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.