30 June 2014 (cloud, rain, sun, cool) 100km

Halfway through and still smiling!

Had a good night’s sleep in our nice quiet little farmyard campground called Tannenhof.  Awoke about 7am to the usual light drizzle so made a cup of tea and had breakfast by which time it had stopped raining so we packed up a very wet tent and got ready for the day’s riding.  Pete fed some old bread to the ducks and ducklings which were very appreciative.  We jumped back on the road to Groeseneten which was about 6km away.  Not much of note there so continued towards Dotlingen.  Three kms out from Dotlingen, the road turned off to a very minor road with hardly any traffic and our first hill of note since we arrived in Europe.  It wasn’t even a major, but it was a very scenic cycle  through woodland.

A couple of things we should mention while we think about it is the amount of homes, not just in Germany but in Europe in general, that have solar heating.  Some are on a very large scale covering not just the house but also huge barns and storage sheds.  It’s obviously been promoted favourably over here, judging by the amount of people who have it.  Secondly, we passed by the village of Dohlen on our way through today. 

Didn’t want to go through the village as we realised our presence there would cause major traffic hold ups and we are soooo over the adulation and the fame that has come with this cycle tour.  There are even reports in cycling magazines over here that the next major story will not be on the Tour de France winner as planned, but a full scale feature entitled “Kiwis on the Road”. 

Thirdly, it should be noted that as previously mentioned, Germany comes to a halt on a Sunday, at which point everything closes.  We have done a short but in depth study on the first and second world war, and our findings have shown that had the Germans fought seven days a week instead of six, they would prevailed and we’d all be driving Audis and BMW’s and be good at football.  However, the desire for schnitzel, a litre of ale and some apple strudel was in fact their downfall.

After Dotlingen, we followed mostly small roads through farmland, some with cycle tracks and some without, but never any traffic problems.  There were big black clouds looming to the north-west and we were racing to escape whatever they were unleashing. 

Had a really enjoyable ride this morning covering 41km before stopping for lunch at Gross Ignesser where we sat down for a coffee and sandwiches.  While we were there, the sun broke through the clouds and we spread out the tent and groundsheet to dry.  After half an hour they had gone from sodden to crisp and we happily folded them again after lunch, job done.  Rode on through quiet roads with a great surface until we hit the outer suburbs of Bremen where we found a McDonalds.  At last we thought we could get wifi and let everyone know we were still alive, but it wouldn’t work.  Had to have a phone number for them to text you the access code and we don’t have a phone so we’re stuffed.  Still, they had nice clean toilets and a handy plug we could charge the computer from while we typed up today’s blog thus far. 

Lots of horses in Holland and Germany - probably more horses than cows.

 A lovely waitress called Reike told us where we could find camping gas and that is where we are off to now.

Delmenhorst

Found our way into the middle of Delmenhorst where we wasted at least an hour trying to find some camping gas.  The only positive was we managed to dodge some showers in the process.  Gave up and headed along the main road to Bremen on a cycle track at the roadside.  Our main objective was to find some camping gas so we could have a warm meal tonight as well as a campground.  When we did eventually get to Bremen, once we could get past the frustration at not being able to find anything, we came upon two Jehovah’s Witness’s and Pete asked them where the tourist information office was.  They were both very helpful in their efforts and the one who spoke English, kindly led us to the short distance to where we could see the tourist info office.  It would have been no longer than five minutes spent with Pete and she is now a full-blown Satanist.  Our aim now was to find a café that would give us the internet coverage we needed and as these have been few and far between, we weren’t holding our breath.  However, as in most large cities, we found ourselves a Starbucks where we are currently typing furiously in case it’s three more days before we find another decent internet connection. 

Managed to get some really nice shots of Bremen, especially the central area which has some very old buildings (the English bombers obviously missed a bit).  Our plan next is to head out of town to a campsite we have targeted about 5km away with the faint hope of watching Germany play Algeria at 9pm tonight at a bar or the campground.