Danube Gorge through the Carpathians

Possibly the best days cycling ever, even with the worst hangover of the year. I've held off posting this for a few days as the photo as taken on my phone just does not do it justice. 100km of wow! Expect another post on this when I can upload proper photos.

Still in Serbia

I had been planning on heading through the Carpathians on the Romanian side of the Danube but I've been enjoying Serbia so much I decided to carry on here. Decision was aided by new maps and the sudden realisation that I would be going through the series of 21 tunnels on a Sunday morning, hopefully with light traffic. Well that was the plan until some fellow campers with a bottle of rakee (homemade spirit, like grappa or Cretan raki) intervened and my early morning start dissolved like my synapses... still, twas a beautiful camp as the photo of the view from my tent shows!

Serbia... a land with abundant hedgerows!

Plums, apples and herbs grow wild here. Can you tell what it is yet?

Why wild camping isn't really an option in Eastern Croatia

No showers. It's hot and dusty!

Welcome to Croatia. And the edge of my comfort zone

Let me explain. I've travelled some 2200 miles in the part six weeks, and in that time, aside from staying with friends I've been camping all that time... but now I've reached the area where just aren't enough campsites around to be able to reach them every day. This means getting rooms and that, for now, pushes at the boundaries for me. When camping when I reach the place I'm going to get a pitch (it's a mislabelled caravan park, or closed or at the centre of a festival of course). Now I've got to find a vacant room and speak foreign as well!

Mozzie attacks in Hungary

Due to the recent floods here there are a lot of mosquitos about... more like clouds of midges at times. Over the past day coming down from Budapeast I've been literally covered in them a couple of times. Urgh. The picture is of a few of bastards waiting for me on the inside of my flysheet this morning.

Beautiful Budapest

Currently spending a couple of days in Budapest. It's fascinating place and probably deserves far more of my time. I'm doing my usual mix of tasks and sightseeing... got a new compass and next map yesterday. The camping shop I tried, a Blacks or Cotswolds type place, amazed me by not selling compasses. Complete jaw on the floor moment. They directed me to the "old mans hunting shop"!

Food on the road

Been meaning to do a post about what I've been eating but l think I'll need a proper computer to do it justice. In the interim I really want to recommend these instant noodles... they're so morish I just can't stop eating them! Wonder what the secret ingredient is that does it?

Whether to follow the book or signposts in Hungary

I'm following the Euro-Velo Route 6 along the Danube at the moment and have been for around 1200km now. I'm using the Cycline Guides which are good but mostly supuflous when it comes following the actual path. Until I hit Hungary... a lot of the route is now unsigned and those that are in place don't inspire confidence. This morning they wanted me to go down a national highway - direct and flat I'll grant you but the book took on a beautiful, traffic free albeit slightly hilly route, as shown in the photo. Think I made the right choice even more so as two french cyclists I'd spoken to this morning came along as I've been writing this and described the road route, which they took, in very uncomplimentary terms!

Three countries, no borders

Went from Austria through Slovakia into Hungary today with nary a passport cheque. Pic above is of the abandoned border post between Slovakia and Hungary. A bit of a spokey place!

A Mystery Resolved

Over the past few days the bike has developed an annoying and worrying regular "ticking" sound when I cycle. Annoying as I couldn't for the life of me find the cause, worrying because sounds like that can be the harbinger of something important and expensive breaking, like the bottom bracket or the frame... I checked all I could starting with cables then checking the frame and anything else I could think off. In the end I took it to a bike shop in Vienna. The mechanic had a test ride then took it into the workshop. He emerged 20 minutes later after checking the bottom bracket and greasing various components. Had it gone? A quick test ride showed that alas it hadn't. Then came to the conclusion it was the cheap pedal I'd put on just before setting off... so nothing major after all, just a bloody annoying noise for the next x thousand miles.

An Austrian health drink

Nothing but apple juice and a little yeast. Must be good, the guy who made it was 70!

Mauthausen

Went round a concentration camp today. 123000 human beings lost their lives here. Some were gassed with Zyklon B, some hung with wire from an iron beam, some shot in the neck in a special machine that adjusted the height for a perfect neck shot every time, some worked to death in the quarry, some starved to death. Came away very angry... Choose this picture of a sculpture there as it best summed it up. This is why we fight the BNP and their ilk. Never again.

Austria

Slipped into Austria without noticing whilst running from a thunderstorm yesterday. Danube now going through some beautiful gorges as the picture from the campsite tries to show!

Last night in Germany?

Danube flowing in background. Dinner cooking in foreground. Rain lashing down all over. Wine safe in tent with me! Not a bad day though, thunderstorm only started after setting up camp so made 65 pleasant miles. Should be in Austria tomorrow if this lets up!

Leg 5, Strasburg to Regensburg

Thurs 25th June to Thurs 2nd July, 426 miles

Been going through Germany of late, but not that fast. Let me try and explain... The first day I spent heading south around the Black Forest (have a look at a topographical map: it's hilly!). The second day I was lined up to shoot across it with just one section of brutal climbs, maybe five, six kilometers max. When I say brutal I mean 1 in 10. For five kilometers. On a dirt track...Let's be honest, I knew I could never climb it all with a fully laden tourer but I figured I could do half a mile on, half a mile of pushing, half a mile on. I gave myself an hour to make the climb. And it was working! I was maybe 4km in when the rain came. Did I say "rain"? I mean full on thunderstorm. Full on. Torrential downpour, massive lightening strikes roughly every minute or more less than a mile away (during the height of it less than a second elapsed between lightening and thunder). I'd started in 30C hot humid sun and was soaked through. Temperature dropped to 15C in five minutes and stuck there. I left the bike 100 yards away and got wet further down the track (it's a large lump of metal OK?).

Eventually the ligthening died down, although not the rain, and I made a brake for it (and I mean brake) back down the hill... no way was I pushing on and I'd passed a hut some half a mile before. Made it to the hut and huddled under the eaves until the lightening which had started up again was a good two miles away. That took the best part of an hour. I was not in the happiest of spaces.

Ended up back where I'd started at the bottom of the hill some three hours later, with the option of going along a major road artery with no hard shoulder or on the train for 11km. Tell you what, them German trains are great...

It was still raining the next morning which lead to me packing a soaked through tent in the pissing rain. I still wasn't in the happiest of spaces and was contemplating getting a hotel. As soon as I found one... the first was full, but soon after the rain stopped and I risked camping again. Miracle of miracles the clouds cleared and I began to dry everything out. Made it onto the Danube cycleway the next morning but my legs had taken a beating from the attempted crossing. Still aching now, almost a week later and I've not been able to do the 70 mile days I was doing before. Hopefully today's rest day will sort that out.

Weather wise the temprature has been 30ish for the past few days with minimal effect on me which bodes well. Unlike the situation in Iran which does not bode well at all... looking into either going via the 'stans or flying over :(

Leg 4, Paris to Strasburg

Weds 17th June to Tues 23rd June (inc one rest day), 374 miles

Started off from Paris with a murderous hangover. Fortunately getting out of Paris proved to be quite easy. A series of good days saw me heading out through the champagne region and then towards and through towards Verdun. This was a major area of conflict in WWI and cycling across miles of undulating countryside one could how it would become a bloody battlefield of mass carnage, degenerating into a series of pushes for ridges. There were various momuments to the fallen, a few WWI battlefields left as memorials, the trenchs, bunker complexes and shell craters still visible in the ground. Also far too many war cemetaries of the sort I'm sure you've seen in photos or on TV... staggeringly long lines of identical back to back graves holding a large part of a generation. Sobering. All very sobering. By the time I reached Verdun I decided that I didn't want to visit the fortress there but ploughed on instead.

After crossing through I ended in up in Metz, where I took a quick rest day... that day I'd been planning on doing about 50 miles but ended up having to plow on an extra 25 miles when the campsite I was headed for turned out to be a caravan park, no tents allowed... grr... by the end my knee was hurting like hell so I took a day to explore Metz. It then took a couple of days to reach Strasburg, my final taste of France.

France had been fun. Great country for cycling, where people went out of their way to be bike friendly (UK take note you bunch of miserable car loving scrotes!) and just generally friendly. Lovely food as well, my god do they now how to do bread!!! Downsides... Firstly and most importantly, no pubs. Try them, you'll like them but sorry, the bar tabac just ain't the same. Secondly, closing times! Country shuts down for lunch and sundays. Lastly, cycle path signing was poor, very poor. Thank goodness for the compass. Mind you, they know how to sign and do a good campsite.

This stage was also the start of a series of kit failures. First to go was the air bed which picked up a puncture that gaffer tape could not hold (the shock!), then the compass started to develop an air bubble and the burner packed up (not ideal when you're in a campsite in the middle of nowhere, have just done 70 miles, only have dried food and NEED TO EAT!!!). More on these later when I do my kit reviews.

Rest day, Regensburg

Clean bike, swap tyres round for the first time to even out wear, check tyres for stones, check brakes, clean chain and lightly re-lube. Next on list laundry, get rid of mildew then tourism. Tip for the day: having trouble getting tyres to 90 PSI? Lightly oil the piston in the pump.

Hops = Beer

Beer = Good

On the Danube way

Nice and warm, getting the miles in. I'm a bit surprised at the quality of the markers on the trail though... there should be some sort of historic hunting lodge around here...