Alighted Gedser to Rostock ferry at 9.00 AM to fair weather that turned foul - rode the ten klm into the old part of the city and sought advice about the route ahead, advice about the weather and eventually advice about shelter for the night - a bit of a wasted day as we watched umbrellas being turned inside out by the wind and rain!
We would be behind schedule if we had one! Nonetheless annoyed at a lost day, we set off next morning and knocked off 90 klm on the way to Kracow am See (Kracow on the Lake), one of a series of lakes in Germany's Mecklenberg district.
Lovely country with bike routes that circled the lakes
Crying in the wilderness.........or lend me your ears?
Ear, ear and yet more ears!
Another lake at Waren; I managed to avoid the cow.
Wednesday night at Neustrelitz .........just a lazy 128 klm today - trying to make up for the lost Monday!
Well earned refreshment.
Ready for sleep.
Thursday - off to Zehdenick - more lakes, great trails and another 105 klm.
Just out of Zehdenick - fisherman setting up in the background.
In the home straight - 100 klm to Berlin.
The mechanical harvester missed one stalk - the human harvester collected his ear!
Boats of all sorts ply the Havel canal.
After losing a day to weather on Monday, we have punished oursevles to the tune of 423 klm over four days - we feel like a well packed mattress - stuffed!
But there's more - in the words of Leonard Cohen - "First we take Berlin" - if only!
We have no phone or internet at this stage and must negotiate a city of over 3.5 million to find our Berlin friend and our accommodation for the next four nights - we made it to the major banhof (railway station) and got a map to plot our course - while attempting to use a public telephone on the street outside the station a gentleman of the street spied our bike mounted water bottle into which we had decanted our duty free whiskey - not sure whether he had discerned the contents or he simply fancied the 15 cent deposit on the bottle - he had the bottle in hand when we noticed and roared at him to put it back - he made to argue in a LOTE so Rosemary grabbed the bottle from his hand and the would be thief left grumbling! We have had two refundable water bottles stolen from locked bikes since we started in Copenhagen - neither contained anything stronger than water.
Having got our directions straight we set off at speed for a rendezvous with the apartment landlord to collect the key - falling behind the meet up time Michael went for too much in a passing manoeuvre and his left pannier collected an immoveable rubbish bin - the pannier was ripped from the rack and retrieved with broken clips - it was then gerry rigged with a bungy strap on top of the right side pannier.
We pressed on to within streets of our destination only to find we had lost the map!
A local assured us we were nowhere near Winnstrasse - fortunately another local intervened and we were there - so much for taking Berlin.
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