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Sean Barker

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Blog Entries posted by Sean Barker

  1. Sean Barker
    Hook Of Holland to Zennet (Ned)

    After an uneventful journey to the start at the Hook I made my way east circumnavigating Rotterdam and passing through the beautiful Kinderdijk with its multitude of windmills.
    I felt quite emotional cycling this stretch as I covered the ground that I had cycled with my daughter when we did a tour of the Netherlands together some seven years before.
    Following the river Lek it soon became apparent that my GPS was not picking up the satellites and consequently the roads and measuring distance properly which was a concern considering some of the remote places I was to cover on this tour. Fortunately I had my trusty compass and maps of the Netherlands and Germany; clearly I was going to have to pick maps up along the way.

    I did feel strange being back on the road again, cycling on the right, it somehow felt as if I was home again


    The ferry across to the Kinderdijk



    The stunning Kinderdijk, perhaps my favourite place in the Netherlands


    Another of the Kinderdijk
  2. Sean Barker
    Walterhausen (D) to Ilmenau (D)

    It rained hard during the night and into the morning. It was 11:30am before I packed up a soaking wet tent and braved the weather. After a few hours of cycling through the cold storm shivering and miserable, I happened upon a small village just south of Ilmenau and spied a pension. With no chance of getting my tent dry today I saw this as the ideal opportunity to get everything dry, wash my dirty clothes and charge all my appliances. As I write this my tent is hanging over the bathroom door and all my clothes are drying on the radiator and all devices are recharging.
    I'll get breakfast here in the morning and then ride through the rain all day comforted in the knowledge that everything is packed away dry.
  3. Sean Barker
    Ilmenau (D) to Bad Lobenstien (D)

    The torrential rain forecast didn't materialise but it was overcast and showers all day with the showers getting heavier and more prolonged later into the day.
    Today was tough going on the bicycle paths, the recent rains had left them deep mud in parts and in no way suitable for a loaded touring bike, they were really only mountain bike paths at the best of times. After getting stuck one too many times and having to push my bike through ankle deep mud. I decided to go off route in search of a better surface.
    My new route saw me passing through "Saafeld" and staying on the "90" to "Bad Lobenstien"
    I think this bad weather system is coming from the east so by riding into it hopefully I'll come out the other side all the sooner.
    One big positive today is that I managed to buy a new compass in "Saafeld"




    The many kilometres of cycle paths that run through the forests of Germany
  4. Sean Barker
    I was pretty sure that this would be my last tour so I wanted to go out with something special. This would be my sixth major tour in as many years. I knew I was well prepared and experienced but I was also aware that with traveling solo so far off the beaten track both triumphs and disasters lay ahead.

    All the entries you will read are taken directly from my diary that was written at the end of each day before going to sleep. They are for the most part an account of the route I had taken that day and my state of mind
  5. Sean Barker
    Staatz (Aus) to Spacince (SL)

    A day of contrasts. The first half of the day saw dark skies and rain, then later in the afternoon it brightened up and the rain cleared, there were even glimpses of blue sky, something I hadn't seen in a while.
    An early start saw me pass through “Poysdorf”, “Wetzeldorf”, “Altlichtenwarth” and “Hohenau an der March” before crossing the border and into Slovakia. Once into Slovakia I made my way through “Moravsky Svaty Jan”, “Zavod”, “Tomkey”, “Laksarska Nova Ves”, “Trisin”, “Dolne Dubove” and into Spacince” where I found a little copse hidden away behind a hill where I made camp for the night



    Crossing into Slovakia
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