TravellingStrom

Mayan Prophecy Countdown

Hmmm, woke a bit wonky, to be expected but not too bad considering the late night. I started to get a cuppa tea cooked and the bikes started to arrive for that days ride. The way they work it is a max group of ten riders with a tour leader, and they leave at 5 minute intervals, so there is not one big line of bikes doing the same route. They have about 200 bikes here for the meet, and just next to the camp ground is the departure point for 90 odd bikes, the rest from the fire station. I was hoping for a lined up group photo, but they had not organised for that, so they just parked any old way, in their groups of ten sort of. But I rode down for a couple of photos anyway, a lot of people here were very amazed to see an Aussie bike, it took some getting used to for them 🙂

So, after the bikes rode out I started to pack up, Simon had arrived and we were soon on the way north. It was only 85kms by the highway, but we were taking the scenic route via the Black Forest 🙂 Plus, I was going to show Simon geocaching on the way.

The first cache that was on our way turned out to be a Nano cache in the centre of a village, quite a difficult task, but once I had cottoned onto what I should be looking for, it was not that hard, having someone along who could read German helped and the word magnetic also helped. So, Simon found his first, then not long after down the road, he found his second, well done 🙂

It had taken us one and a half hours to travel about 50km and find two caches, now we needed to make tracks. I was presenting a talk tonight at the HU meeting and still was not fully prepared, nor did I know what time I was on. We still had some nice scenic roads to travel on though and the villages were full of quaint old houses, just like you would expect I guess 🙂

We stopped for a feed at a Kebap shop which was very welcome, I had not had any breakfast except half a mars bar
so warm food is always nice. As you can see, park wherever you can is the general rule here. We got some fuel and I added air to the front as did Simon, then off again, but only a few kms down the road I felt the bike fighting to turn into corners and I thought I had stuffed the front tyre, but no, I had a flat back one instead. The tyre has done 18,000km with still some life left in it, it had picked up a large lead head type nail which was now missing and let the air out, so I plugged it up, with a few local bystanders checking out the action. The plug was real hard to get through because I had forgotten to replace the glue that was taken from me in Brisbane at Qantas.

It only took 15 minutes to get back amongst the twisties, although I was a bit wary in case the plug failed due to the lack of glue. But, we arrived at the site for this HU meeting which is mainly for real campers, credit card campers are catered for in the closest village, Simon being one of the latter, lol 🙂 Jens the organiser told us they were doing a tyre repair workshop over there if we were interested, we said, nah, been there and done that about 50km away 🙂

After a couple of cool me down beers at the very close by watering hole, and watching the gaggle of geese, it was off to pitch the tent again, although I had to pump the tyre up, it was flat as a tack again!!

One of the HU forum members named Bertrand came over for a chat and as it seems to be the tyre plug I put in has come out, he went to find some glue for me, thanks m8. He did return with some and I duly inserted a new plug with glue, now to see what happens in the morning, whether it stays up or not. After that I went for a ride to the nearest town to stock up on beer and they went into the creek next to my tent, but the water was not as cold as last nights, still, they would be OK for later. At this time I went and found the location of where I would be presenting, and quite fittingly it was in a circus tent 🙂 I also found out I was booked on at 10pm that night, so I had time to participate in other discussions and presentations that were going on, meet some new people, and basically get involved. One of the girls I met is having some dramas, she had just started her ride from England to China, she would be a week behind me through there, but her motor is shagged, the oil is full of silver paste, so her dad is driving down here from England in a hire van to pick the bike up. I hope you get that fixed soon Fern, safe riding to catch up on the missed schedule. I had a great bratwurst and chips for dinner and a few beers to get warmed up and because it was all running late I did not start until around 10.45 or so, but that was OK, I was looobed 🙂 It seems it went down well, not sure if they were laughing at me or at my stories, but I did not bomb, so that was all good and finished up around 1am, not as bad as Cooroy last year, but not a bad effort 🙂

Cheers from Ober-Liebersbach, Germany
TravellingStrom