Claire on the Move

Not starting work each day until 11am is making me soft. The alarm went off at 05.50 giving 10 minutes of turn over and try to ignore the whole world. 07.00 saw us at King’s Lynn station with less minor hiccups than usual – but the time explains why I thought I was actually smiling. I am of course riding both of the bikes below simultaneously- not.

The whole journey to King’s Cross was needed to get up and running with this blog – but if anyone knows how to write text beside the photo above, please send a postcard. I only swear about once a decade but it was tempting today.

I am not quite sure why Rob sees the need to insert our bikes into nearly all the photos but they do look cute side by side and they are having a great convo about the state of the track around Littleport.

Nearly coffee time so almost smiling at St Pancras as Rob nips off to see Sir John.

I think he is worried about that pigeon up above.

The Eurostar proceeded uneventfully except I had to remind Rob to time the passage under the Channel. Rob has been doing this every time in 25 years of us going on it now and then and long before I was with him- and this was the first time he had forgotten!

2 hours in Amsterdam to spend our first money (coffee not included) as we had eaten the food we had brought with us. A ‘take your life into your hands’ bike ride where so many cyclists know exactly where they are going and we really didn’t have much of a clue. And a look at a wind direction clock.

We are now on the NightJet in a cubby hole that is bed for the night. Rob, being a proper husband, has kindly taken the top bunk. I was so excited by having a toilet but can’t use it as it has run out of water (why this is so when the train started at Amsterdam?) but I will be consoled tomorrow by a bit of a refund. Tonight, not so much, as I pad along two carriages to the nearest toilet. But at least they have provided us with slippers that I might just have to find room in my luggage for.

Looking back on last night, that all seems so naive. The problem was with the pump of the toilets and every time the train was disconnected from power, Rob is guessing that the battery kicked in and the toilet made repeated attempts to flush incredibly loudly. But that would not have been so bad if the bedside lights did not repeatedly turn themselves back on – note the repeated use of ‘repeatedly’ – I had to pad off to find a member of staff who disconnected them so that they would not come on – somewhere around Hanover I think.

But good things do happen – I sometimes think God answers the prayers we haven’t prayed – yet. How could the train be two hours late, but we arrived early? We needed to get off at Passau but that would have been at stupid o’clock so Rob planned for us to go on to Linz, in Austria, get off at a civilised time and get a train back to Passau – one plans these excursions when one is not always paying the full price. As it was 07.40am (06.40 in the UK) seemed perfectly civilised, especially when the toilet noises acted as an early alarm call. As events unfolded, we were really grateful to be at Passau that bit earlier.

At Passau Rob got his Mamiya 7 out – a sign that serious photography would commence – none of this new fangled digital malarkey (except this neat little new digital compact that has taken most of the photos so far). However none of the results of Rob’s labours will be seen until after an extended darkroom session, to process and then print the films – first as contact prints and then the chosen few as final prints. I guess I maybe able to put some scanned negatives on the blog quicker than that.

After an hour bus ride to Freyung, the ‘only way is up’ from now on – over 1000m climbed on our little Brompton fold-up bikes – the biggest amount of climbing we have ever done in a day ever. A very long slow climb. But I have probably walked for longer than I have cycled today as the air got thin and cold as we climbed and Rob was very patient as I puffed along behind.

Eventually we came to the border with the Czech Republic, leaving Germany behind. This part of the world was so different when an iron curtain ‘descended across Europe’ with all the fortifications to keep citizens in the East and then an exclusion zone with peope removed from their homes. Some of this is there to see, with out any personnel at all. In fact we hardly saw anyone for miles except several buses that we could have used to miss out on all the fun climbing.

And then to search in the middle of seemingly nowhere at all, for the source of the Vltava. Did we find it? Or do we have to go back the next day cycling uphill for 7km so we don’t miss this essential bit? But despite leaving earlier than planned, Claire is going at such a slow pace and there is so, sooooo much climbing, time is ticking on, it’s misty and the rain is turning into more than a ‘wee smirr’. We have rain covers over the luggage, coats on and lights on the back of the bikes. Turn up to see the next exciting installment tomorrow (or straight after this if reading this on or after September 30th 2025)