Cruising Down the River

Friday  08.06.2012    Weltenburg – Straubing   92.4kms + 5kms on the river! (not in it)

This morning arrived accompanied by a lot of the wet stuff but, by breakfast, it began to look a little brighter. I think it helped that we shared our breakfast with three ebullient German cyclists, who seemed genuinely interested in our endeavour and as we shared stories (their English was excellent) the external temperatures rose, and the sun made a watery attempt at shining.

In fact, it was a morning of good humour unlike the previous day when the whole world appeared to have been born with a lemon in their mouth. Along with a good many other souls, we made our way to the river only to find that we had ¾ of an hour to wait! It was well worth it: no puffing up over the gorge and a limestone gorge is always a pleasure to view from the bottom. As the accompanying information was in German, we have little idea of the many religious relics that seem to adorn the rocks. Al’s little book assured the reader that there were images of Peter and Paul in the rock face but, try as we might, they eluded our scrutiny. Five kilometres and twenty minutes downriver and we were off on our way to ………………..?

The river has now reached spectacular proportions and is a thoroughfare for pleasure craft and barges. None of this casual crossing from one side to the other but it is more interesting watching the traffic. In Regensburg where at least one other river joins the Donau, the usual plethora of signs disappeared or else we failed to notice them.  We have found that if you require help, you stand perusing a map and scratching your head. This produces an immediate response from truly well- meaning and helpful people. Thus, a very astute young lady, unhesitatingly pointed us in the right direction and this quite large city was traversed with no more difficulties.

As we are still trying to arrange a day off for general washing (clothes!) and maintenance, we had hoped that Staubing, if we could make the distance, would provide a large, well equipped campsite: it might have done. Our resolve to search for it evaporated as we were finally drenched in a downpour that had been threatening to do just that for about an hour. So Staubing in a guest house it had to be in the hope that tomorrow will improve.