Deggendorf to Erlau

It was a tough start to the day. James had decreed an 8.30 start, so after a nice breakfast we all went upstairs to get our gear ready for the ride. James couldn't quite get his sh*t together and we assembled at the bikes a bit late and moved out of the hotel garage to start the ride. Only for James to have to go back into the hotel to hook up to the internet as he had forgotten to upload the directions onto the GPS navigation system. After the false start we ended up moving at 9.10, with Kieran not really feeling it as we got going. After an hour or so, that was all forgotten as we got into the rhythm of another day.

We found yet another nice little bakery to stop for morning tea in a market square in Hofkirchen. Sealed bike paths were again the order of the day, although there were a few more ups and downs than we have had previously. We found a lovely little place to stop for lunch right on the river (and bike path) where two of us had fish sausages for lunch. It turns out that Germans can make sausages from anything! They were pretty damn tasty too.

We crossed the river twice to go in and out of Passau and avoid some riding along a busy road with no bike path. The views started to get a bit spectacular, as the valley is now rising steeply up from the river. Just past Passau, the river becomes the border between Germany and Austria, and Kieran is quite taken by the idea that he can see another country from just across the water. Passau is obviously the furthest up the river most cruiseboats go too, as we are starting to see a bunch of them now ("cheaters" is the cry whenever we see one!).

We had a small mercy mission on the way into our final destination of Erlau, where we found a couple of Polish women who needed a hand getting a wheel off a bike to change a tyre. With the wheel successfully removed (and also after establishing that we didn't know their relatives in Perth), they insisted they could cope with the rest of the operation and we moved onwards to the finish. We finished the day feeling pretty good, the best we have felt at the end of any previous day of riding.

A shower and change led to a short walk down to the river to admire the old castle opposite (in Austria!), and the we headed back to the hotel for a little pre-dinner snifter. Our timing of the weather has returned as it promptly started to pour, leaving us to watch smugly as people cycled past on the bike path in the rain. We're looking forward to a couple of short days now, although we will be sad, in many ways, to say goodbye to Germany tomorrow morning.

Relive 'Danube day 6'