Neuer Weg, October 13th, 84km
Today’s pictures on flickr (If we’ve had a chance to upload them!)
Hmmm, Friday the 13th. There are so many things that can go wrong, How many of them are going to hit us today?
Bethany stayed up late talking to her mother on the phone and then writing down some thoughts. Myself, I started the novel that I picked up yesterday, but I fell asleep pretty quickly. After breakfast, Bethany asked to take a nap for an hour or so, and since the day looked pretty bleary and foggy out, I indulged her. (Who am I to say no to a nap?)
We didn’t have a tent to pack up, so even with the nap, we got away at about our usual time. In the first major test of our new map, we were heading across country to the Ems-Jade Kanal. The route was simpler than our other cross-country trip in Germany, though.
The first half of the journey went smooth and quick. The end of our first half was marked by a fabulous fish buffet in Vareler Hafen. (Varel Harbour). It was fabulous, so we stuffed ourselves, which definitely slowed us down for the second half of the journey!
But get lost we did. Most were very minor, but we probably killed an hour and about 10 kilometres in the vicinity of Wilhelmshaven.
Very pretty country, even though it stayed foggy all day. Part of our journey was on top of the dike today, rather than alongside it, as it usually is.
Right after our “detour” In Wilhelmshaven, I developed a flat in my rear tire again. This one was caused by the extra tube I put in as a liner to prevent flats! It appears that the sharp edge of the cut tube rubbed a whole in the other tube. I fixed this, and we headed on our way.
By now it was after 6 and we had less than an hour of light left. The closest campground anywhere close to our desired path was 23 kilometres away, so more cycling in the dark was ahead of us. We made it OK, but it’s very stressful doing so. You never know if you’re going to miss a sign, and oncoming headlights blind you, making you lose the path completely. Once you get there, you don’t know if the toilets are locked or some other problem arrives. If all else fails,we’d just pitch the tent on the side of the road, but we’d far prefer to do things the easy way with facilities.
With our huge lunch, we didn’t need much of a supper. That was good, because we didn’t stop at a grocery store, and the closest restaraunt was probably miles away. We just boiled up a package of powdered soup, and that satisfied us. Our appetites are definitely increasing, so we’ll probably be very hungry at breakfast time; I hope I have enough porridge left!
Comments
Dave Watson on 25 Oct 00:18