Trip total odometer 3264km
We awake to the pitter patter of rain on our canvas roof, sardines packed into our tenty tin, sold to us as "luxurious for two, space for three". This basically translates as two man tent, with room for a small terrier or other housetrained pet at the foot of the "bed". We have no pet unfortunately so I find myself sandwiched between a 5"11 human with night terrors and a medium sized Australian with the compulsion to arise and crawl out every three hours for nocturnal urination. We lie in semi slumber, falling in and out of strange cycling related dreams and wait for the rain to stop. As we are in a forest, we later realise that we are simply listening to the drip drip of the drops from the trees falling softly to the ground, amplified to torrential status from the inside of our drum skin home. After dousing ourselves nervously in timed three minute showers (the rules of the campsite, not our military time keeping to stay on schedule), we brew our own coffee, to the obvious distaste of the onsite cafe owners. When I say we brew our own coffee, please dont be imagining me on my knees grinding fresh beans between two rocks and carefully filling a cafetiere with the finest flavoursome Kenyan. Of course for us its Scandinavian Nescafe and coffee mate, with almost boiling water from our solitary jerry can which tastes as ever, a little like the last meal we consumed from its metallic mouth.
It's gratefully drained however, and breakfast tastes all the better for being taken outside. Or so I try to convince myself. Its getting colder, and darker, the further we progress into Germany. I'm unsure as to whether it's the changing of the seasons, or because we are moving further away from the arctic circle, day by day. Perhaps it is just the thick dank forest that carpets this part of the country. Always a little darker, a little colder, for me, a little more forbidding. I long for an open land, a view, a way through, anything to see a little beyond the next straight and orderly pine. Never before has the phrase 'the wood for the trees' been so apt.
Its another day, and so for us, of course, more cycling. The days are starting to blend into one now, it's more difficult to discern any particular incidents or places from the journey. Particularly now as I write this some days after, and I cant recall what has happened in the past few hours, let alone days or weeks. All I have is my statistics, recorded for me, so I know that I am somewhere, and I got here by bicycle, x distance travelled over y time. The blog from now could read, forest, pedal, torrential rain, coffee, pedal, lunch, pedal, lake, pedal, small town stares, pedal, another bread roll, pedal, rain, destination, stop, roof, dinner, bed.
Anyway, I'm not in anyway suggesting that I am ungrateful to be having this experience, for it is still what I want to be doing. Cycling in a straight line, progressing toward a goal, rather than endlessly circling around and around as I have been for the past two years. The girls have helpfully written some notes down about the actual events of this day which I will attempt to structure into a meaningful narrative for your avid reading pleasure.
After a slim breakfast by cycle touring standards, we roll back into town and in stilted German, purchase baked goods from the bakery and fruit from the grocers. I feel somewhat like I am in a language class aural exercise at school. Except school children can no doubt speak better Deutsch than I. I get by on a combination of looking like a nice German girl and smiling and nodding at whatever I'm being told, executing a well pronounced 'Tchuss!' and exiting without having to actually say anything. We cruise along at a great pace, the keen cycling nation of Deutschland may have sand for roads, but they've built a beautiful tarmac road through the forest, just for cycletourists like ourselves. We try however to be too clever, and on one of our many 'shortcuts' we find ourselves on the wrong side of a canal. Over on the other side we can see smooth paths, and old ladies gently rolling along barely pedalling. We however are stuck in a sand pit. We resort to walking (the shame) which is the preferred method of travel for many other elder cycletourists we have seen. We come to a bridge across the water and hope for safe passage to the radweg on the other side. Alas it is a railway bridge, and despite there being steps upto it (an encouragement for small children to play on the track perhaps?!) we decide we are probably not going to be quick enough to jump out of the way of oncoming rail traffic whilst dragging a fully loaded touring bike.
Eventually we arrive in our destination of Oranienberg, something of a non-place, about 50km from Berlin where intend to stop the night. We navigate out of the sand and into a Jugendherberge, where although we can wander freely, are unable to secure any beds as the reception shuts at 3pm! This has been an ongoing saga throughout our travels, and the hostel hours seem to be growing shorter as we move towards autumn. So we scoot down to our trusted friend, the Mighty Tourist Information Centre, and seek help. There's five minutes before close and one assistant remains, who does not speak English. She's obviously impressed by my feeble 'Ich mochte ein gasthaus' and gets straight on the blower to the local B and B. There's some confusion between drei and trei but we get booked in, and she gives us a full ten minute monologue in German, whilst Philippa and I gaze at her, smiling vacantly. We consume a most strange meal at an 'Italian' restaurant where although they speak to us in quasi Italian, fail to understand when we speak back fluently! The Gasthaus is perfect for these Gasts and after a brewing a quick camp coffee on our gas stove in the room (why don't they just provide a kettle?!) we rest.
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