(written by Nancy) (25 July, posted 26 July)

Other than a couple of groups singing songs as they passed along the trail by our tent to the beach the campsite was peacefully quiet.  I actually slept through some of and Dave woke up – usually it’s the other way around. It cooled off nicely too, which makes sleeping in the tent much easier.  This morning we had no moisture on the tent at all – that’s what sleeping on pine needles will do for you.

Today was a fairly straightforward day and the scenery was much like yesterday, including lots of fields full of sunflowers.   We stopped in the small village of Trebatsch to check out the Ludwig Leichhardt museum but unfortunately it didn’t open until 10am.  There were plenty of signs along the way though, including a viewpoint named for him.  At the museum there was a sign that proclaimed him to be “Australia’s most important German scientist.”  Shows you what a small world it really is.

The excitement came when we tried to take a small road, which turned out to be one of those Roman roads built of large stones.  I was a bit ahead of Dave and I heard him yell out for me to stop and yelled “Spoke!”  Dang, another broken spoke.

Dave seems to have a knack for picking out picturesque spots to break spokes and this one was also a nice one.  A little bench under the shade of a plum tree provided a place to sit while he fixed the spoke.  At one point and older German fellow came out of the house across the street  and tried to talk to us a bit but we couldn’t get much of what he was saying.  He stood and watched Dave work on the wheel for quite some time until he said (I think) that it was getting hot in the sun and he headed back home.  After about 45 minutes we were on the road again.  We grabbed an apple off the nearby tree for a snack later on, dodging the bees that seemed to be gorging on them.

We went through many small villages today – at least they appeared on the map and had city signs but many were really just a collection of houses.   No shops, petrol stations or stores of any kind.  We were kind of aiming to avoid bigger cities but we soon realized that we would have to head for one of the bigger cities just to get some food.  We were getting pretty hungry by the time we made it to Muncheberg about 1:30.  Thankfully we found a bakery and I think we shocked the little old lady running the shop with the amount of food we bought.  And then we sat down on the sidewalk outside the shop and ate much of it right there!

We stopped at the Aldi grocery store to get some supplies before heading to a campground and Dave came out with several bags that were Trader Joe’s!  Cranberries, walnuts and pine nuts all came in Trader Joe’s packaging.  For our Aussie readers, Trader Joe’s is a grocery chain in the US – not sure what the connection is to Aldi supermarkets.

We were aiming for a campground on a lake near Buckow for our destination today.  We found some signs noting at campground at Waldsieversdorf but we decided to ride a few kilometers further to see if we could find one on the lake.  We stopped at several information signs but none of them showed any camping around the lake.  So, given it was already getting relatively late we decided we better head back to the campground we saw signs for in Waldsieversdorf.

The campground is a bit of a funny one – when we first arrived there were just three trailers grouped together and then another tent that looked like it had been abandoned.  Thankfully several other folks have since arrived (including a German cyclist named Mike who is riding across Germany and then on to St Petersburg) so it doesn’t feel quite so spooky.  We think the three caravans belong to some workers who are here for the carnival that some kind of festival that starts tomorrow.  So, we’re sleeping with the carnies tonight….

The mosquitoes are out in full force tonight so it’s time to call it a day and retreat to the tent.  Our internet access is not working very well so we will have to wait until we get something better to post this…

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