21 May (sunny and warm) 28 km

Opened the tent flap to a thick morning mist. Last night when we pitched, we felt comfortable about our choice of location, even though we had stumbled upon it, after a hectic last hour and a half, riding some dangerous main roads in the dying light. 

Campground for the night

This morning, as with others, the tent was soaked with condensation and morning dew. The traffic had been constant all night, so sleep was interrupted for me at least, for Julia, the woman who dies when her head hits the pillow, or in our case, dry sack, sleep came easily.  Packed up wet or damp gear, wondering why others don’t do what we do and answering myself straight away. Bikes loaded and off to find Passau, but instead only got as far as the first Mc Donalds we saw.  Free wifi and to go with it two coffees and two muffins. This is the first time on this trip we have used Macca’s but decided we may as well eat and catch up with stuff there seeing as we weren’t going to see much of Passau with all this mist hanging about.  Spent the next two hours in there paying wages, checking accounts, e-mailing staff etc. When Julia went to the loo I managed to get hold of Georgina on skype and enjoyed a nice chat to her.  Must note here that the guy who served us was really nice and spoke fluent English. The place was spotless both inside and out and was a credit to the owner. The weather by this time had come out really warm, so the ride into Passau, to look around, was in full sunshine, a scarce commodity since we arrived.  

In the city of Passau, Germany

Rode the bikes all over the city and watched the river cruise boats, like the one Julia was on with her Dad last year, moored at the dock. They are massive and plush and chocka full of passengers. I said to Ju that it’s a license to print money. Found the Tourist Info office and picked up a couple of maps and then went for a serious look through Passau.

The amount of photos we take is a tremendous amount in a place with the history, colour and flavour of somewhere like Passau. Castles, churches, town squares, bridges…there is so much to shoot, so we take a few of everything and pick the best. Then of course you have the fascination of not only people watching, but also trying to converse with the locals. From asking for directions, to trying to locate a supermarket or campsite, it’s all good fun, made even more so when you interact with the locals. Some speak no English, a lot speak very fluently and others just enough to have some sort of conversation, whereby at the conclusion, everyone comes away with a smile on their faces.  Time was moving on and we needed to buy some lunch and after speaking to about half a dozen folk, we found a supermarket, did our shop and then found a square at one end with lots of grass, where we laid out our tent and after that, the flysheet. Enjoyed another delicious lunch, very basic but yummy, before once again having trouble getting out of town.  I know this is repeated often, but you have to realise that some of the places we are looking for are rather obscure. It’s easy to find the large city names and pick that, except our routes go off on a full scenic tour. Beautiful countryside, but huge kms added on to set route. 

Final looks at Passau

Followed what is now, the Donau or Danube, before climbing a friggin enormous hill.  The sun, which has been a rarity, now was out in all its glory and boy could we feel it.  It climbed and it kept on climbing, until we were above the rest of the countryside, heading for Thyrnau, our first port of call on a short trip to our campground in Kelsham which is so obscure we saw no signs to the place whatsoever.  The first mention of it was the sign at the edge of the village announcing it’s name.

Pete, acting the goat....oh no wait, it is a goat!

Pulled into a very quiet country campground with great facilities and thought we’d struck gold….until the bus turned up with all the kids who had obviously come here for school camp.  Never mind, we got a load of washing and handwashed another half load as there was just too much to go in the machine.  Then Ju went for a shower while I blogged.

Ju came back with all the washing which we strung around our area of the campground in an effort to dry it in the heat of the late afternoon sun.  Then they lit the bonfire.  Great.  Luckily there was no wind and the smoke went straight up as it was only about 50 metres from our spot.

Aside from all the kids (about thirty of them) there were two other families in their caravans here.

So we were generally fluffing about, moving all our washing with the sun, when the young girl from one of the caravans comes over and asks us if we would like some meat as they have had their dinner and couldn’t manage it all.  Well of course we said “Yes please!” so they brought us over three thick, juicy steaks plus two delicious sausages, a huge bowl of greek salad and tsaziki and some bread.  Plus they also gave us a beer each!  We were so grateful and devoured the lot.  We did the dishes and took them back over along with a little NZ badge that we had been meaning to sew onto our panniers, but hadn’t got round to.  We gave it to Cecilia, the little girl to put on her school bag.  It wasn’t much to give but they seemed delighted.

Pete after our delicious meal - YUM!

As we were collecting our washing in, one of the teacher’s from the school camp came past and we got talking.  He was of Greek origin and naturally the talk turned to football and he invited us in to watch the German final between Barissio Dortmund and Bayern Munich, which started at 8pm. So we joined him and the kids to watch the game which was projected onto one of the walls with exceptional quality.  The picture must have been 1.5 x 2 metres!  Turns out this school camp thing is not so bad!

At halftime we made a coffee and Benny, Jenny and Cecilia came over to watch the second half.  Ju was editing photos as well as she had been falling asleep in the first half, and showed Cecilia some photos of NZ.  Benny gave me another beer and the women all chatted at the back of the room – turns out Jenny breeds endangered tortoises to help save them from extinction. 

Bayern Munich finally won the match after extra time and a penalty shoot-out which the kids loved, judging by the noise anyway!  It was a nice way to spend the evening.