13 June 2016 (cloudy and warm, afternoon showers) 105km

Cuckoo..cuckoo..cuckoo..cuckoo..ah, the sound of the little cuckoo, not one we hear in New Zealand. I lay, listening to it and other bird calls. Cuckoo..cuckoo..cuckoo..cuckoo.. yes we’ve certainly heard this call a lot on this particular tour, in a number of the countries we’ve been to. Cuckoo..cuckoo..cuckoo..cuckoo.. I would have to say, that they seem much more common now, than in previous years, but I’m not up to date with bird numbers. Cuckoo..cuckoo..cuckoo..cuckoo.. I roll over. It’s only 4.15am, but nearly full daylight. My little friend has been going for the last twenty minutes. I figured it must be at least 6am. Cuckoo..cuckoo..cuckoo..cuckoo.. Wondered why I felt so tired lately with all this early moring bird song..Cuckoo..cuckoo..cuckoo..cuckoo.. Some people I would imagine could find it a little irritating, all this cuckooing. Cuckoo..cuckoo..cuckoo..cuckoo.. Julia….pass me that bloody rifle will you…this friggin bird is doin my bloody head in, the little bastard..!

As I sat up in the tent typing that opening paragraph, with Julia asleep beside me, a huge hare sat looking at me from no more than twenty feet away. That is one of the reasons we love cycle tours, you connect with nature up close, including bird song…!  So, whilst Julia cycled to buy breakfast, I packed up the tent, leaving the computer to charge in the toilets. We broke camp at 8.30am, found the road out that we needed (not through any help with signage I might add.  Purely guess and compass work) and were on our way.  

First fifteen kms were great, through the countryside admiring the crops and fields in all their glory….then came the hills, all the way to the hill village of Konice.  Arrived around 11am looking for a supermarket and found a small one in a tiny village square. Now…. Remembering that a few days ago in Trencin, Slovakia, we had a strange encounter with a tanoy system and a siren, with a voice booming something out in Slovakian.  Today as we entered the town square, Czech music was being blasted out over the village tanoy system.  We wondered if we were about to witness a Czech flash mob, but nobody could shake their booty to that music, especially over a tanoy system which makes any music sound tinny. After a couple of minutes, the music went quiet and a female voice began talking for at least five minutes, before the music began again for another couple of minutes.  We had already noticed that some village people are a little bit different, but today when I saw three policemen, two construction workers and a red indian, we realised Village People are the same the world over.

A lovely little bright spot of flowers in a village we passed through.

After collecting our supplies, we cycled a short way to the next village and sat in an empty bus stop to have lunch at midday.  Lunch was extra delicious today with Ju having taken a guess that what she asked for was pate and to our delight, it was.  Paired with camembert and tomato on soft buns and followed by the good old cup of coffee and sweet pastry and we were ready for the afternoon. 

We encountered a lovely stretch of road from here where the surface was smooth and the riding fast.  The road wound it’s way through a valley, following a small river.  After about 8km though, we bid a sad farewell to this road and carried on a different road as per the map.  But judging by the signage, we perhaps could have stayed on that lovely road and avoided another bloody hill. 

Got our bearings again and soon found ourselves flying along on another good road although this was quite undulating into the town of Moravska Trebova.  

castle at Moravska Trebova

Decided we had better visit Tourist Info and get a better map of the area and see if there were any campgrounds closer than the one we had planned in Litomysl – there weren’t.  But the very helpful lady at Tourist Info let us leave our computer charging in her office while we went and had a look at the castle.

Moravska Trebova

check out those clouds!

Had a little wander around town, glad to be off the bikes for awhile before retrieving our computer and setting off on a lovely quiet road which climbed slowly and steadily through little villages for the next 10km.  Then it climbed steeply for 4km, having us drenched in sweat by the top so it was with relief we enjoyed a 3km cool down on the downhill stretch on the other side.  The weather was looking a bit dodgy so when we spied a covered-in bus stop in a sleepy village, we pulled in for a coffee and a snack.  It started raining while we ate so we timed that well and shortly after we finished, so did the rain.  So on the bikes again for a reasonably flat ride to Opatovec, where it started raining again but lucky for us there was another handy bus shelter.  We stopped for about half an hour as it’s always better to avoid getting wet if you can, rather than trying to dry everything out.  While we were stopped, we noticed the speakers on the telephone poles every 100 metres or so.  We had found out from our lovely lady at Tourist Info that the the speakers are used to inform the village of things that are going on that day in the surrounding district such as concerts, fairs, circuses or anything else of that nature.

the tanoy speakers as viewed from the bus stop

After this we followed the old road to Litomysl for about 5km which was great as only other cyclists and tractors were using this road whereas the main road alongside was chocka with fast-moving trucks.

However, for the last 10km into Litomysl, we had to join the main road and it was not very pleasant at all.  At least we had a hard shoulder and we flew along there as fast as we could, keen to get this section over with.  

At the edge of town we stopped at a gas station to ask if they knew where the campground was.  We struck gold here with an English speaking attendant who knew where the camp was and had a map to show us how to get there.  We found the camp easily and after 105km were very pleased to get there.

There was nobody in attendance at reception but we saw one camper van there and it had Dutch rego plates so we were pretty sure they would speak English.  So we cycled over to the man sitting in his deck chair who looked delighted when he saw two bikepackers roll up.  He and his wife were also bikepackers and had done their last tour last year – and he is 76!  His name was Jap and he offered us a cup of coffee.  So as we set up the tent and his wife Adriana returned from the showers, he made coffee and we all sat down in the dying sunshine, exchanging bike touring stories and having a good laugh.

So it wasn’t until 8.30pm that we got our showers and after all that sweating, they were very welcome.  Then as we were making dinner, Jap came over with some soup which we drank while our dinner of pasta, chorizo, peas and carrots was cooking.  As we ate, the rain came back so we retired to the tent with our coffees, hoping the plastic bags we have put on the top of our dome stop any leaks. Just an interesting point. In the sixteen years that they cycle toured, they covered more than 92,000 kms  and covered a huge variety of countries including Australia, which they rode around twice, Asia, South America and a lot of Europe, truly inspirational people.