Getting to the Starting Line - Part B

1:Singapore to Munich

The  next stage of our journey was the flight from Singapore to Munich. I’m calling this a discreet stage because it’s just one form of transport, travels through the night and long enough (12 and a half hours) to get a decent sleep.  Here’s what our route looks like …

Stage 2: Singapore to Munich

And get a decent  sleep I did, which was a great relief as I don’t generally sleep well on planes. A full six hours of shuteye left me feeling pretty chipper and ready to dive into the Michael Connelly book that Di bought in Sydney and finished before we got to Singapore. I duly gobbled it up myself before we landed in Munich, which meant I didn’t have to carry it through to Salzburg.

Arriving in Munich was amazing. We’d been warned that it might take hours getting through Customs and Immigration because of the new ETA procedures being put in place. As it turned out there was almost no waiting time. The queue for non-European travellers was not long, fingerprinting and photographing was quick and efficient and we were able to move promptly through to baggage collection. 

Because our trip is fully based on the bike tour,  the only baggage we had to collect were our bike bags. And, for the first time ever of traveling with bikes they arrived before any of the other luggage from our flight! The first thing we did was to open our bags and check that the bikes were intact. Next, we got someone to take a photo of us with our bike bags … 

Yes we are excited to finally be here - and with our bikes intact!

Next, we were delighted to discover that we were able to just walk straight through the “Nothing to Declare” gate without having to open our bike bags. And finally, we emerged from the airport to discover that the entrance to the train station was only about 100 metres away. There didn’t seem to be an elevator to take us down to the platforms, which caused Di some consternation. She was talking about carrying her bike bag down a long, long flight of stairs but I said I thought it would be very easy to get down the escalator with them if we just held onto the strap (the one that Di had all that bother with in Sydney) and fed the bike bags ahead of us as we got on. Sure enough that worked a treat: they were easy to restrain and no danger of injury anyone in front of us.

Our train wasn’t due to leave for quite a while and we both felt we needed something to eat so we stopped and grabbed a coffee and a pistachio croissant each at this place …

… and sat and watched our bikes as we relaxed for about fifteen minutes. 

2: Munich to Salzburg

Stage 3: Munich/Salzburg

Di was keen to find the platform where our train on to Salzburg left from so she went scouting. I was a little surprised to see her return almost immediately to say she’d found it and there was a train leaving in a few minutes. I hadn’t finished my coffee but it was much bigger than I’d expected so I happily left it and off we went. There were lots of seats available on the train to Munich East station and we had a comfortable ride before getting off at Ost-München Bahnhoff. It wasn’t long before the next train from there to Salzburg arrived.

We’d booked our tickets for this part of the journey before we’d left home and were scheduled to start our journey a couple of later than we did.  Our thinking was the worst that could happen would be we would be told we had to get off somewhere along the journey and get back on the train we’d bought tickets for so off we went. As turned out, there wasn’t a conductor on either of the trains nor were our tickets checked as we boarded either of the trains - or as we were leaving either station. Very interesting.

Unlike the first train, the leg onward to Salzburg was standing room only …

…  but as the journey progressed the number of passengers on board gradually diminished. There was obviously some good hiking readily available between Munich and Salzburg as we saw quite a few people carrying day packs and dressed for the hiking get off at a number of different stations as we neared Salzburg.

Amazingly, it was only three and a half hours between landing in Munich before we arrived in Salzburg. Our hotel - from where I am now blogging - is literally directly across from the station. All up it took a bit more than 30 hours to get from Sydney to Salzburg. But hey, we’ve arrived and are ready to have a taste of Salzburg and prepare for the next part of our journey!

In Salzburg: Day 1

The first thing we wanted to do was put together our bikes and check to see that they were running correctly. We thought we’d see if perhaps our room hadn’t been used the night before and maybe - just maybe - we could check in early. Not possible.  

Given that we wouldn’t have anywhere safe to leave the bikes if we put them together and went walkabout, we decided to wait until an hour or so before 2:00 p.m. when we  would be allowed to check in, and set off to stretch our legs. I badly wanted to get a haircut and thought a shave to go with it would be lift the refreshment index another notch. A barber shop was quickly found thanks to the receptionist at the hotel. I got a haircut (13 euros) but a shave wasn’t on the cards. Next on the agenda was lunch as it was just on midday. It was warm and sunny so we thought it would be great to dine al fresco. We found a terrific Austrian café but there was a woman smoking a very smelly cigarette which put us off so we continued our search. Eventually we found a place that did pasta and pizza where quite a few people were enjoying beers and having a feed so we thought it must be okay - and it was. So was the local beer,

While sat having lunch I spotted this poster of the great Rheinhold Messner advertising an upcoming classical music concert and speaking extravaganza scheduled for January 2027 …

In a nutshell, from my point of view and thousands of old farts of my generation, Messner is a major god in the pantheon of the world’s great alpinists. His two most significant achievements: first solo ascent of Mt Everest and, along with Peter Habeler, the first oxygen-less ascent of Mt Everest.  Light and fast has been taken to a new level since those days but Messner was so inspirational to future generations of climbers tackling the world’s highest and most dangerous mountains. I thought it was pretty indicative of the regard in which he is held that such a concert would be advertised so long in advance, giving people plenty of time to plan ahead if the wanted to attend.

On the way back to the hotel we passed this impressive collection of bikes parked by commuters, which demonstrated just how much a part of everyday life bikes are in this part of the world …

It was still well over an hour before check-in time at our hotel but we decided to get on and get our bikes set up, which was a good thing because we were just a little weary from our extended journey to so it took a little longer than expected.

Here are a couple of photos showing my bike case partly unpacked (note the wheels in the background) …

… and Di in the process of unpacking her bike …

As we were working, our friend Harry from Seekirchen turned up on his bike to see how we were going, and offered to pitch in and help. It was wonderful to see him  so unexpectedly. He was keen to help get us bike mobile so we could come for a ride with him. Before too long we had the bikes back together and were on the road with Harry leading the way …

When I say “on the road” in reality quite a lot of the ride was on the wonderful network of bike paths that are a well-established part of the transport system in this part of the world. 

Here are Harry and Di rolling along through a small town towards its lovely church …

Harry is using a Garmin tail light that has radar to warn of cars approaching and shoots video on a five hour continuous loop. He took this video with his camera:

At the far end of the ride we went through Seekirchen to the northern shore of Wallersee where Di made this video …

We’re walking our bikes in the video because Harry made it very clear that local etiquette means riding a bike amongst all these pedestrians and beach-goers is strictly verboten. 

On the way back we stopped in at Harry’s place in Seekirchen and had a very nice chat with his wife Petra, who is not a cyclist but an athlete in her own right who understands completely Harry’s obsession with the bike.

About halfway back to Salzburg the skies to the west had significantly darkened and the wind coming from that direction had really picked up with a few random bits of moisture coming out of the skies …

Hmm. We might want to pick up the pace here Battenski!

However, we did manage to arrive back at our hotel still dry and happy that we’d been out with Harry and gotten the cobwebs cleared away so early and comprehensively.

Day 2: Sunday in Salzburg

 We decided it would be good to have a laid-back sort of a day today, especially as we had plans for the middle of it. We started with breakfast at a great little café/backerei at the station before going for a walk. It was very quiet around the centre of the city, which reminded us that it was Sunday. The coffee was surprisingly good and I can see us going back there at least once more before we leave Salzburg on Tuesday. We wanted to check out the area surrounded by the railway infrastructure which looks like this … 

The red dot is where our hotel is, and very convenient to the western entrance/exit to the station. Directly across on the other side of the station is this ginormous undercover bike “garage” which is significantly more impressive than what’s on the western side:

Again, another example of the different approach we see towards cyclists here in Europe compared to what we have in Australia or North America. 

After mooching around a bit more we came back to our room and relaxed for a while. I pulled out the puzzle book and had a go and finishing off a crossword I had been close to finishing. Here’s where I ended up:

So near yet still not good enough. It seems to me that phrase “GET CRACKING”  is very much a part of the British vernacular and some sources say it became a thing in the early to mid 20th century. Here is Cambridge Dictionary take on the meaning. Growing up in Canada, we had a lot more influence - at least in the social currents I swam in - from the Yanks than from the Poms. That’s my excuse at least for not getting it. As for “GALA” … yep, I should have got that. I’ve seen the same clue with the same answer enough times. Another fail. This one was relatively easy. Unfortunately the bar looks to have been raised at least a notch for the next. 🙄

 We then proceeded to get everything  we came here with that we’re not taking on tour into our bike bags - and get ourselves ready for Harry’s arrival in his car to pick up us and said bags, which he is storing for us while we are away on tour. The reason we went with our bags is that we were taking Harry and Petra out for lunch at their favourite local gasthaus.

Here’s a photo of the two of them I took while we were having lunch:

Harry has been a friend on Strava since just after Dianne and I joined in 2016 and he generously offered to look after our bike bags while we were away on tour. Another example of how you can make connections across continents without even meeting and the possibilities those connections can open up.

We had a pretty quiet afternoon just tidying up things getting ready for our departure on Tuesday. It’s nearly 9 pm as I type this and I must admit I’m starting to fade. Our friends Michael, Louise, Jane and Tony arrived late in the afternoon and we arranged to meet them all at an Italian restaurant in the old part of the city but before that we had a bit of a stroll across the river. Along the way I took a few photos …

It was great to catch up and hear something of what they’d been up to …

Today was Michael’s birthday (following on from Louise’s yesterday) which added to the pleasure of seeing these four cycling buddies again.

On the way back to our hotel we walked past the Mirabell Palace and its famous gardens. I was a bit past taking photos by this place except that I had to take one last picture of the day of the bikes …

… used in the Sound of Music bike tour, which Di partook of with all the other women that rode with us in 2019 when we passed through here on a commercial bike tour.

Day 3: A Fondo with Harry

Our mission for the day: 4 lakes, 100+ kilometres and 1000+ metres of elevation

I had been really looking forward to riding around some of the zees here with Harry as Dianne and I have brilliant memories of riding past some of the lakes east from here when we did our bike tour with Bike Odyssey in 2019 before COVID hit and shut the world down for a couple of years.

Unfortunately the day did not start out well. I got to the train station in plenty of time to meet at the Seekirchen/Wallersee station. However as I was pedaling around on the platform to see if I could get my gear shifter working a bit better it decided to shut down completely. I thought I might as well park it, wait for the train and try to sort it out when I got to my rendezvous with Harry.

There was hardly anybody on the train so it would have been easy to find a parking spot for the bike just about anywhere, but as it turned out I got on right by one the only bike parking spot, which happened to be empty …

When I examined the bike before getting on the train I had noticed a bit of slack in the shifter cable just where it attaches to the derailleur. Once at the train station I got my tools out and tried to fiddle with it but to no avail. I hadn’t realised that there is a bike repair business operating out of the train station where I was to meet Harry, who arrived just as I did. The bike shop didn’t open until 9:00 a.m. so we had a 50 minute wait.

When the mechanic arrived we were second in the queue and the lady in front of us just had a minor thing to be fixed and was leaving her bike for collection at the end of the day so the mechanic was able to get straight onto my bike. He fiddled with it for at least 20 minutes and managed to get it working after a fashion but it wasn’t operating at all crisply and efficiently but it was good enough for us to get on with our mission with the view of coming back afterwards to see if the problem could be fully solved with a bit more attention.

It was great to finally get underway on this wonderfully scenic ride, about an hour and a quarter after we’d originally planned.

Here’s Harry taking a photo of himself at about the 70 km mark. I’m in the background picking my way back from a significant landmark along our route:

… a couple photos of the scenery …

… and one Harry took of me struggling behind him up one of the many hills along the way …

There were so many highlights to this day, despite a malfunctioning shifter constantly making it difficult to select or stay in the correct gear. One of those highlights was riding through the town of Mondsee twice: once on the way out (because it’s there) and the second to stop for some lunch. 

Here are some photos from Mondsee on the return journey …

One in front of this stunning building at the top end of the town square, which I think might serve as the municipal hall these days …

Harry doing his left leg-wagging thing …

… and our lunch. Harry is having papardelle, I’ve got gnocchi. The drinks we’re having are not beers. They are a mixture of apple juice and sparkling water.

I did a mashup of moving through the landscape to show what it was like being out on the bike in this beautiful part of the world. It’s unedited and does go on but you can skip ahead to get a taste of different parts of the ride …

When we eventually got back to the train station where we started, the guy in the bike repair shop had another look at my bike then had a consultation with a large bike shop in Salzburg who deal with Campagnolo equipment and told me it looked like there was a problem in the gear selector inside the shifter and suggested I visit them as soon as I got back to the city. 

It turned out when I arrived at Salzburg Haupbahnhof and called the bike shop I’d been referred to they told me that one of their other stores - “The Gravel Loft” which specializes in all things to do with gravel bikes - was just on the other side of the station and gave me directions. I went across there with my bike and it looks like they will be able to fix in me up in the morning one way or another and get me back on the road with a fully functional bike. It means I will have a later start than the others. It’s a short day so that shouldn’t be a problem. Wish me luck!

PS: There are undoubtedly typos I’ve missed in my review of the post. I hope you will forgive them: I was fading fast after such a big day and trying to document it before I start off on the tour in the morning. 

Cheers

Doug