Fwd: Bath - UK !

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: michael litchfield <m_litchfield@hotmail.com>
Date: Jul 26, 2015 3:57 PM
Subject: Bath - UK !
To: litchy1.haydos@blogger.com
Cc:

While not normally reknowned for his strategic travel planning I have to take my hat off to H who is currently training with his dog sled team somewhere in the new Polar region of Diamond Creek Melbourne (so much for no climate change!) in preparation for our 2nd cycle leg.

No doubt H has read up on our upcoming travel itenary to find out that Finse Norway the sight of our Norwegian rest day, is not only experiencing conditions slightly warmer than H's freezer but was actually the place that Scotts ill fated expedition trained before taking on the South Pole !

Even George Lucas had a feel for the place by filming around Finse to simulate the Ice Planet Hoth for Star Wars the Empire Strikes Back !

H who loves cold weather almost as much as he does watching Collingwood win back to back premierships has to now come  to terms with rejoining our cycle epic after the furnace of Sthn Germany, by considering how he can pack 6kgs of thermal jockstaps and still stay under his upcoming aircraft weight limit !

I must admit my preparations have not been as thorough although I do now feel accomplished driving on roads the same width as my hallway back home !

With my new found skill I took to the road with my English "Outlaws" for a short journey across 3 countries to the delightful City of Bath.

First on the agenda though was a stop at Castle Combe a lovely Cotswold village that transports you back in time with its period style buildings.

Acknowledged for its beauty Castle Combe !appeared in a number of movies going way back to the 60's with Rex Harrison and Samantha Eggar in the musical Dr Doolittle to more recent films such as the horror flick Wolfman and the Speilberg film Warhorse.

Overdosed on ambience we then headed the short distance of 20 kms to the timeless Unesco listed Bath famed of course for its Roman origins including of course it's magnificent Roman baths.

Having negotiated a sardine sized car park where successful parking meant you couldn't open either door we took to the streets to do battle with the city's hordes of tourists.

Bath is an architectural delight with its Victorian style houses scenically posed against limestone hills while the 1770 Pulteney Bridge over the river Avon provides for a signature postcard backdrop.

Having sampled its delights as well as a few cakes from one of its many cafes we took a slightly shorter journey homewards with beautiful views over the Salisbury plains and its rich tapestry of green fields.

For Kev and self though it's time to restart our journey !

Exeter - "NCN Rules" !

With a population of 65 million and a landmass area almost identical to Victoria Australia you would think that cycling in the UK would be a crowded and painful experience

Enter Sustrans a charity formed around sustainable transport. It helped in 1985 to kick start the beginning of the National Cycling Network (NCN) by signposting a 15 mile bike trail from Bath along a disused railway line.

Fast forward to 2015 and there are now nearly 25,000 kms of signposted cycling routes in the UK some long distance national routes while many are shorter distance regional routes that head through lightly trafficked areas along roads, cycleways, towpaths and trails to showcase the best the UK has to offer (i reckon some of the most varied scenery in the world !)

Yesterday saw me jumping on one of those routes taking a delightful 30 km journey right into the busy heart of Exeter from Honiton Devon. A combination of road, bike paths and narrow lanes took me to the outskirts of Exeter before a twisting city route took over combing cycling with a unique form of hide and seek as I searched for the route signs that eventually took me into the central shopping area of Exeter.

Taking time out for a coffee on the churchyard green it was great to take in the beautiful ambience of the area before setting back on the return journey slightly wiser to the cycle signs positioning.

For those that think UK cycling would be a form of torture you really are missing out on some wonderful scenery & history !

Some down time in Devon !

Some insights !

Some further mementos of our cross Europe journey !

Sovramonte -

When booking out we asked our great host Luciano how much we owed for the room and the lunch he'd put on the day before (not counting the grappa laced coffees) ... his reply nearly floored us ..."whatever you feel like paying"! Before H could say $5 we settled for what we thought was a reasonable amount !

The Dolomite Tunnels -

Our carefully laid out plans included Kev riding as a close by back marker with his bright red light at least making drivers aware of our presence - like so many good plans it fell to the wayside as soon as we entered the tunnel with the frightening noise from trailing cars causing me to pedal like a man possessed and leave Kev unfortunately well behind !

Frankfurt Taxi -

The look on Kev's face when taxi number one stopped and looked at Kev's bike box before then shooting through saying that there was no taxi big enough to fit his box ! Amazingly after ringing up to complain taxi number 2 (identical to taxi number 1) rocked up folded the rear seats down to easily fit he bike box much to the relief of one KH !

San Rocco -

The look on the hotel receptionist when she saw a blood covered & jersey ripped KH rock up after his 2 crashes for the day ! She was pretty keen to help when we suggested it might be a good idea to chase up some old to wells rather than have H bleed over the nice new linen during the night !

Epfach -

The sight of Kev guzzling away at a house hose tap after making a p!ea to the local residents to allow him to fill up his water bottles - "I was dying said H" !

Fussen -

The look on my face as I tried to communicate from inside a supermarket to H standing directly next to me on the other side of the supermarkets window ! Without having any success I yelled "Take your bloody sunglasses off" as H complained he couldn't see what signals I was making ... His glasses are now affectionately known as his "Stevie's" as it makes him look remarkably like Stevie Wonder with them on - although SW has much better eyesite !

Frankfurt -

The Usain Bolt like speed shown by KH when I asked him where his Nexus tablet was as we walked 200 meters down from our hotel in Frankfurt. Without a word H turned and ran back to the cafe we'd been to that morning then sprinted over to the hotel reception only to realize that he hadn't even brought his tablet with him as it was still up sitting in his room !

Day 27 - OZ & UK - " Waiting, waiting .. " !

While Kev was enjoying the trappings of business class and working out how many positions he could get his chair in to - I took the more squeezier option heading back to the UK by way of BA.

In short easy bike box loading / off loading, as was access to the car hire point - what followed though can only be described as torture as i waited to get my hire car.

At airports all over the world I have rarely had to wait for more than 10 minutes for a car hire but for some reason at Europcar Heathrow Airport their ticketing system  indicated an average wait of 1 & 1/2 hours just to be served !

With people flying in from all over the world in variius states of fatigue this was a recipe for disaster - sure enough one fairly placid Swiss couple I got talking to eventually lost it slamming their fists on the booking table yelling "we just want our damned car " !

Enter the most strangely employed person I have ever met. Ostensibly a customer services rep Marcus had obviously been employed to calm the temperatures of irate waiting customers.

A cross between Lenny Henry the comedian and a retired UK soccer player with the build of a night club bouncer Marcus would instinctively seek out the rooms "hot points" (and there were many) by engaging potentially volatile customers in friendly social conversation - if that didn't work he resorted to an occasional comedic routine - if that didn't work he'd do a ballett pirouette and if that didn't work he'd just go and get the branch manager (Marcus by the way is a professional entertainer / actor)

Sure enough i had to endure my 90 minutes to finally be given access to my hire car only to be told by 2 persons en route that i wouldn't get my bike box in my compact car hire !

This had one a little worried as i'd never had a problem in a hatchback and sure enough after folding the rear seats and adjusting the front ones so I could drive resembling Mr Bean i found i had at least 5 mm to spare !

My adventure didn't quite end there saying goodbye to Marcus i took a wrong turn somewhere exiting Heathrow heading on the M4 to god knows where before I finally recognized Bristol and realized I wasn't going too far wrong !

I have heard from H since arriving in the UK and its good to know that he made it back to Australia safely even though he failed to work out how to adjust his business class seat and no doubt annoyed the hell out of the attendants asking them if they had a Pepsi Max every 5 minutes !

Its a tough time for Kev but he's surrounded by good friends and has already availed himself of the freeloader circuit that he's well accustomed to !

Hurry back H !!!

Frankfurt

Days 24 - 26 - Frankfurt - " Kev Heads Home " !

After yesterdays terrible news it was time to get Kev back to Frankfurt.

A morning journey to the nearby train station helped us to organize a couple of tickets with our bikes on 2 regional trains heading by way of Wurzburg to Frankfurt

It also gave us just enough time to load our bikes and head into the historical old town section of Bamberg a delightful collection of half timbered houses one being the iconic image of Bamberg with its structure hanging over the towns fast flowing river.

Bamberg done we took a 55 minute train journey back to Wurzburg giving us acalln opportunity to view the same countryside we'd covered over the last two days - in fact a fair bit of the trail actually ran along side the train track.

The 2 hour journey following to Frankfurt gave some nice glimpses of the Main river but mostly of flat dry countryside before we approached the big business center of Frankfurt.

Even on a Sunday the main station was teeming with people possibly more than we'd seen during our entire time in Germany.

We exited out the main standing looking non plussed with no maps to guide and our hotel supposedly only 300 metres away ! With the help of a few locals and their mobile phones we finally found our hotel in a dodgy looking area with a low level comfort factor caused by local beggars and quite a few immigrant street people  standing idly around.

With no area to store the bikes it was an effort to manoeuvere them up 4 floors to our hotel room where with some rearranging of furniture we were finally able to place them in our room.

Our next day was pretty much full on trying to chase down a bike store to score a couple of bike boxes to allow us to repack our bikes for our respective flights.

The closest bike shop only just around the corner was closed, the 2nd about 3 kms away (we walked about 6kms trying to find it) had no boxes nor did the 3rd a further 3-4 kms on

With the help of one of the young bike shop attendants though from shop 3 we were at least able to establish the availability of boxes at a store some 15 minutes further away by U Bahn.

With a crash course on how to use the UBahn we finally arrived at an outer Frankfurt suburb to the amazing bike store called Stadlers.

Wow - about 4-5 times the size of Ivanhoe Cycles this had everything including its own 50 meter indoor cycling track with ruts and hills for prospective MTB buyers

We scored ourselves a couple of boxes but quickly had ourselves under surveillance when Kev thought one of the boxes was empty when actually it contained a brand new bike ! Exactly how we were going to walk out the shop with this bike was a little beyond us.

Without too much trouble we got the boxes back on the UBahn to our hotel vowing next time to use the internet better and ring the shops first before wandering around

With the boxes assembled and our room now resembling a bike shop it was time to invest in a local Thai meal and spend some quiet time with Kev who is no doubt feeling the emotion of going home.

With boxes secured our 3rd day included a little time acting the tourist as we visited the nearby Main Tower for impressive views of the Frankfurt City Landscape.

From the Towers vantage point it was easy to see how much Frankfurt had suffered during WW2 being a major industrial center under the Nazi Regine. There was little evidence at all of the old town and more evidence instead of Frankfurt's growth into a major business center with over 650,000 inhabitants

With a walk along the Main river, a watch of the TDF and some more packing it was time to bade Kev a temporary farewell but not without one more final drama.

We'd given our receptionist our bike box measurements hoping we wouldn't have any issues with our booked Taxis. The first one that rocked up not only said they couldn't fit Kev's bike but also indicated there was no taxi big enough in Frankfurt to take his box.

With Kev a little on edge I communicated with our receptionist who spoke to the taxi company who sent another cab this being identical to the first - the only difference this time though was that the new driver got off his backside to lower the rear seats to allow Kev's box to fit and cause Kev to breath a great sigh of relief !

So for Kev its an emotional journey that we'll see him home for 2 weeks before rejoining me in Copenhagen on 31 July

For all his friends I'm sure he would appreciate a kind word or two to help him through this time !

Re: Day 23 - Bamberrg (65 kms) - Vale Doris Henley !

On Jul 13, 2015 8:49 AM, michael litchfield <m_litchfield@hotmail.com> wrote:

It was one of those phone calls you dread receiving. It was early morning Schweinfurt and Kev had heard the terribly sad news that his active Melbourne Mum Doris had passed away in Melbourne.

Anyone who has lost a parent would know how devastated Kev was particularly knowing how far away from family he is.

The day basically formed around developing an emergency plan B to help Kev get back to Melbourne to be with his grieving family

The added stress was caused by the fact that he needed to finalize travel arrangements before the local travel agent shut down for the weekend and with it being July and holiday time in Europe there was absolutely no spare seats going into OZ.

Eventually scoring a more expensive seat we set the  wheels in motion about trying to get Kev and his equipment back home asap.

With accommodation booked in picturesque Bamberg further down the Main river we elected to cycle the day not leaving till 2.30p.m .Needless to say it was a sombre mood on this hot day

Reaching our hotel by 6.30p.m. we set in part our plan which included booking transport to get us to Frankfurt to co-incide with Kev's return flight on Tues 14 July arriving home on the 16th.

Kev has decided to continue the remainder of our trip meeting up with me in Copenhagen on the 31st of July while I head back to England to spend a couple of weeks with relatives

Those that know Kev would be aware of the deep affection for his Mum. He would constantly refer to her in conversation being proud of her achievements over the years as I'm very sure she was of Kev

I'm sure you'll join me in passing on our deepest sympathies while sharing our friendship and love with Kev during the difficult time as he prepares to head home to farewell his mum

Hopefully from the 31st of July we can share some more of our adventures as we travel in beautiful Norway and Iceland with still a 500 km cycle leg from Oslo to Bergen to conquer.

Day 22 - Schweinfurt (91 kms) -

We breakfasted down at the local cafe after a pretty horrible nights sleep this time not caused by the heat but by our mattresses resembling the shapes of a pair of bananas.

Walking like Peter Laurie from the hunchback of Notre Dame we reached the Main river trail only 400 metes from our b&b and soon found out why this trail gets rave reviews in Germany

At 450 kms long it travels the length of the Main river. Our initial experience on the section to Dettlebach was on a section better surfaced than most freeways. It felt like cheating as without effort we cycled at a goodish 22-25 km/hr with our on board suitcases.

The great surface didn't last but even the secondary trails and off road sections were pretty good quality as we passed heaps of people of all sorts of fitness levels out enjoying the clear and thankfully cooler conditions.

Very soon towns passed by at a blur. Stopping at one
H subtly claimed to have found the source of his retarded rear wheel noticing he'd been towing a 420kg anchor caught on his rear pannier - my comments weren't sympathetic mentioning that the anchor wasnt the only thing retarded !

As good as the signage was we still managed to get lost taking the wrong trail for 3kms near Volkach before realizing we were heading in the wrong direction

Not long after we spied a Liddls supermarket for lunch and did our customary well refined trick of buying enough products to constitute a meal and dine outside like a pair of homeless refugees.

It was about this point that H noticed something slightly amiss with his bike. My efforts to move it for him resulted in me pulling the entire seat out of the tube sleeve - making it a) theft proof b) easy for H to audition for his upcoming role as a circus clown.

With some cursing I'm sure direct at the bike and not at me, we got back on our bikes again with the high speed flat  trails helping to pass the kms away.

An afternoon stop for a coke was at a cafe outside of what was advertised as being Germany's biggest private military museum - today conspicuous by the absence of anyone visiting.

At this point our signs gave us two equidistant option so we decided to take the last section along the Main river requiring us to take a short quaint ferry ride from one side of the river to the other.

The ever astute H couldn't believe his luck when he thought he read the distance to Schweinfurt our destination at 17kms at one side of the river as being marginally narrowed to 3.8kms on the other side ! It wasn't until I pointed the sign out to H saying that the town 3.8 kms away was in fact Schwanfeld not Schwerinfurt - same thing said H !

Our final 17kms included a customary late afternoon coke at a restaurant of sorts with German towns now beginning to get into full summer swing by celebrating various wine festivals

We finally reached Schweinfurt a town strangely named after pigs, we strangely felt at home ! We eventually found our hotel with self causing a little bit of a stir when we piled into the elevator to go to our room. With us not moving i thought maybe we were over loaded instructing Kev to hop out, when that didn't appear to work i kept pushing the close door buttons until after a minute or two a fairly patient German told me that in fact i'd been constantly pushing the open doors button !

We both cried with amazement as we opened our hotel room door to find air conditioning for the first time in two trips to Germany !!!

Luxuriating in the cool conditions and seeing how low we could turn it down we eventually made an appearance outdoors to go searching for food to cap off a good days cycle

Day 23 - Bamberrg (65 kms) - Vale Doris Henley !

It was one of those phone calls you dread receiving. It was early morning Schweinfurt and Kev had heard the terribly sad news that his active Melbourne Mum Doris had passed away in Melbourne.

Anyone who has lost a parent would know how devastated Kev was particularly knowing how far away from family he is.

The day basically formed around developing an emergency plan B to help Kev get back to Melbourne to be with his grieving family

The added stress was caused by the fact that he needed to finalize travel arrangements before the local travel agent shut down for the weekend and with it being July and holiday time in Europe there was absolutely no spare seats going into OZ.

Eventually scoring a more expensive seat we set the  wheels in motion about trying to get Kev and his equipment back home asap.

With accommodation booked in picturesque Bamberg further down the Main river we elected to cycle the day not leaving till 2.30p.m .Needless to say it was a sombre mood on this hot day

Reaching our hotel by 6.30p.m. we set in part our plan which included booking transport to get us to Frankfurt to co-incide with Kev's return flight on Tues 14 July arriving home on the 16th.

Kev has decided to continue the remainder of our trip meeting up with me in Copenhagen on the 31st of July while I head back to England to spend a couple of weeks with relatives

Those that know Kev would be aware of the deep affection for his Mum. He would constantly refer to her in conversation being proud of her achievements over the years as I'm very sure she was of Kev

I'm sure you'll join me in passing on our deepest sympathies while sharing our friendship and love with Kev during the difficult time as he prepares to head home to farewell his mum

Hopefully from the 31st of July we can share some more of our adventures as we travel in beautiful Norway and Iceland with still a 500 km cycle leg from Oslo to Bergen to conquer.

Tennis umpire's chair Germany

Day 21 - Wurzburg (80 kms) - "100 % Henley" !

Well like any fledgling there comes a time when they have to leave the nest and while H may be a few years south of coming out from the "egg" it was still time for him to take the leap and lead the dynamic duo across the country !

Now there are some (me) that say rather unkindly that H would get lost going from his bedroom to his kitchen if he  didn't have a map but today he had the chance to prove the doubters and me wrong !

Our exit from Rothenburg was well timed to miss the rain as by the time we'd breakfasted, fitted my bike with my new panniers so I could ditch the old ones & save weight and hidden the b&b's smashed ornament (see yesterday) the drizzle had in fact stopped !

We were feeling like a million dollars (or a "quadzillion"  Greek Drachmas) finally having had a good nights sleep as we sat back on our bikes taking in the magical scenery of the Tauber Valley and its beautiful medieval style villages as we cycled towards Creglingen.

Despite the scenery you kinda knew H was feeling the early leadership pressure as he'd begun to grumble earlier than normal about the few pinches we'd climbed saying we (read he) would be buggered by days end if this kept up !

H after leading out well flew through an intersection in Cregligen the wrong way, no big deal unlike his 2nd mistake shortly after that saw him exiting our trail on to the wrong side of the road oblivious to the car now coming at him head on !

Luckily the car driver seemed more bemused than upset and allowed H to quickly correct. Even H didn't seem too worried when I spoke to him about it saying "well he had a steering wheel didn't he"!

Back on track we left the Tauber river after being prewarned by our German touring friends and climbed up over a valley on a route that was go to save some 20+kms !

Our climb in fact took us through the German village of " Struth" aptly named as the climb was pretty damned steep compared to flat riding we'd experienced so far in Germany

From Struth it was Km after Km of wheat fields as our trail zig and zagged across the countryside somehow always ending up going straight into a headwind with barely a tree to be seen anywhere!

H got one back for the team with a great pick up when what resembled a tennis umpires chair blocked our route sign !

H was quick to pick up the change in direction as well as make what I thought was an educated comment " no wonder they are so good at tennis as they even play out in the middle of nowhere"!

A missed path sign on the outskirts off Wurzburg put us right in the middle of heavy traffic for a short period before we fumbled our way down on to the Main river (pronounced Mein).

Over the bridge and with our bearings reset we found our Pension b&b some 3kms out from the old town.  After H had his "TDF" fix and watched Tony Martins crash about 15 times we walked into the main town area to the historic old bridge which amazingly also serves as a wine bar where people are allowed to purchase wine and sit back and enjoy the fabulous views.

Amazingly we bumped into our German touring friends Johannes and Elke once again and with their journey finally separating from ours as they head towards the top of Germany we decided to join them for a wine.

The meeting was also fortuitous as Elke a Nurse, was able to confirm to Henley's relief that his spreading bruise did not mean that any limbs would need to be amputated as i had incorrectly told him !

With both of us a bit "peckish" we settled for a nearby pasta meal before a quick look around the old town badly destroyed by a WW2 bomber raid in March 1935 that specifically targeted the flammability of its buildings - war can certainly be brutal !

With our day done we walked back to our b&b along tge river front martvellinbg at the magic hillside views in the late setting sun - another days cycling, well done H !

Day 20 - Rothenburg on the Taubver (50 kms) " Speechless and Spokeless"!

Another night in the sauna ! The predicted cool change did eventually arrive early in the morning but not early enough for our rooms to gain the full benefit resulting in yet another nights fitful sleep !

Despite the lack of sleep at least today was finally cool with a few early passing showers dropping the temp to just 23 c!

Today had the feel of a lazy day thanks to the planned 60 km ride with a potential 10 km shortcut that we were almost certain to take !

Our early direction took us towards Feuctwangen or as we called it " Fetch Your Wagon", before moving on towards Schillingsfurst where we did in fact elect to take the 10 km short cut to Rothenburg !

The riding scenery was same / same, open fields, quiet villages, a few small climbs etc although the blustery cross winds made some exposed sections tricky particularly the descents !

We met en route a lovely German couple of tourers riding the length of Germany from the Bodinsee and spent some time together asking each other about our respective homelands with Henley doing his best to "Out Yank" them when it came to comparisons !

Nearly in Rothenburg Kev & I noticed almost simultaneously my errant rear wheel which we both knew meant more broken spokes - sure enough a check revealed  2 more broken to bring my tally to 5 on our European leg in just 2 and 1/2 weeks.

After talking to the mechanic in Rothenburg (having found yet another bike shop) he doesn't believe it to be a lateral stability issue nor the riding conditions which only leaves the spoke quality and the weight on the bike something I will have to try and address overnight - read as putting everything on H's bike !

Anyway we arrived at beautiful Rothenburg (Dinklesbuhl on steroids!) filled not only with tourists from the parked coaches outside the city gates but also with an array of architectural gems.

Our own quaint b&b itself is some 400 years old and likely to cause one or both of us severe concussion during our stay because of the very low door ceiling heights.

With H in charge of ventilation he opened one window to let some air in and nearly toppled our TV on to the floor at least that was manageable unlike the other casualty a window ornament that broke into 599 pieces which H busily trying to glue back while I write i

Showered (bike fixed and H with his TDF fix we set out to explore around this delightful town before finally settling on a German style meal in one of the quieter lane way areas.

This time we really are looking forward to some quality sleep with cooler conditions.

The temperature drop is timely as tomorrow we get back on the 100 km track as we work our way to Wurzburg

Day 19 - Rest Day Dink!esbuhl

After such a long spell of heat it was a good to be taking a breather in quiet Dinklesbuhl the only problem being that today was also a stinker at 35 c with not a zephyr of a breeze present and with our hotel rooms quickly reaching sauna like conditions.

We tracked down a great cafe in the centre of town for an almost healthy breakfast comprising more than enough fruit to keep even the "fruit bat" H content !

After breakfast we took turns at exploring the town. Both of us lasted little more than half an hour before succumbing to the heat and retreating back to our hotel and non air conditioned rooms !

Henley when not dribbling from falling asleep in the heat,  put in a great last minute effort hoping to be called up for the Australian Cricket team with his outstanding "peach and apple polishing routine "!

With no phone call from the selectors we took to watching the Tour de France stage with their 15 rider pile up looking remarkably similar to Henley's mayhem 2 weeks back !

The race over we headed to McDonalds for a light meal not having too much time to sit down before a massive approaching storm front had us scurrying back to our b&b.

We are both desperate for a good nights and hope the storm brings with it a much needed cool change !