Trains and Trains and Pains

After our brief time in Saarburg, it was time for us to all to move on. Ken Lister would be taking 15 of our riders and heading to Passau to begin a week long ride from Passau to Vienna, while I would be heading with a group of 8 riders to Donaueschingen to begin a series of extended rides in Germany, Switzerland and France. There would also be four others who would be returning to Australia.

After spending so many happy moments together, such partings are always difficult. Last night there were many hugs and farewells as the reality of the moment hit home. The Ken Lister team (let's call them the A Team) had the earliest start. In fact it was so early that they had to miss breakfast. It was just as well they did not know in advance just how exhausting their day was going to be.

My team (the B Team) had a slightly more leisurely start (ie we were able to have breakfast), but at 8.45 am we began the walk to Saarburg Station. In order to get from Saarburg to Donaueschingen, we had to successfully navigate between four train journeys, all of them with quite short changeover times. What could possibly go wrong ?

The first step went according to the plan. We even managed to find space for our luggage. The train ran on schedule and we arrived at Saarbrucken with time to catch the next train to Kaiserslautern. Here the transit time was very short 7 minutes, constituting a mad panic run from one platform to another.

When we boarded the next train to Karlsruhe, we thought the worst was behind us. It wasn't. Even though we had prebooked 1st class seats on that leg, we clambered onto the train, only to find that strangers had commandeered our seats and refused to move. This threw all of us into a state of confusion (it doesn't take much to do that), and we found that we were soon spread over two carriages, with our luggage jammed into any space we could find. David found a comfy place lying on the staircase, I think Maggie found a seat in the toilet, and the rest were sitting on their luggage or on each other's knees. It was not a pleasant journey.

Surely the worst was now behind us ? Actually it wasn't. We had thought that the final 2 hour ride to Donaueschingen would be quiet and peaceful. We did not anticipate that we would be soundly abused as soon as we set foot in the carriage.

In the entry to the carriage the only seats left were occupied by two bicycles, While I am an avid supporter of cycling, it did seem a little unfair that these bikes actually took up 8 seats and left us all standing. I proceeded to rearrange the bikes so that they would take up less room. It was an obvious solution to an overcrowded train. I did not realise that it would provoke an outburst from the elderly (and obviously unhinged) owner of one of the bikes.

With an overwhelming sense of righteous indignation, I explained to the guy that we were not taking any notice of him, and that he would be wise to mind his own business. Even so, we still had our team uncomfortably crammed in with suitcases and sitting on tiny fold down seats.

It was not until well into the trip that the carriage emptied enough for everyone to more or less find a proper seat. The irate bike owner never did come back for his bike (a fact that I was very happy with) and the final hour of the trip took us through magnificent mountain scenery with a long succession of tunnels.

We arrived at our destination at around 3.15 pm and went in search of coffee and cake to settle our nerves. In the meantime we had been regularly checking on the progress of Team A. We learned that their trip had been even more horrendous than ours. It looked like the train company had sold twice as many tickets as the available number of seats, leaving them sitting on the floor of the train. The train toilets were blocked and overflowing. It was a truly ugly scene. No wonder they were all completely exhausted when they finally arrived at Passau late in the afternoon.

At least we had a very pleasant surprise waiting for us when we arrived at our hotel - the bikes that would be our transportation for the next few days. They were bright red ebikes made by Velo du Ville, with Bosch motors and batteries. They looked brand new, and certainly rode extremely well. Carol immediately fell in love with hers, and decided that David will need to purchase one for her the moment they arrive back in Australia.

Tomorrow is a free day to recover from the travel trauma, before we begin cycling the upper reaches of the Danube.Read more