Day Thirteen - The Shortcut

After leaving the Hotel with a stomach full of stale bread, cheese, and enormous quantities of truly awful meat, (Flora's perfect breakfast!).

We set off  across potholed/ sandy, gravelly, badly signposted roads. We arrive in Gyor shattered and ready to have lunch and leave.

2hours later.... we are still leaving Gyor - sweating, angry and taking a google map informed short cut. Harvey came a cropper.

By 7pm we were 50km behind schedule, but found a women in a small villlage before Acs letting a 3 bed apartment. It was a gem of a find, she let us raid her fruit trees, and after a beer run the the local bar, 50km didn't seem to bad!

 The short cut

 The Fruit.

 The Apartment

 The beer run! (50p a Can.)

Day Twelve, 1000km

Leaving Vienna was pretty seamless, we all endeavoured to go back again to see it properly. Feeling great after a day off the bike, aiming for the Slovakian border after lunch. This stretch is nearly all in a nature reserve, and the flood plain is an old trade route to Rome. Before Bratislava was the fortified town of Hainburg, one of the most strategic points along the river, once marking the most Eastern outpost of the Roman Empire. As we ride, Flora reads that a rare breach of its gates by Turkish armies pushing up the river to Vienna led to a massacre of all inhabitants, as they fled up the same route we were on...

About 30km into the day, we are feeling especially pleased at passing the 1000km mark on the odometer!

1000km face!

After Hainsburg, Bratislava, once the Capital of a much larger Hungarian empire looms in the distance...

New town on the left -high-rise apartments, old town on the right.

Approaching the border was quite exciting, but we ended up passing through without being checked at all, no armed guards, no strip searches or having to explain Flora's bag of herbs de Provence in the food bag. Before we know it we were sat under a bridge necking cold and very cheap lemonade, looking at Bratislava's castle on the other side. We checked with the barman, he said we didn't need to worry. Nailed 'hello', 'please' and 'thankyou' in Slovakian only to leave the country 20km later...

Bratislava

The river, now the Dunaj is huge. Dodging rollerbladers out of the city.

Again, no border control, but this welcoming sign let us know we have entered Hungary. Three countries in one day.

Rooms are cheap, so we checked into a hotel as the sun went down. Rural Hungary, no signposts, massive potholes, hard looking but generally nice men... trance festival in the forest nearby.

Day Eleven, Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh Vienna

So the Hostel wasn't the best...

The lady behind the desk flatly refused to store the bikes anywhere despite the cavernous back room visible and did not appreciate Harvey's sarcastic 'So, can we just pop the bikes in?' comment after her 10 minute rant on how it was impossible to store the bikes,'yo unterstant??'

...we really didn't.

At least we got the room which wasn't on the 5th floor, wasn't really small and didn't have a hole in the wall instead of a window. Oh and thank god our room mate wasn't a a bloke from Ukraine that referred to himself as 'the red army'.

Anyway, unfortunately not much time spent seeing Vienna but the rest day was spent ticking off our job list...

Laundry-check. Great not to have musty smelling clothes.

Bike maintenance-check. The lovely, moustached owner helped us out and refused to accept a penny....we donated to their beer fund instead.

Pharmacy raid-check. Panniers full of knee curing drugs...

A veggie restaurant treat for Flora, an entire menu to peruse for once, she was happy. Harvey and Luke had two main meals each as a break from their endless (and fruitless) pursuit of a 6 pack. (pictures to come)

A hot, very sweaty day not seeing much of Vienna but lovely not to be on the saddles.

Day Ten

Last push to Vienna and we were away early from the campsite at Melk. Castles and vineyards line the morning's route, with wine tasting at the side of the road. The Wachau region is made up of very old,  gorgeous little villages from which the vineyards grow up the valley sides. Narrow streets and cobbled roads made for slow going and we have a long way to go! Today, we were later informed, was the hottest day of the year, 37 degrees, absolutely ideal cycling weather. 

Out of the vineyards and close to the river passing kilmometer markers on big pole for ships and barges. Marker 1986 shows we are nearing 1000km for the trip, and made an excellent Happy Birthday Jude photo!

The bikes are heavy and a nightmare to handle if you are tired...

Dehydrated, Harvey feeling a bit rough until we finally reached a cafe on the side of the trail. Grapejuice with ice, perfect.

Sleepy time.

Absolutely spent, with the way into Vienna still to negotiate.

As it happened, the way was easy to find, but just went on forever. Signs to Vienna turned out just to be to the outskirts, ace, and it was still 15km into the centre. Anyway, the path went right along the river, city dwellers lined the banks making the most of the heat, plenty more nudists, everyone using the bike paths after work, we were pretty desperate to stop pedalling. Latched onto the back of a lycra clad road cycling pair for a a few km, feeling pretty smug...

Once we arrived in the centre we then had to find our hotel. After laughing at how far away it was, major faff was spared when a nice Viennese man showed us how to get bikes onto the tube. Museum Quarter, bikes everywhere, dog poo on Harvey's wheel/bag/hand, hostel round the corner, 135km on the hottest day of the year done. Rest day tomorrow...

Day Nine

Afore mentioned warm clear swimming lake, much calmer in the morning, surrounded by city dwellers the evening before. Early start, hard to get up.

Hugged the river all day, showing off the MacMillan Tshirts...

American couple on a handmade British tandem! Lemonade stop. Need to remember others can speak English before explicitly describing current bodily discomforts.

First consecutive days at over 100km, yoyoing past people we have seen along the way, a lot of hard work been done to keep the pace up and leave us within a day of Vienna. Too tired to even get the day right day on the blackboard, but definitely bushed. Watersports on the river behind us, jealous. 

Getting very tanned on the right side, always riding East....

Camped a lot since early hostel stops, need some decent sleep. Tried out sleeping with our heads at the other end of the tent this night, to avoid being smeared with the wet inner at dawn. 

Swapping sides confused Luke however, who woke up kissing Harvey's chest...

Happy Birthday Sarah! Posted late, but taken on the right day!

Day Eight

15km into Passau, big pastry based breakfast, 630km in the bag! Danube looking more industrial now, river has been fully navigable for a few days. Also entering a very popular stretch for cycle tourists, polite use of bell normally shifts 'em!

630km, a fifth of the way?! Leaving Passau, in midday heat, got to stop dong that...

Brown Danube merges with blue tributaries.

Linz, Austria. Where Adolf Hitler wanted the capital of his empire to be. End of another long ride, promises of a campsite by a lake for tonight, another 100km day. Four boules of ice cream, each. 

Outskirts of Linz, heading for campsite, bicycle polo players, very friendly and impressed at the single speed/fixed gear effort. Warned us to watch our backs in Serbia, thanks guys! Campsite did turn out to be by a warm and clear lake, surrounded by substantial nudist population. Evening swim was bliss, good for the muscles, pasta and pesto by the tent.