Klosterneuberg, Lower Austria, Austria
Thursday, June 2, 2011
We awoke early (courtesy of our WA friends early start) and were on the road ourselves by 7.40am. We had decided the previous night that rather than go forward from
Krems, which necessitated deciphering some awkward instructions for actually getting through krems itself an back onto the river path, we would go back about 1km, cross the bridge, and continue on the right bank where our next night halt of
Tulln was. We were across by 8am and trying to buy our lunch bread tolls but neither the bakery not the two village supermarkets were open yet - strange. We rolled out of town under more grey, threatening skies (which has been typical of our time on the Donau path - rain or threatening rain most days) and a cold, tail wind. The route was flat, mostly along the river, and uneventful except for the snake (live!) lying across the path which we both managed to miss. We stopped for our morning expresso at and 9.20am and rolled into
Tulln at 11.10am (having passed Austria's only nuclear power station which was built in the 1970's but never commissioned as people's referendum came out against nuclear power)
. By this time we had already decided to continue to Klosterneuberg our last campsite on the route and only just outside the
Vienna city environs (from there we would ride 'light' into Vienna itself to complete the path). We decided on an ealy lunch as we had had an early start and we had already covered 45km so Syd went off to 'hunt and gather' breadrolls to go with the ripe avocado that Val had been carefully carrying in her handlebar bag. Everything was closed! Fortunately an Italian food fair had set up soem stalls in the market place and Syd came back with a hunk of olive bread (ymmy, lots of large green olives in the bread) and some pastries. We decided that it was probably a public holiday (it was). We left
Tulln and its Nieberlunglied sculpture on the river-front just after noon and were at Klosterneuberg, some 27km away, just after 1.30pm. The tent was set-up and we were sitting quietly contemplating a nice cup of tea when a medical emergency arose. Val felt something stinging her chest (but couldn't see past her chin to see what it was). Some insect/beetle had decided that under her skin was a nice place to be and and was busy burrowing. (Should have taken a picture, not sure anyone will believe this.) It took Syd 20 minutes with tick remover, tweezers and needle to remove 'most' of it - one small part was firmly hooked in and could not be teased out. It didn't appear to be sucking blood like a tick (and the wound itself did not start bleeding until Syd started poking it with a needle!) so we didn't know what it was. After a belated cup of tea which both the medic and the patient needed, for different reasons we relaxed and considered what we had achieved - 736 km on the Inn and Donau paths in 14 days of cycling - by two mature people who prior to this trip enjoyed the occasional 13km ride around a local lake/ After twenty years Val's dream of cycle touring in Europe had finally become a reality; we both felt fit (apart from one chronically bad shoulder, and one sprained wrist) and content.
