Day 66: Ingolstadt to Neustadt, Germany (at mid day), then Kapfelberg: It's a long hot road to Regensburg

July 24, 2012

Sometimes on this trip we have just hopped and skipped from one WoW factor to another. But at other times, one just has to buckle down and pedal. This morning had more buckle and a little less wow. The route is there, and mostly car free, which is always wow for us. And Vohburg had it's original town wall (plus a bakery with apple strudel!)But after just enough hot and dusty kilometers, we are sitting on a bench at the entrance to Neuburg, just meditatively munching our sandwiches. (Hey, actually Dodie's for example had a great bun and kiwi plus Camembert inside!). In fact, Dodie had now conked out on her mat under a tree!

Hang on, I will go wake her up and see if we can find some more adventures this afternoon...

Our route for this morning. Actually, we had better find something drier, along the shore.

It was dry - very dry, and hot. Mostly the trail looked like this this morning.

Except by the river, it looked like this.

In Vohburg, the city as it was in 1300 is depicted in a mural on the side of city hall.

Here is that pole again. It must be some sort of Bavarian tradition.

We went into Neustadt a bit, a place with some interesting architecture and also a relatively rare war memorial. We then got lost, just after Sittling. The GPS told us the road we were on was a dead end. I could see a way onto the main road to Weltenburg but Dodie preferred to backtrack and find where we had lost the bikeway. We did find the bikeway quite quickly. We had missed a right turn, because the path was on the left of a regular road and the right turn indication was small and mounted across the road from us, on the right hand side. Some unkind words were said about whoever had mounted the signs.

Finding the bikeway again was a mixed blessing. It took us up into fields of corn and wheat, far from any towns or houses. We also for the first time saw huge plantings of hops, growing up cables to a twelve foot height. Bavarian beer in the making.

Meanwhile the temperature went to about 38 and our water ran low. The headwind took its toll, and Dodie weakened a lot. Finally, she got off to push up a not very significant hill. When I noticed her weaving side to side I said “Stop in that next shade and I am going to feed you some raisins”. Her reply: “Tell me when I get there” – for her eyes were closed.

Eventually we came to a long downhill, that swept us into Weltenburg. Weltenburg is where the famous Donau Gorge begins. The river is fairly narrow at this point and the current swift. It is said to be where the river is deepest, so its not as if there are rapids. There are white cliffs on both sides, rising directly from the river. At points, brave swimmers make a long dive in.

We knew there was a ferry downstream, 5 km to Kelheim on the opposite bank, But where was it, exactly, how to get onto it, and had we missed the last sailing? We just pushed on along the river bank, and first came to the monastery, thought to be the oldest in Bavaria. We were worried about the ferry sailings, and so just snapped a couple of photos and pressed on. However whatever serious spirituality used to go on (or still goes on) inside, the place was swamped with hungry, fun loving tourists.

We got to the ferry landing just as the second to last sailing was pulling out. Fortunately, the next sailing was in just ½ hour. As we waited some more cyclists arrived, followed by about 50 general tourists. The cyclists asked us where we were going, and we replied Vienna. With this they seemed to lose interest in us, and as they talked among themselves we heard that many were headed for the Black Sea. Up to Vienna is for holidays, beyond Vienna is where the challenge begins.

With almost 3000 km on our odometers already, we were surprised to learn that we were just triflers. I wonder if I had added “and Amsterdam” would they have all moved back to us on the waiting bench, so to speak, like in “Alice’s Restaurant”.

The boat ride, though short, offers a restaurant and bar service. Just before we arrived, we remembered our empty water bottles, and filled them from the bar sink. An angry worker appeared and shouted at us in German. We gathered that this was “private water”. It’s believable, because in another restaurant they wanted to charge us one euro per glass for tap water. Wow, the criminal grampies apparently made off with about four euros of plain water! We were glad we had, though, because there was still some hot and dry cycling ahead.

Kelheim revealed itself to be a very picturesque tourist town. More than that, our friends of recent days were all there. Perhaps it’s natural that people on the same basic route should keep running into each other, but at any time someone could decide to change direction, stop early, go extra far, etc. So when you do meet, it’s an event.

We continued toward the first camping spot on our map, at Saal. This point the tired Dodie seemed to tap an extra battery pack, and wanted to carry on about 5 km more, to Kapfelberg. Here two camping spots were indicated, and indeed they were there. Each was a gaggle of trailers. We chose the further one, where we found Sascha and Irina!

14 euros bought us an unoccupied slum lot, and 10 euros was the deposit for a key to the washrooms, where you could use the pay showers. We have figured out that people here see a tent as a trailer or camping car that is missing the trailer or car part. Still, the users either should already have or don’t want a table, or access to drinking water, near their site. One distinction about tents that is clear to operators here is that you can jam a pile of them together on the same lot! Still, we are right by the river, and I bet it’s gorgeous in the morning.

(photos to follow – little or no internet access for me now)

At the monastery, things are not too ascetic.

For the first time, boats appear on the river

A total slum, but at least it has our friends

Today's ride: 73 km (45 miles)
Total: 3,077 km (1,911 miles)

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