18/5/2011 96km dep. 10AM arr. 6:30PM
Woke up fairly early this morning but didn’t leave the campsite for a while - took advantage of the free wi-fi and chatted to a few other people that were bike touring also. We met a Dutch guy who had done a cycle tour in Western Australia a couple of years ago - he rode to Esperance, decided against attempting to cross the Nullarbor in December before ending up in Kalgoorlie for New Years! It seems to have left an impression…
We set out with the intention of following the Donau path until around 5pm, then finding somewhere to camp. Unfortunately, the path was closed for repairs just along from the campsite. A man gave us some instructions in German - we understood that we should ride to the next town and get back on the path, but didn’t comprehend the specifics.
Not having a map that showed the local roads, we instead followed our noses and were met wth contruction site after dead end after road that went in a completely different direction than anticipated. 25km later, it was midday when we rejoined the cycle path.
Luckily it was fantastic weather, nice and warm, deep blue sky, etc so not such a hardship to endure. Still beats working! We made up the lost time in the afternoon, clocking up the kms on the nice flat Danube path with nice views of the river and the odd castle the whole way. We crossed a kraftwerk (hydropower station) to ride along the south bank of the river instead as the northern path ran quite close to the main road. The cycleway led straight to the campsite in Melk, the town we’d settled on over the course of the day to spend the night in, so couldn’t have been easier to find. We met up with the same Dutch couple from the camping the previous night and were able to compare stories.
We noticed a lot of times today that the bush and fields smelt strongly of onions. Quite strange.
