out of the woods

Yesterday morning I woke up lost. Lost but with strength and purpose. Strength in sweet sleep and deep coffee, and purpose also twofold: avoid detection by breaking camp quickly and then establish my location and onward direction. The farmer (who from his moustache and get-up could just as well have been of the local militia), despite foiling my first purpose, quite obliged the second. Perhaps farmers have an inherent respect for early risers - he caught me wiping down the tent just gone 7am. Anyway I soon knew I was between Vehlgast and Damerow, just South East of Havelberg, and which way along the dykes would take me to Rhinow.

 I had left Havelberg the evening before in angry haste. Becoming enraged with a whole town just because its cobblestones rattle your panniers is clear indication that soon you should be stopping for the night. Stupid old town. So I took the wrong road on the wrong side of the river (Havelberg sits on a small island) and pigheadedly rode 15 miles through the woods still cursing the cobbles before giving up, lost, to sleep it off. But yesterday there were many helpful directions, notably from a man whose electronic voicebox whirring to life in sync with his precise gesticulations gave such a perfect impression of a cyborg that in my dawn mental fog I twice checked his limbs for some sign of a titanium skeleton. There were also two groups of deaf (or Deaf?) cyclists both of whom excelled at directing me. Anyway I made the 70 odd miles to Wustermark or wherever it was by midafternoon and skipped a train into central Berlin. Cheating perhaps; I had no map for the city and the motorways were increasingly getting in the way. Have a look at Emily Chappell's blog for a far less compromising cyclist!

I enjoyed riding along the Elbe, chasing deer and hares and looking at the big birds.

Less the Havel which seemed to me more a mess of a tributaries and impassable wetland than an actual river. It is good to be indoors, staying with German Eva (who I met at Eschenhof) and Mexican Hiula, just 10 minutes ride from the central train station. They are not only gracious hosts but have a washing machine and a PC computer...