We headed off into a head wind which did not abate for most of the ride and Gillian discovered the joys of drafting. If you aren't a cyclist you are probably wondering what the hell drafting is - in this case it is where James rides in front of Gillian cutting down the amount of wind Gillian needs to ride through, thus making Gillian ride faster. No real benefit to James other than Gillian goes faster and we get to our destination sooner.
We were riding on dykes all day. Much of the day was spent on good surfaces so the speed we could do was pretty fast. However what we thought were strictly cycle paths were apparently local roads. The path/road was very narrow and it wasn't always fun having cars pass us so closely, but there weren't that many, thankfully. Today we didn't have much of a view of the Danube from the cycle path but we were the beneficiaries of some very welcome cooler breezes coming from the river. We have spent the last few days riding across the Great Hungarian Plain which covers about half of Hungary. This is really great for cycling but the landscape today didn't change very much.
Towns were a little further apart, so there wasn't as much break from the riding as usual, but we did find a couple of nice places to stop for a cool drink. Refrigeration is a wonder on a hot day!
The last part of our route today took us on another ferry across the Danube. In the line to board the ferry we meet a French couple who had cycled from Bratislava and were making their way to Belgrade, so we may see them again. This is what seems to be happening all along our journey, though the amount of other riders we are coming across now has reduced significantly. It is nice though to smile and wave and wish fellow travelers good luck. It would be even better if we could speak something other than English so that we could swap stories about which bits of the route are blocked off due to construction!
Our hosts at the accommodation are lovely and promptly offered us cold water when we arrived (they could probably tell we were in desperate need given the state we were in, and had heard of our appreciation of refrigeration...). Today the best thing about our accommodation is the air conditioning. Not many places along the way have this so we are rather thankful for it.
We stepped out earlier to find ice cream as we skipped lunch and thought we deserved another dessert (there seems to be a theme developing). We will go in search of dinner in a little while.
Relive 'Danube day 26'
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