Day 396 19th August
54 miles (Hevlin to Vienna) Average speed 9.8 mph Top speed 35 mph
What a difference a day makes.
Up at 6.45 with rain forecast from 7. I packed up before it started at 7.10 and made tea under the road bridge. I thought I’d had a rough nights sleep as it was so windy, but the canoeists near the bridge only had sleeping bags.
I left about 8 and went off to buy brekkie with the last of my Czech Krones; 60 got me two cakes and I paid for the bread and cheese in euros. Then I went into Austria and Laa an der Thaya where I searched for the Therme that I’d seen signposts for the night before, but it turned out to be a big swimming pool and not a thermal Spring as I’d hoped. So I went into town for coffee and hid from the rain for a while.
I needed to get going so I set off on the l10 and got saturated within 10 minutes. Once you’re wet you may as well carry on because you can only dry out if it stops raining.The faster you go the quicker you dry out and warm up but it didn’t stop until I reached Vienna!
It was once again very hilly and I stopped in a village cemetery to fill up water bottles and as I sat there under a tree a lady came to put some candles at a grave. She looked at me sympathetically and smiled and said something in Austrian which didn’t need translating. Then as ever another big climb out of the village and the tree cover didn’t help any more as the wind blew more water off the leaves.
Then I hit another road block but the detour only took me me an extra mile or two. I stopped for lunch in someone’s car port but the house was for sale, so I was surprised when a car pulled into the driveway and I tried to move the bike so they could get in, but it turned out to be a couple with a dog nosing around their potential buy.
After lunch and with the rain still coming down I was surprised to have a very long fantastic downhill which, although very wet, was good fun.
After a few more ups and downs I got to Korneuburg and had a coke and checked how far I had to go toVienna where I could get a bed in a hostel for the night out of the rain; this seemed favourable to camping on the other side of the river where I would need to get a ferry.
So I carried on in the rain and managed to negotiate my way through the city but I was very tired and couldn’t find the hostel. With my phone dying I took time out for a beer and to compose myself to find the hostel which is brand new and really smart.
Having met a few people at the hostel and cooked pasta for my dinner, I went for a beer with Maurice from Stuttgart. We found it hard to find a decent bar but ended up celebrating a birthday in a rather odd bar with one of the locals. In bed by 1 and very tired, my knee had been hurting. Hopefully it was just the cold and wet as I have a few mountains to climb soon.
Hostel underground 15€