Cycle Day 2 Sept 4th.....a really tough one...made it to Austria

This is what we ended up riding - shorter than originally planned,
But enough climbing!

Day 2 was always going to be a tough one - if we wanted to be able to get to the next camground which happened to be along the shores of a beautiful mountain lake called Achensee. It should be about 70km with a ton of climbing. A particularly challenging climb on a gravel path could be avoided if one was willing to ride on the main road for about 20km. In fact our campground host strongly advised us against taking the gravel road with our loaded bikes. But when Nancy and I took a look at that road with its busy traffic, we both agreed that in the interest of safety, we'd suck it up and take the steep gravel, which did in fact follow the official Munich to Venice cycle route.


Approaching the lovely  historic town of
Bad Tolz on the Isar river. Had lunch here

Bad Tolz
One of the many cute little chapels along the way

We don't regret that decision at all. However, when by 7pm, when we were still climbing gravel, not sure how much climbing was left (my phone and battery pack had died by now) and still 15km left, we had the conversation about wild camping. I was definitely very tired and didn't feel any need to complete the section today. We were in the middle of forest with no houses close by, and happened to find a little meadow with a locked cabin, and even an outhouse. Now I'm very comfortable with random camping - Nancy maybe a little less so. But in the end we setup camp there next to the cabin. We had some dehydrated food which we brought from home for situations just like this, and just enough water to get by on. We went to sleep to the tinkle tinkle of cow bells in some nearby meadow, and all went well.

It had been a beautiful day, great scenery, very nice pathways and just a little bit "character-building" as they say!
Oh, and I forgot to mention that we crossed the border into Austria just several km before that wildcamp.
Our wild camp spot in the forest in
the middle of nowhere, Austria!
Nancy venturing down to the lovely little outhouse

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Big Plans Ahead! Another European Bike Tour

Image
 The count-down is on for our next cycle tour! On Sat Aug 24th (that is tomorrow!) we leave for yet another cycle tour in Europe. This one will see us flying to Frankfurt and riding from there south towards the Alps via Bavaria, a little part of the west of Austria (Tyrol) and on into Italy, eventually ending up in Venice. Lots of similarities to our last tour two years ago, but quite a different route. We have set aside six weeks for this journey. The main goal of this tour is to cycle a route called the Via Claudia Augusta . This route starts in Donauworth, Germany (located on the River Danube) and ends either in Venice or at the Po River south of Verona (depending which fork of the road you take). The attraction here is that it follows an old Roman road that once connected the northern part of the Empire via the River Danube, with the Adriatic Sea via the River Po or the Venetian lagoon. So there's lots of history attached to it, and it takes you through a lot of beautiful scene...
Read more

At the foot of the Alps, Lechstausee (lake), Bavaria

Image
  Wednesday Sep 4th Can't believe it's September now. As I sit here outside the tent at 7.30am enjoying the view across the lake while my two riding partners are still curled up in their sleeping bags, I can't help feeling just a little daunted by the prospect of climbing through the mountains I can now see in front of me now. The view is stunning – the Alps are strung across the skyline and seem to go on for ever. Today we will reach the town of Fussen, which is right on the border with Austria and marks the gateway to the mountains. Morning view at our campground And yes, we are a party of three now! Our friend Nancy from Montreal joined us on Monday after a very complicated airline run-around. She flew into Munich and lucked out in finding a bike mechanic to help her assemble her bike. Nancy is an almost virgin bike-tourer, and this is her first experience with cycling in Europe. Kudos to her for taking a big leap in getting her new bike and all the gear and starting...
Read more

Reaching the Adriatic and the end of the road!

Image
 Whoever heard of Grado, Italy? We sure hadn't, that is until we learned about the Alps to Adriatic cycle route, which goes from Salzburg to Grado (or vice versa). It's a town of about 8000 residents set on an island in the Adriatic, about 100km east of Venice, joined to the mainland by a causeway. It used to be a quiet fishing village and has a characterful old town centre, but it's now a very popular tourist destination. Blue dot = Grado, the end of the road for us All along the Alps to Adriatic cycle trail, everyone we talked to was headed to Grado. If anyone looked lost on the road, locals would shout out "that way to Grado!" Frank and I arrived in Grado yesterday afternoon. We eagerly anticipated the first glimpse of the lagoon and then the causway that lead us to the town and the seafront, where we high-fived each other and sat down to have a quiet beer as we contemplated the past eight weeks on the road. We both feel delighted to have been able to complete ...
Read more