Other people in all shapes, ages and sizes are on the same trek and we often ended up at a Gasthof dinner together in the evening, particularly in the more isolated settings. People were kayaking, walking, rollerblading and even dogs were being pedaled in little wagons (attached to bikes) on Danube holidays. The groups were mostly European and the ‘groups’ went from singles, to doubles, to three and fours and fives. A camaraderie commenced early on even without great language skills on our part. One man, with whom we chatted in pigeon English/German, fixed my mudguard with something from his tool kit on Day One and checked it every time we bumped into him.

While Sunday 31 May, Day One (see Basil’s account), may have been dominated by underachieving our kilometres and an afternoon of ‘warm down’ backtracking a little to see some things that we should have seen, it could be said that Day Two, Monday 1 June, the first day of summer, was a day where we exceeded all expectations.

We set off from Niederranna (Gasthof Draxler) in great spirits with a plan to cycle 63 kilometres to Linz and to criss-cross the river, traversing the famous Danube Schlogen Loop using the ferries, and gain, what we thought, was the best out of the north and south Danube bicycle paths. The forest around us, as we set out, with early morning mist still about, had all the beauty that postcards of the region show.

At Au we encountered the man who ran the first ferry (our plan had started with the third ferry to be caught a little beyond Au) who convinced us to cross on his ferry and continue cycling on the other side. (see photo).