26 June 2016 (sunny, cloudy, warm) 68 km

In case you didn't see yesterday's blog, you can comment now....I think!

After a terrific storm last night, we woke to the following calm. The tent had made it through the night without any obvious problems and I have to admit to having a great sleep, once I managed to let go of all possible scenarios, involving us abandoning tent in the middle of the night. The thunder and lightning show last night was a doozie and anyone remotely nervous about being outside in that kind of weather, would have freaked out. Not only was it loud, but bright as hell and on a couple, Julia and I gave each other those looks which say…there ain’t no way we’re gonna survive this one.. All in all, for the intensity, our little dome did great. Woke early to the sound of light drizzle, but rolled over and went back to sleep. When I next opened them, we began our pack up. It was only then we discovered that water had crept in underneath the groundsheet and soaked through to the inside.  However, this was just under our sleeping mats so we actually had our own little waterbeds going on.  They just needed a dry out which they got later on in the morning along with a very sodden tent and fly sheet.

Out of camp and to the local supermarket, where Julia discovered she’d lost a sock. She’d left it on the back of her bike when packing up. Camp only a half km away, so back to check…no luck. Left Brozany nad Ohri, a very nice little village and off on quiet roads to Keblice, where we spied a school, just sitting waiting for us, complete with covered eating area, goalposts on which to hang the tent and fly sheet, as well as table and chairs for us…perfect….when it comes together….it really comes together…doesn’t take a lot for us…! 

After a delicious brekky we were off again on small farm roads to Lovosice, where we’d planned to follow bike route number 2 up the river, cross the bridge about 10kms up and continue the rest of the 20kms up to Usti nad Labem on the east side of the river on the bike path.  So we found bike route number 2 at Lovosice due to good instincts rather than good signage and what a lovely ride it was up the west side of the Elba River.  

Lovosice

We kept our eyes open for the bridge which should be appearing but there was no bridge - instead we found the ferryman on the smallest ferry ever, not leaving for another half hour.  So, rather than waste time waiting, we decided to stay on our side and take the road as it had a good hard shoulder and nice smooth surface – and as we’ve discovered in the past, this is something you can never be too sure about with bike paths.

Scenes up the Elba river

Castle in Usti nad Labem

It was a great ride and we were approaching Usti in no time with an unexpected castle atop the hill to welcome us.  We rode into town to get a new map from Tourist Info as we’d already pedalled through the one we got yesterday.  A lovely guy in there gave me a free map of the whole area, a map of Decin where we planned to camp, information about how to get to the campground and a book about the whole region.  I thought this would be great, it was all written in English and we could learn a bit more about the area over lunch.  So next stop was the supermarket, which we located quickly and while I nipped in to grab our lunch supplies, Pete stayed outside to guard the bikes as there were a number of dodgy characters about.  

the leaning church of Assumption - although I was
always taught to never assume as it makes an ass out
of u and me.

Five minutes later I was back and Pete had done a little tidy up.  He’d torn the bits we needed off the large area map and kept that but thrown everything else in the bin, much to my disgust.  So we will have to remain completely ignorant about this area.  One of the things I was really curious about was the leaning church.  It’s not so obvious from our photo but the front tower was on a definite lean and you wondered how it was still standing.

From Usti we crossed over and finally onto bike route number 2 which happily had a good surface all the way to Decin.  We were also thrilled that it was totally flat so our legs could have a bit of a rest.

Usti nad Labem bridges

Interestingly, we have barely seen a bikepacker the whole time we have been in Czech but as soon as we choose the flat routes by the rivers, we start seeing loads of them.  Obviously most of them have more sense than we do!

We reached Decin about 4pm and found the campground easily – not by a railway for once, but right underneath a couple of motorway flyovers!  The stanchions have silhouette paintings to decorate them, depicting all manner of different sports.  I’ve photographed a few because the one “sport” depicted which really amazed me was……whipper snipping?!!  Seriously, there were no other work related things on these stanchions at all.  It is a fascination that the Czechs and the Slovakians share, but we just don’t get it! 

Golfing, Cycling and Whipper Snipping?

Monastery at Decin

So we took our bikes across the grass as far away from the flyovers as we could.  We didn’t pitch tent immediately as although the thunderstorm last night had certainly cleared the air and reduced the temperature by about ten degrees, it was still pretty warm.  So Pete had a beer and blogged while I showered and then we pitched the tent before going to the supermarket to get our dinner supplies. 

Back at camp we had the kitchen to ourselves so we cooked dinner while the computer charged and then I blogged while Pete showered.  Settled in for what will probably be our last night in the Czech Republic.