Day 7: To Rendsburg

August 16, 2022

Dea opted to sleep on the water bed in a room by herself, while I slept in a single bed next to Kevin’s cot. This was so that Dea could get a good nights rest and it was my turn to react every time Kevin made noises. He did a few times and I got up and soothed him back to sleep, which was great as Dea caught up on some good sleep and I got a greater appreciation of how amazing she is to be the one doing this most of the time.

We had to be out of the basement at eleven so after breakfast we packed up and moved on. Kevin wasn’t ready for a nap, so we moved 200 metres to a nearby playground. The attractions here were a bit big for Kevin, but he made his own playground out of his mum, and actually managed to use her to get up and stand without help for the first time ever. Of course he wasn’t really standing, there was a lot of leaning going on, but it was still an amazing thing to see him get up on his legs by himself.

We only had 20 kilometers to cycle to our host in Rendsburg and we split it into two thankfully uneventful rides. It’s interesting that I am also reuploading my old blog on here, from my first round the world cycle, and this time eight years ago I was cycling 120-130 kilometers every single day to get across Siberia before my visa expired. Now I am riding 20-30 kilometre days, but I find it to be just as challenging and exciting, only in a different way. The challenges now obviously revolve around Kevin and how to make this work with a baby on board. Challenges like how to take a break in the village of Alt Duvenstedt, a village with no parks or playgrounds. We found some grass between a small road and a farmhouse that was shaded, is the answer.

From there we left the bike paths and rode the last section on small roads. There was some traffic and that made me nervous on the blind corners, but the drivers were patient and it went fine.

Our host for the night was through the warmshowers website, an interesting man named Bodo. He has done a lot of bike touring himself, cycling twice to Nordkapp at the top of Norway amongst other things. Soon after we arrived he went off into town on his bike to run an errand. We had mentioned that we wanted to get new tyres for our trailer as the Chinese tyres it came with were starting to wear and split, and Bodo soon sent us a message that he was in a bike shop and could bring some back for us. Half an hour later and we had the new tyres we needed. Thanks so much Bodo!!!

Bodo also provided us with a delicious dinner and good company. In fact, he is such a good man that he currently has six Ukrainian refugees living in his house. We didn’t have very much interaction with them, however. The reason why he has so many spare rooms available became clear when I at one point mentioned that having a baby was hard work. He told us he had had five children, including two sets of twins. “Ok, I guess one baby isn’t such hard work!”

The only slight problem was that the garden where we had planned to camp had ticks in it. We were laying there with Kevin when I found one crawling up my leg. Dea then found two on her and we quickly changed our plans and moved inside. Luckily Bodo also had a living room he could offer for us, and so we find ourselves camping inside tonight, something that Kevin thought was great fun!

Today's ride: 21 km (13 miles)
Total: 375 km (233 miles)

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