As the end of the journey approached, we woke up on the final morning of our journey knowing that we had crossed Holland (where we were arrested), Germany (hills and more hills), and the Czech Republic. All we had to do was cycle a simple 100 km across a small part of Austria and into Slovakia.
The night before, we had made ourself a big meal using discarded potatoes.
We ate this hearty meal under a bridge, 1 km short of the Austrian-Czech border, hoping to avoid yet another thunderstorm.
When morning came, I woke up like a kid on Christmas, full of excitement at the prospect of a warm shower that day. In a month on the road, we only had the opportunity to shower on three occasions and washed mostly in rivers and fountains.
As ever, we had picked ourselves a bag of wild fruit while cycling, so we ate it in our porridge for breakfast.
Then we cycled a whole kilometre, to find ourselves entering Austria. Knowing that the rest of the journey would probably be flat was a special moment.
Before we knew it, we had cycled around 80 km and found ourselves in Slovakia. There were some days on this journey (in the mountains) where we cycled all day and only travelled 30 km. Pumped with excitement and on flat ground, we cycled the 70 km without barely stopping for breath and arrived in Slovakia before lunch.
We were then very grateful to be met at the Slovakian border by the mother of our Slovakian cyclist who had brought along a delicious picnic. We devoured it and then gave her our panniers as we cycled the last few kilometres through the forest, feeling like we were floating on air. I was so ecstatic, that I didn’t notice a concrete block and ended up face planting into the sand, bending my handlebars, locking my brakes up, and cutting my leg. Despite this, we were only kilometres from a shower.
After stopping for a quick beer and some pear spirit, we arrived. We were overjoyed. After showering, we realised that we’d picked up some pretty bold tan lines.
But we were clean, we were in Slovakia, and we had just cycled around 1,600 km on very old bicycles.
Part one of my big adventure is now complete. Now it’s time for part two: building a raft to float down the Danube.
Love that you guys accomplished this amazing feat. Most people wouldn’t even dare to think to do something like that. You are proving to everyone that you really can do anything you put your mind to. Awesome, awesome job!
Congratulations! sounds like an incredible experience. I’d love to join you in one of your adventures some day.
If we bump into each other along the road, let’s head in the same direction.
Congratulations to you guys! Did you guys camp during the entire trip? and what did you eat?
Thanks. We camped a lot, but we also used Couchsurfing twice, got invited into the houses of strangers a few times, and slept under bridges or in abandoned buildings when we had the chance. For food, we used a combination of wild foraging, skipping, and buying produce from shops.
Sounds like a great ride (have to catch up on the previous posts). I’d probably take a very long shower after all that. And I doubt my folding commuter bike would be a good choice for that kind of trip.
That would be quite an interesting challenge.. ‘Crossing a continent on a folding bike.’ It’s got a nice ring to it..
That sounds like an amazing journey. Takes some real sense of adventure to pull that off. Congratulations on finishing such a feat, would love to try something like that myself sometimes. Truly Inspirational!
Thanks. If you go for your own adventure, feel free to share.