Cycling: German Danube

Day 48: Saturday 20th June
Donauworth - Menning (105km)

Meet Taiwanese bike tourists at the camp and shared coffee with them in the morning. They had individual cup coffee filters from Taiwan - genius. It was good to catch up with other cyclists and find out about places they had ridden. The couple had done NZ and also the island of Hokkaido in Japan. They thought Japan was an excellent place for cycle touring, with campsites and food being better quality and more reasonably priced than Europe. The younger Taiwanese guy (who was riding alone) is the only person we have met travelling more than ourselves. He had started in Paris, rode through all the mountain passes in Switzerland and gone up the Donau through Austria.

A txt message confirmed we would meet our friends Sean and Adrienne in Ingolstadt for lunch so we raced off. Blitzed a hilly section passed lederhosen clad locals to the town of Neuburg. Neuburg had an impressive schloss (castle) but time was short so after admiring the courtyard we rode on. The Grunau hunting palace (Germanys answer to Chambord) was impressive but looked unloved in recent years.

We arrived at Ingolstadt on time and headed to the local campsite to check in. The municipal campsite was more of a trailer-park (in the American sense) so we abandoned that idea and headed to the Bahnhof to meet our friends from Munich. The afternoon was spend listening to um-pah music, and enjoying food and drink on the market square. It was great to catch up with Sean and Adrienne (who are living and working in Munich). Amazing how far their German has come since we met at Oktoberfest last year.

After an evening stroll through the streets of Ingolstadt we parted ways and headed to Vohburg 20km down the river. The light was fading so we cranked up the pace. We missed a badly signposted crossing of the river and ended up on a "No Bikes" highway for much of the way. Used the dynamo headlamps for the first time, which was like riding with the brakes on. Susan gave up on hers and I rode behind. At 30km/hr she was lit up like a spotlight. The free Vohburg camping looked seriously dodgy so we rode up to Menning where at 10:15pm we couldn't rouse the owner. We wandered past fireflies in the darkness to camped in the empty tent-siute/backyard anyway.

Day 49: Sunday 21 June

Menning - Kapfelberg (58km)

Awoke early and slipped away. A puncture slowed our departure but after switching inner-tubes the generosity of a local meant Mark could pump up the tyre with a proper racing bike pump, instead of slogging away with our mini-pump for ages.

At Neustadt we found the only open bakery for miles (being a Sunday). We rode through farmland to Weltenburg abbey with its impressive church interior (Sean had enlightened us on Baroque designs by the famous Asam brothers).

The next stretch of river surrounded by cliff is often conquered by boat. We, being purists, ended up on a goat track over the hill. Skidding down the other side we arrived at McDonalds, which is about the only place in Germany that sells meat that looks like meat instead of dog-roll. The old town of Kelhiem was nice but a bit samey so we didn't linger.

Highlights of the afternoon were the marble, life sized replicas of the Pantheon and Parthenon. These monsters, apparently created by the same Ludwig who created the fairytale masterpiece of Neuschwanstein, look impressive but totally out of place in the forest clad Barvarian hills.

We camped at a nice spot by the marina at Kapfelberg. It was the first spot on the river where we have seen jet-skis etc. We spent until sundown enjoying beer, schnitzl and sausages at a riverside diner.

Day 50: Monday 22 JuneKapfelberg - Straubing (82km)

We started the morning with a true Barvarian breakfast - weiss wurst, salami, cheese, ham, pretzel, buns, butter and cherry jam. We rode to Regensburg with its impressive old sprawling old town and bridge. We poached some wifi and updated ourselves on emails.

The afternoon was spiked with intermittent thunderstorms, but at least it was warmer than the

Felt exhausted arriving in Straubing, and even though it wasn't a particularly long day fatigue set in early. We have been eating well but put exhaustion down to lack of reserves left on our bodies. Mark for example has lost about 10kg since the start of the trip - while at the same time puting on a lot of muscle. That means we are more efficient at riding, but must be more careful about when we eat since the reserve energy just isn't there anymore.

Day 51: Tuesday 23 June

Straubing

Rain through the night and woke to persistent drizzle. Susans eye looked sore so we found an eye-doctor in town and procured some antibiotics. The rest of the day was spent trying to atay out of the rain so ended up holing up in McDonalds, visiting a cathedral (Asam brothers again) which paled in comparison to Weltenburg abbey, and visiting a museum with a Roman horde of treasures that had been discovered locally. The Roman stuff was amazing, this being one of the main outposts on the Donau at the frontier of the ancient empire.