Straubing to Passau. 18 June.

Dawn chorus began at 4am following on from all night snoring from a number of tents! It was a warm start to the day. We made a packed lunch up after breakfast. We packed up and left camp around 8.15. Headed back to the Danube cycleway heading for Passau. Again the route was through grain fields either on the stopbank or right beside the stopbank. First stop was Deggendorf at 40ks for coffee. The cakes at €10 each were too expensive! We spent nearly 45 mins while the man in the photoshop tried to download our photos to cd. After two false starts he changed computer and was successful.

Saw our second mole today, albiet another dead one - victim of road kill on a cycleway! They are small little black things, fatter and not as big as a rat, with no tail. Lunch stop was after 50kms at Niederalteich beside the river. There was a little river ferry there carrying bikes and people across the river.

After lunch we meandered along the cycleway through and past many little villages. At Windorf we came through the village to see police and an ambulance on the road. Our fellow tour participant, 82 year old Neil from the US, had had an accident in an altercation with a farm vehicle, and was being put on a stretcher to go to hospital. At this stage he has a broken pelvis and minor internal injuries. After he left in the ambulance we carried on the last 20ks to camp.

The camp is a tent site beside the Ilz River which along with the Inn River joins the Danube about 500 meters downstream. After the usual tent setting up and a lovely warm shower we walked into town. We saw the cruise boats taking the tourists down the river. While we have seen barges taking goods further upstream through locks, this is the furtherest upstream we have seen the cruise boats. The church of St. Stephens in the centre of Passau dates from the sixteenth century and replaces a number of previous churches which were all destroyed. It boasts the largest church pipe organ in the world, and is a beautiful baroque church. After wandering around the streets we had an icecream in brilliant sunshine. Later we stopped at a coffee shop which allowed us to get free wireless Internet access so we received all our emails.

Then it was starting to rain so we headed back to camp. Dinner was a delicious pasta with roast beef and red cabbage. It was a very pleasant evening - one of the best we have had. We watched endless airplane flight trails heading westwards, probably to London, so Passau must be below a main flight route. Most people were heading off to bed just after 9.30. There was mist appearing on the river as the evening progressed. This was our last night in Germany, as tomorrow we cross over into Austria.

Distance ridden today was 99 kms in 4 hours 50 mins, ave. 20.5 kms per hour.