Velodyssee

Woke up to another sizzler. Haven’t seen a cloud for 5 days now. As the gasthoff we stayed in overnight is literally 10m from the cycle track we were off and running in no time. A brisk following wind has us scooting along the left bank as far as the hydro electric dam of Wehr Melk which we used to cross to the right bank and the shady side of the river.

As we crossed the weir two massive barges travelling upstream entered the lock gate system so we watched the whole process of closing the lower gates, the inflow of water into the lock from the upstream side and finally the opening of the upper lock gates and the departure of the barges on their way. One of the barges was in fact two joined together and registered in Bratislava. One was called Queen and the other Uriah Heap – both famous bands from the 70’s and 80’s for which I still have vinyl LPs somewhere in the house.

After that excitement we headed off in the direction of Melk and it’s famous 11C Abbey which sits up on a rocky outcrop overlooking the river. We parked up to take some photos and an enthusiastic middle aged American couple came up and told us how marvellous the interior is and ‘dripping in gold’ and how we must visit it. One of our peloton advised them that we shall not be visiting due to rapacious nature of historic religions and the inequity of the wealth of the church derived off the backs of the peasantry. Suitably gobsmacked the American couple shuffled off carrying their extremely expensive Hasselblad cameras on tripods back to their waiting cruise ship on the river. The real reason we didn’t go in for a look was that the abbey is on top of a very steep hill and we don’t ‘do’ hills on this bike trip!!

10km further on there was a snag. A major rockfall following the heavy rains in June had completely cut off the right bank cycle route. The local authority had put on a ferry link to bypass this obstacle at no cost. When I say ferry what I really mean is very small boat with very powerful outboard engine. It only took 10 bikes at a time and the blooming’ panniers had to be removed. Bit of pain but no arguing with the supremely miserable boat driver. 10 bikes, 10 cyclists all clutching their panniers, squashed in like sardines and not a life jacket in sight. Me, I am almost sitting on top of the outboard engine. After a lot of faffing we head off at great speed into the middle of the channel and Captain Miserable opens up the the throttle and we head downstream at what seems like 100mph. I can’t hear myself think and there is water flying everywhere!! We pass the land slip and charge on for a further 3 or 4 km to a small new landing stage made of Lego where we all pile off in reverse order, saddle up and continue on our way. It was an exhilarating 10 minutes!

After that the search was on for a lunchtime drink stop. Small villages and many kms rolled by without the merest hint of parasols and beer until we came upon Heurigan Weingut Gallhoffer which had lots of cyclists, picnic tables under fruit trees dripping with plums, apples and elderberries. “ 4 beers bitte” we all say but the bemused but gentle waiter kindly pointed out the “ nicht beer here – iss eine weingut”. It suddenly dawns on us that we are in a wine cellar place and no nice cold beer to be had here so instead we got a delicious cold dry white wine plus assorted fizzy water. Then, unbelievably, a duo of septuagenarians tuned up – one accordian player and one singer (well I say singer!) and launched into a collection of old not so favourite tunes – Quando Quando Quando being one!! Oh how we laughed.

After that musical buffoonery we embarked on the last leg of todays journey through the vineyards and orchards of the Wachau and crossing back over the Danube on the Mauterner Brücke . Sadly the box lattice iron bridge was undergoing repairs which required cyclists to navigate a footway only 1inch wider than your bike’s handlebars. At risk of skinning hour knuckles or shedding your knees the frustrated peloton grumbled it’s way safely across and eventually found that long awaited cold beer!!!

Next door to our overnight hotel in Grein was Austria’s (reputedly) oldest working theatre. The Stadttheater was built by the citizens in an old granary in 1791. It is tiny and has only 167 hard wooden seats in it but it’s main attraction for lots of visitors is the single toilet facility which is behind a curtain located directly off the main auditorium. One just had to try it out!!

We also sneakily tried on a few hats in the dressing room and rather fetching we looked too.

After this delayed theatrical start to the day we headed off to take a small 12-bike ferry across the river to Wiesen on the right bank. The right bank was in the shade beneath a vertiginous forest. Hurrah! A few miles down we saw timber being extracted by a massive caterpillar tracked log cutter going up and down an almost vertical slope. Luckily it was attached via a steel cable to prevent it crashing down the hill into the Gasthoff below. Most impressive.

Just before that the peloton had a dispute about architecture. A modernist rectilinear house with full glazed frontage was spotted on the opposite bank set amongst the trees and seen in context with more traditional Donau Region buildings. Eyesore said some. Beautiful and elegant said others. What do you think dear readers? Blot on the landscape or elegant addition? Votes please.

It was a gentle day of cycling – only 30km but through some fine fields of corn and sugar beet as well as fine views along the river and not forgetting the charming beer stop in Persenbeug-Gottsdorf.

The day was rounded off in Marbach with a dip in the Danube right across from the hotel. Suffice to say there was much shrieking about the sudden loss of body heat on entering the water along with a reluctance among one of the peloton to put his/her feet onto the muddy slimy bottom which couldn’t be seen beneath the murky grey/green water. A collective fear of being attacked by pike and being swept away in the current towards Vienna restricted the swim to a few square meters of water at the very edge of the river between a willow bush and the barrels holding up the pontoon. Whilst some photos were taken of this illustrious event none have been deemed suitable for publication.

The day started hot and just got hotter. By mid afternoon it was 33 degrees and very humid. The sun shone from a cloudless blue sky and started to fry our peloton the moment we left Linz.

For those of us of a fair skin disposition and a life based in the west of Scotland this intense sun poses some serious challenges. Despite the fact that you have slathered yourself from head to toe in factor 50 you are still convinced your pale skin is beginning to turn pink and you are starting to burn. You become so paranoid about this that you ignore the fabulous Danubian scenery that surrounds you and you start to figure out ways to avoid being burned to a crisp during the course of todays 60km ride through scorched fields of sweetcorn, rows of parched beans and hot apple trees. We had opted to take the left bank all the way from Linz to Grein which turned out to have absolutely no shade from trees whatsoever so by the time we reach the first beer stop after 20km I have decided that my factor 50 application on my arms has been poorly applied and now I’m burning. So off with my short sleeved cycling shirt and on with Carol’s fluorescent yellow one with long sleeves. The half litre of beer shandy didn’t hit the sides but suitably refreshed and protected we set off again into the blinding sun.

We bowled along for the next 20km mostly on a raised flood embankment alongside the Danube. Sadly not a tree in sight to offer that all important shade. Another cyclist watering hole appeared shimmering like a mirage in the desert. We stopped. Heads were stuck under fountains, copious amounts of water and ice cream were consumed and a further 6 inch coating of factor 50 was applied to the applied to the increasingly hot legs.

We eventually arrived in Grein in mid afternoon and found the hotel. I was in a stated of absolute overheated clarty stickiness for which an urgent cold shower was the only answer. The steam could be seen rising as far away as Vienna!

There we’re some interesting things to see along the way.

We are staying in a hotel right next door the the Stadttheatre who’s is reputedly the oldest town theatre in Austria and been in constant use since 1791. One of its most charming features is a toilet which is separated from the main auditorium merely by a curtain! Oooeerrrr.

Please let it be cooler tomorrow.

Day 2 dawned bright and sunny. Another hot day in the saddle loomed ahead. An ‘all you can eat buffet breakfast’ was fully utilised and the peloton creaked into action.

We chose to ride the right bank in the morning which offered more shade but this still didn’t dissuade me from applying copious amounts of factor 50. After a few false starts for the obligatory team selfies in front of the Schlogen Loop, a magnificent hairpin bend in the river, we got underway setting a brisk pace.

Despite the fact it was a Monday morning there was a lot of cyclists undertaking a much brisker pace than us creating fairly constant bell ringing from behind to warn us to get out of the way or else…However no obscenities were exchanged – at least none that I could understand – and we ploughed on to Aschach for a much needed coffee and, in one case, a sneaky ice cream. It was here where I witnessed my first ever adult trying, not entirely successfully, to apply sun cream with gloves on. Well it made me laugh anyway.!

We crossed to the left bank via the Aschacher Strasse Brucke and struck out through the corn on the cob fields around Feldkirchen trying to keep pace with a family of four including 2 young kids who could more than match us for pace. It didn’t help that the the saddle on my hire bike was constantly sliding down slowly but surely to the frame ‘cos I can’t tighten the clamp around the stem tight enough and resulting in me almost sitting down at crossbar height.

We had read that there was a pedestrian/bike ferry that operates between Ottensheim and the centre of Linz. So we rolled swiftly towards the embarkation point and jammily rolled straight onto the departing ferry thus hiving off the last 10km of cycling. This reduction in cycling effort didn’t deter us from chomping our way through enormous ice creams in the Hauptplatz of Linz.

Linz by the way isn’t famed for its chocolate which came as a bit of a shock to me. Lindts chocolate is made in Kilchberg in Switzerland and has been since 1845 by Rudolf Lindt and David Sprüngli. Linz is famed for ‘basic oxygen steel making’ which really doesn’t have the same appeal.

Notwithstanding this fact it has some very fine churches and we visited a few in the afternoon. We went into the Urslinenkirche which was built in 1736 and dedicated to the Archangel Michael (?). When we entered two amazing things happened which I have never witnessed before. The first was a rehearsal that was underway for a woodwind performance trio which was absolutely fantastic and lending a real echoing atmosphere inside the church. The second was somewhat less inspiring. As just the two of sat enthralled by this ethereal medieval music a middle aged woman crept into the church, put a coin in the box and lit a candle but then proceeded to scoop up the remaining 100 or so unlit candles from the trays underneath and put them into her shopping bag. She then sneaked out of the church and disappeared. The church warden who had been prowling around earlier reappeared from somewhere else in the building and wandered over to the now completely depleted candle rack and gave me a bit of a suspicious glare but stopped short of coming over and accusing me of nicking her candles. We saw the candle miscreant later that afternoon in the town square looking like she was about to sell them some candles for profit! Archangel Michael would be suitably dismayed I’m sure.

The day finished in a Bavarian restaurant in a tree covered courtyard in which copious amounts of beer and meat were consumed. The peloton waddled slowly back to the hotel to sleep it all off.!

Before we could start our (not so epic) riding trip we needed bikes. This entailed walking for half an hour in the already rising temperatures to cross the town from the hotel to the bike hire shop. Then there was the usual faffing about adjusting saddles, fixing panniers, trying out brakes etc etc. What the bike hire company didn’t tell us was that each bike comes with the heaviest chain combination lock in Christendom and having spent a not inconsiderable amount of time packing as few clothes and toothpaste as possible to reduce the weight, this great lump of metal was most unwelcome.

However after the faffing and grumbling we eventually got the peloton underway but only as far as the hotel we started at before the half hour walk to the bike hire shop and did some more final faffing, adjusting, water bottle filling, application (in my case) of lashings of factor 50 in such quantity that I may as well have worn a slippery white plastic bag!!

After that we moved a full 100m before I insisted on the obligatory ’team photo’ by the river. I accosted a charming young frauline who kindly took a fine photo of some not-so-fine physical specimens of 3 sexagenarians and one septuagenarian in lycra. Oh well – we’re on holiday!

It is now 11:30am and the sun is scorching the earth (and my white Scottish legs) and we have barely gone 200m. However things are looking up as we crossed the river Danube from south to north on the fine suspension bridge called very splendidly the Prinz Regent Luitpoldbrücke. Ludwig Luitpold became Prince Regent in 1886 after his nephew King LudwigII was declared mentally incompetent to rule!! I’m sure he did lots of fine things to get this bridge named after him and so it transported us to the other side of the river. We’re off.

After 10 miles in the baking sun wedged between a road on the left and the not-so-blue Danube on the right and already in a lather we rolled into Obernzell and the first coffee stop of the trip. Then onward to Jochenstein (not Celtic jokes here please) the home of a very fine 132MW hydro power plant driven by turbines in the river. It is also the home of some distinctly average apflekucken and some inexplicable lemonade concoctions much loved by the local wasps but less so by tourist cyclers!

Also at this point we had slid unrecognised from Germany into Austria without the merest hint of passport stamping for us non EU residents.

We made our final destination to a great hotel on the south bank of the river having crossed in a small ferry for the princely sum of €3 each. The hotel is located on a very dramatic bend in the river known as the Schlögener Loop.

So having scraped of the 10 layers of factor 50 and sunk a few beers we settled down to fine evening on the terrace. To watch the setting sun. Magic.

This year’s summer (not so) epic cycle trip is along the Danube from Passau to Budapest via Linz, Vienna and Bratislava.

The peloton consists once again of the Nelsons and Stapletons who completed the upper stretches of the Danube in 2017 from its source in Donaueschingen to Passau and who all agreed then that a continuation downstream to Budapest was a future escapade that must be completed. Unable to put it off much longer due to advancing age and creaking joints the team has decided that 2024 is the year to do it.

So with just 24 hours to go to departure the packing remains typically incomplete as major faffing about what to take starts to kick in. We are carrying all our own stuff so minimising the amount of spare pants and toothpaste you pack becomes critical!!

My girth size has increased dramatically over the last couple of years so an emergency trip to Decathlon was required to get a new pair of cycling shorts that didn’t actually cut off my circulation around the waist area!!

Cycling is due to start on Sunday morning 11 August assuming KLM gets us to Germany in time!

Hopefully I will do a blog update each day but you never know, fatigue and beer might kick in !!

Just like yesterday, today’s epic adventure started with a gut busting breakfast followed immediately by a 2 mile gut busting 800 ft hill climb out of Stanhope up Crawleyside Bank. In fact we did crawl up the first mile of it ‘cos it was really steep but fortunately we made it to the top without seeing our breakfast again! It turned out that our hotel last night, Stanhope Old Hall, has ghosts. It is a Grade II listed manor house which is 800 years old. Legend has it that in the Middle Ages a young engaged couple went into the house and never came out again. Their skeletons were found many years later under the floorboards. An old ghostly grey lady has occasionally been seen floating about there too . Oooerrr! Anyway we emerged in tact to tackle the last day of our C2C. After the 2 mile crawl up Crawleyside Bank the remaining 40 miles was downhill- Whoohoo! The route followed an old mine railway called the Waskerley Way for miles across the open moorland full of purple heather and fluttering grouse which were all trying to avoid being shot at by a group of hunters. But the only deaths we saw that day were a wee mole and several squashed rabbits and hedgehogs on the road. We roared with gay abandon down the slopes of the moors, through forests, across stupendously high viaducts over deeply incised river valleys, through the glorious streets of Consett and down to the banks of the mighty River Tyne. Then it’s eastwards towards the finish at Tynemouth along the magnificent waterfront in Newcastle, past a dazzling array of bridges including the iconic Tyne Bridge, the red Swing Bridge, the brilliant double deck King Edward VII Bridge and the funky Millennium Bridge. Then it’s on past the old warehouses and former yards of Wallsend (the end of Hadrian’s Wall), the docks at North Shields where the North Sea ferries depart and eventually in to Tynemouth and the end of the C2C. Tradition dictates that you should dip your wheels into the sea to complete the coast to coast epic which we duly did. Sadly the end point of the C2C cycle route, which we have been following up hill and down dale in all weathers for the last few days, is not celebrated with a big shiny triumphal C2C aluminium sign. There is merely a humble fingerpost buried behind a gorse bush on the headland, which most cyclists miss!! Our new Kiwi cycling chums, Gordon and Di, agreed that this anticlimactic finish needs to be addressed and the CEO of North Tyneside Council will be receiving some stiffly worded letters from Auckland and Glasgow on putting this matter to rights.! There was only one thing left to do and that was to eat an ice cream in the car park whilst watching our evervescent Skeddaddle transport guy, Paul, load our bikes onto the car for transfer back to our hotel in Newcastle. That’s it . Job done. Off for a beer now.

The day started with a climb up Alston high street which was way too steep for us so with a ‘Full English’ still rolling around in the stomach we trudged up to the top of the town, the first of a number of big hills today. First monster was at Blackhill (690m) and the highest point on the Sustrans National Cycle Network. It also marked our exit from Cumbria into Northumberland. Luckily for Carol we found a little cycle shop in Nenthead before we reached this hill where a seasoned old biker was able to fix her gears. No low gearing since the start of the trip meant every climb was a thigh burning lung buster. But the wise old biker identified the problem, fixed the offending gear wheel and problem solved. At the same time as the gear fixing was going on our new Kiwi cycling chums we’re having a problem with one of their hired electric bikes and we’re having to phone the hire company to come and switch them back on again! Didn’t see them for the rest of the day! The next big grunt was at Allenheads (536m) where despite fully functioning gears we had to get off and push.(we’re not proud!). At this summit we passed out of Northumberland and into County Durham – ‘The Land of the Prince Bishops’ (what are they??). After that there was a glorious 5 miles of downhill through the purple haze of heather in bright sunshine to Rookhope where the evil demons who devised this C2C route now subjected us to another near vertical climb through fields of black faced sheep to the summit of Stanhope Common. From there another glorious 5 mile downhill through the sheep shit- covered minor road and into Stanhope. We are staying in Stanhope Old Hall an old Manor House first constructed in the 12th C. The floors slope all over the place and the angle of the bed will ensure that I will almost certainly roll out at some point.!! 1 day left – a mighty 44 miles into Tynemouth (mostly downhill – hurrah!).

Well we may not have cycled far today but we definitely had a thigh burning climb to negotiate. The day started gently enough with some time spent up close and personal with Long Meg in a field near Langwathby. She was a bit quiet and moody and, along with her 60 smaller stony-faced friends, was definitely into Druidary. This calm start was soon shattered as we faced the horrors of getting up the 1900ft Hartside Summit. I think it should be more aptly named Heartattack Summit. This was a serious grunt of a climb and a few choice expletives were emitted en route to the top. Mrs N thought her head was going to explode as we negotiated the final few hundred feet but fortunately it didn’t and we made it to the top in tact. The welcoming cafe that previously stood at the top burned down a few years ago so we sat in a damp bench and ate our curled up ham and cheese sandwich in the blustery wind as our amassed perspiration was carried off into the valley below. The subsequent 5 mile descent into Alston was a whizz tho’ and we made in time for a early afternoon beer. A stroll round the town revealed this to have the steepest Main Street in any place in Christendom and is reputedly the inspiration for that most weird Pennine town creation of Royston Vasey of League of Gentlemen fame. Looking at the itinerary for tomorrow there appears to be a lot more grunting and perspiration-inducing climbs. Can’t wait!!!!

What a difference a day makes. After yesterday’s absolute washout today we had the bright blue skies and sunshine. The route traversed the undulating terrain of north Lakeland and took in closed up Sunday stone villages and quiet rural roads but brooding in the distance and getting ever larger lie the forbidding slopes of The Pennines. Stopped for a coffee in Greystoke the legendary home of the Earl and Lady Greystoke the shipwrecked parents of Tarzan. The local pub was awash with Tarzan pictures but no real apes to be seen. However what turned out to be Carol’s highlight from this village was the infamous Plague Stone, a difficult to find hollowed out lump of limestone set into the grass which was the place where you washed your coins in a small pool of vinegar to avoid catching the plague. This might have proved an effective tool against Covid 19. Then onward to Penrith where a cold beer awaited in the 14th century Dockray Hall pub. Up the hill to Penrith Castle former home of King Richard III ( did he have a hump back??). I think he would be horrified by his new neighbours the Macdonalds and the amount of burger and fries detritus which they allow to float around in the ruins! Arrived at the Edenhall Country House Hotel near Langwathby where a cold beer in the garden in the sunshine provided an enjoyable end to the day.