The Danube

There was only about 20 Km's to our destination, the Danube, or Donau as its called here, but it was all hills.

 Nothing major, but with our bikes a bit of a struggle. This area is criss crossed with bike trails and we lost the  veloroute 6 so headed for Immendingen which apart from being on the Danube, had a rail line back to the van at Engen. 

  With our strict tobacco laws in NZ we had to laugh at all the cigarette vending machines we came across. 

The Danube was always the goal for this trip and one day we'll do the next stage of this trail to Budapest. We were standing on this covered bridge over it, talking about the good bikes we'd need, when along came this Kiwi couple flying our flags!

  Their names are Bob and Britta from Queenstown and they do this most years. They had ridden up from Amsterdam to lake Constance and were on the way back by a circuitous route. They made us feel like a couple of whimps. If you ever think you're too old for this sort of thing, Bobs 83 !

  

An amazing thing we discovered here in Immendingen, is the Danube , happily flowing along, all of a sudden disappears and nearly dries up. It drops down into an underground river and comes out in Aach , on the other side of those hills in the Rhein catchment area. It's called the 'Donauversinkung'

  Christine can now claim to have stood in the middle of the Danube !

This was also the first time we'd been made to pay for our bikes on the train. Fair go, it was more than the bikes were worth! Should have just given them to him ! 

  It's back towards France now I think and then north towards Holland eventually.

Its ok Andy, they're on the air bed.