures of them.

This morning I awoke to the sounds of campers trying to unbog their caravans. For some reason I gained a small amount of satisfaction from this. There was one caravan, with German numberplates, which was actually as big as the flat I lived in in Wroclaw.

The rain didn’t stop in the morning, so I rolled up my soaking wet tent and left Salzberg with the usual moderate navigational difficulties. These distracted me enough that I forgot to visit the Wasserschloss — a castle on a lake which apparently was filmed in the Sound of Music.

I did, however, go and see Festung Hohenwerfen. Festung means fortress, like Festung Breslau. Well I didn’t actually go in, just walked to the door and took some photos (it cost €10, not even including the nanna train up the hill).

Coughed the affordable €3 to walk through the Liechtensteinklamm. I went there without any faint idea what a klamm is. It’s actually a gorge with waterfalls and rivers through it. This one had a boardwalk, with signposts ominously but not quite eloquently disclaiming all liability if they fall down onto the rocky creek below. Was wet, and worth the look.

Got to Schwarzach in the afternoon, just as the tourist bureau closed, and spent about an hour asking about and looking for a tent campsite. Had to go backwards to Sankt Johann im Pongau to an OK place run from a restaurant, with toilets and showers in a cool underground bunker. Scored the left-overs of a “traditional Dutch dish” from my neighbours. More food: almost always welcome.

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Dep 9:30, arr 5:45, dst 89km.

Rain today, was stuck in my tent. Took the opportunity to do the washing, drink coffee at the campsite, write postcards. Also read some of Anna Karenin, my objective being to finish it for the second time, and mail it away to lose the weight.

Was somewhat distracted in the evening by the American couple in the tent next to me singing “Do, a deer, a female deer.”

Spent the day wandering around Salzburg. Woke up nice and early because I had picked the optimum position for my tent so that it would get the first sun in the campsite (this isn’t always successful for me). Coughed €7 and checked the castle. They don’t permit bikes on the cable car up the hill so I saved €3 by cycling/pushing/carrying my bike up. It is super awesome weather, no clouds at all, so the view from the tower of the alps, etc, was pretty good.

I’m about fed up with stinking net cafes. This one’s drinks fridge just blew up and is spewing black smoke. Also I have reason to believe the money I pay to net cafes is financing terrorism. Speaking of which there are always noisy computer illiterate Americans going in and out trying to work out how to get an @ symbol. So about a week ago I decided to get a Nokia N800 Internet tablet, on the condition that it reads SD cards, weighs less than 250g, and costs about €200. This device isn’t a phone, it is a very small Linux computer that can browse the web in wifi hotspots.

So yesterday I did some research and found it met the first two criteria, not sure about the third, so I today I got on the bike and went to the three places in Salzburg listed on www.nokia.at that sell the N-series gadgets. None of them had any. Media Markt had the cool little Asus EeePC, but it’s 900g and too big.

But anyway it was a nice day for visiting edge of town shopping malls. The cycleways in Salzburg are pretty good… better than Vienna and Linz. There was actually a signposted route — Europarkradweg — which took you from the zentrum to the shopping mall, and was pretty scenic. And the Europark had a nice big bicycle parking area with a security guard watching.

Made lunch in some garden and watched a team of gardeners out in the sun, navigating their lawn mowers around the delicate lines of flowerbeds. Rest of the day just cruising around taking photos of big old looking things.

Read older blog entries and realized they are quite dull.

Have decided on a route after the Taurnradweg. This route stops near the waterfall in Krimml at about 1100m. I’m not sure if there is a good route to Innsbruck, couldn’t find any cycle route maps, but probably there is a way… this is Austria.

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Fine weather today, but cool. Ended up in the town of Mozart’s birth, but am still wondering about his connection to fairly ordinary tasting balls of chocolate.

As you can see in the profile, today was mostly flat, slight uphill, along the river. The bump at the beginning was my exit from Burghausen. Had to make up my own route after losing the signs. The hills at the end were where I went out of the centre of Salzburg to my campsite, which is at the base of the hills.

It was a fairly quick day. Just stopped at the bäckerie in Oberndorf for a little lunch, but not much because I chowed fairly well into the included breakfast at the hostel.

Looked around town for a little while. Learnt from a postcard stand that The Sound of Music was set around Salzburg… there you go. I reckon there are about as many tourists in Salzburg as there are in Vienna, but it’s much smaller. So it’s mayhem in the little lanes.

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Dep 9:30, arr 1:30, dst 62km.

Went soft, succumbed to the weather, chose luxury instead of nature. Viewed the longest castle in the universe.

It was a drizzly, cloudy morning, so I was pretty slow to leave camping. Wanting more liquidity than about €2.43, I went to a net cafe to refill my money card, and check if anyone had posted comments on the blog (no they hadn’t… why do I bother?). Then to the Spar for some food and to the bike shop for some degreaser. The dude at the bikeshop didn’t have a can of degreaser, and suggested it might be easier to put on a new chain than to clean off the filthy muck. Of course that might also mean new gear wheels if the old ones have worn a lot.

So my strategy is to wait until the chain starts slipping too much, or for it to break. Then new chain and gears. Unfortunately I threw away the instruction book for my multitool so I hope I can work out the chain link remover in the hour of crisis… otherwise there might be some walking. In the meantime I will source some degrease spray and try to clean it because it’s disgusting.

Just after 12:00 I was taking my bike down the stairs in the town wall, onto the cycleway. There were some quite nice roads through forest today. Stopped at a lookout over the convergence of the Inns and Salzach rivers, and then it started raining. Went down into the nice town of Ãœberackern, and then back up to the main road again. It started raining and I stood under the eaves of a barn while families of white ducks waddled past.

Took a very steep descent into Burghausen. I have to say the signs were quite stupid here. They took a very steep footpath down to the river, when there was a road with switchbacks next to it. The less steep road was much safer. The conditions were quite slippery. I would have taken the road if I had have known where it was going.

Admired the castle in Berghausen for a little while and then headed up the hill which goes behind it. The castle is about 1km long and supposedly the longest in Europe. After losing the radweg signs (because I was in Germany and the route was in Austria), I made up my own way. This was going OK until it started pouring with rain. So I stood under the eaves on the side of a garage and ate a cheese sandwich waiting for it to stop. This was OK until the owner showed up. She offered me a cup of tea and so I accepted on the 2nd “are you sure?” The house was only 4 years old and pretty bloody nice inside. It had a huge view over Berghausen and the castle, and the church in this particular village.

The rain didn’t stop so I resolved to go back to Berghausen, stay in the hostel, and visit the castle. The hostel was just one of those boring HI youth hostels, however it was full of little school children away on some song singing camp, and they were barely tolerable. My room mate Johannes was Austrian, in Berghausen for work. We decided to check the castle, then have a beer at a biergaarten somewhere.

So this was done, but we had our 1L glass (eine maas I think it’s called) inside because the soft waitress said they would they won’t go out into the garden because their costumes have short sleeves and it’s too cold. After that we got some more beers, I got a schnitzel burger, and we headed back to the hostel and watched episodes of Family Guy on his laptop. Good time, Johannes is a cool dude.

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Dep 12:00, arr 4:00, dst 39km.