September 22nd Filling the gap (1) Veliko Gradiste to Ban Brestovac 81 kms
The penultimate day of riding, and I
certainly made the most of it this lovely warm late September Saturday morning.
Even though I am tired I know I am going to miss these wonderful mornings, when
turning the first pedals of the day is such a joy.Yesterday Katherine and I had
driven back along the Danube Gorge to Veliko Gradiste so that today and
tomorrow I could complete the section between there and Belgrade that I hadn’t
done, so that I might honestly claim to have ridden (literally) every
centimetre from Galway to Romania.
The ferry from Ram leaves only every three
hours and we had to catch the midday departure. The Danube was magnificent this
morning as I crossed the Silver Lake dam and then lingered along the easy route
on the top of the levee with scores of fishermen. The low rounded hills of
Romania on the far bank looked to be very close and the river after yesterday’s
turbulence was calm. Up over the low hill and I was coasting down into the tiny
village of Ram.
The ferry did not leave on time but I was
in Stara Palanka before one o’clock. The
route to Kovin, north of the river, not described in my out of date guide book
but well directed with Eurovelo 6 indicators, was very agreeable. To describe
it as flat, as my friend from the bicycle shop in Zemun had, was a bit of an
exaggeration but the climbing is very gradual, the views almost 360 degrees and
the traffic minimal. The woods gave way to some open moorland and I was in my
element. My thoughts were all of the earlier forty days of riding, forgetting
the frustrations in the sheer joy of riding a bicycle.
But I was tiring. A chap on a mountain bike
cruised past me who normally I would have kept pace with. At Kovin I
passed the 4000 kilometre mark from
Galway and I was beginning to feel it. We wasted some time in the town trying
to find the way out (not for the first time, I might add) and by the time I had
reached Ban Brestovac after a 6 or 7 kilometre straight line with the low late afternoon sun in my eyes I
was ready to stop for the day. There were only a few kilometres left to the
elevator on Bridge in Belgrade left
to do tomorrow and in any case I will only brave the Belgrade traffic on a
Sunday.
81 kms Total from Schaffhausen 2109
kms Total from Galway 4019 kms
No comments:
Post a Comment