Well without moments of bad you wouldn't enjoy the good, or something like that. After a FaceTime talking-to from Mum last night about avoiding sunstroke ('why don't you get up at 5am and cycle then?') I decided to just give myself a break today. Yesterday felt more like survival than pleasure, and given my lack of time pressure, there's no sense in that.
So, today I got going by 8.30 and made it to my planned destination (Dillingen) by lunch. No hills! Cool breezes! Some shade! Also, enough off-road that I was literally coated in white dust. Which presumably only enhanced the sunscreen it was sticking to.
Dillingen was an extraordinary looking town: not cute and medieval as most are around here, with their tall crooked buildings which often have either painted scenes on them or elaborately painted woodwork. No, Dilligen was grand: Oxford to most of Bavaria's Cambridge. (Though ironically it seems to be the only town around which does not have a university. How many medieval university towns are there in Germany?).
So that was 50+ km before lunch, and while it was hot I was prepared and not drained. I was not really ready to stop, but the next campsite was 40k away...
These are the biggest dilemmas in my life right now. Sheryl Sandberg says, work out what you'd do if you weren't afraid, and then do that. And so, I went onwards.
I stopped twice more in the afternoon - once by a village fountain, where there was a blessed drinking-water tap, and then for a second alcohol-free weizenbeer of the day at the biggest Biergarten I've ever seen, also a sort of farm shop-cum-music venue. Quite a happening place and literally miles from anywhere in a sea of ripening cornfields.
I got fairly lost and honked at coming into Donauworth but made it round to the canoe club, which doubles as campsite in these parts. It was rammed with weekend canoeists but I found a far corner to pitch in, at which point they all packed up for the weekend! Leaving me with a pretty peaceful site, I reckon.
There's a good breeze today which I think has made a difference, temperature-wise. Well, for whatever reason, I feel fine after 90k today whereas I felt dead after 60 yesterday. I guess I just have to roll with that!
No comments:
Post a Comment