16 June, 2015

Grey and cool but no rain.  We’re keen to get going after our short day yesterday.  We’ve noticed before that the further into a bike tour we get, the more we feel the need to be on the bikes.  Just obsession I guess.  We are cycling through more populated areas as we approach the city of Passau; it feels as though we have left the wild parts behind.  Having said that we startled both a hare and a deer shortly after setting off, which bounded across a field into woodland.  We now know that the wooden, lookout type structures are hunting perches used by huntsmen to shoot deer and wild boar, so the deer needs to keep out of sight.

We cycled straight through the city of Passau along the quayside, which was buzzing with tourists being herded between coaches and river-cruisers.  Not our scene.

We crossed the Danube and continued out of the city on the north bank, starting along a surfaced cycle path at the side of a fairly busy road, which quickly became a quieter country lane and after about 20 kilometres dwindled away, leaving just the cycle track.  We’re in Austria now, the first time on a bike tour.

Eventually, the river valley became narrower and the densely wooded sides of the valley steeper, leaving room for just the cycle track on the south bank which we reached by taking a cycle ferry.

The Danube itself was a wide expanse of water mirroring the tree covered sides of the valley.  This is one of the most attractive parts of the Danube so far.

We elect to stay on the quieter south bank of the river.  The path is well surfaced and at this stage of the tour, after five weeks of cycling for 6 hours a day, it feels effortless.  We have identified a campsite on the map at around 100 kilometres.  We have a bit of difficulty actually finding it, but when we do it looks promising – a reasonable sized area of mowed grass, with a bar and restaurant.

In fact, our first experience of camping in Austria is a positive one.  The restaurant has a good menu and  with only one other tent on the site we have a quiet night.