DAY TWO: 28 ON THE 28th

DAILY DISTANCE: 84.21 kms
TOTAL DISTANCE: 138.92 kms
 
I expected Day Two to start with some very sore muscles and other body parts, but thankfully that was not the case. Instead, it started with a cheery ‘Happy Birthday’ and a card from my fellow riders and support team. Twenty-eight on the twenty-eighth – a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon that the nerd inside of me has been waiting for for, well, 28 years!

Today was a fantastic day, both in terms of weather and route. The sky was blue and sun shining, and after a big descent to start the day (58.8 km/hr but don’t tell my mother) we joined the Trans Pennine Trail. At first it was poorly signed, so we did do a few laps of some small English country towns, and we even ended up at the Wentworth Woodhouse (photo below), which Wikipedia has now taught me is the largest private house in the United Kingdom, with the longest country house façade in Europe and includes 365 rooms over an area of over 2.5 acres!! Needless to say, we were not supposed to be riding through those grounds and were quickly turned back where we’d come from...

I am now officially recommending the Trans Pennine Trail for any UK-based bike riders who want some stunning scenery and beautiful trails ... and own a mountain bike. While parts were groomed, pebbled or even sealed, many parts were entirely inappropriate for a touring bike. Especially one that, having been purchased for over £1,000, has only covered 200kms... (Yes, given that I purchased bike and computer at the same time, it is official: I covered exactly 62.08kms in training for this trip. As in, less than I rode today. Hah!) But anyway, it survived with no punctures, and the taste of it inspired me to return for the full 333km trail from Southport (west of Liverpool) to Hull one day ... with a mountain bike of course!

Seriously ... this is part of the Trans Pennine Trail

Not ALL of the T.P.T. was dodgy...

Tonight we’re staying above a pub in Snaith (don’t feel bad if you have no idea where Snaith is, as I can promise you that there are at least a dozen people who live within a half hour drive of it who have no idea either...) and had Indian to celebrate my birthday. Tomorrow we head to Hull where we meet Dan, the final Ninja Turtle. For your information, I wanted to go with Musketeers but for obvious reasons Ninja Turtles are more appropriate: there’s four of them, they don’t move very quickly and survive for a very long time, like my fellow riders...! (Please note that I am allowed to engage in banter like this since the Australian jokes began a long time ago, especially when it comes to cricket and/or our performance at London 2012. It is also important to note that the others often engage in self-deprecating humour also – for example, it has been generally agreed by them that my purpose on this trip is to play the role of carer!!!)

Tomorrow will be the first real test, because from now on we have to carry our panniers since Irene has headed home to enjoy 6 weeks without Jim monopolising the TV remote. Stay tuned. If the remote is within your control, that is...

DAY ONE: JUDGEMENT DAY

DAILY DISTANCE: 54.71 kms
TOTAL DISTANCE: 54.71 kms
  

After a year of talking about it, but no organisation or training (on my part, that is) whatsoever, our time was finally here. But first, the key players: there are four of us riding: myself, Uncle Jim, Uncle Alan and Dan, Jim and Alan’s friend from way back (who has organised the route but I haven’t actually met yet!) I call Jim and Alan my uncles because it’s easier that way. They’re actually my second-cousins-once-removed or something but our families are close and their kids I see as cousins... Clear as mud?

After a large and elaborate brunch made by my surrogate English mother, Irene (Jim’s wife), we set off at 11:45am, approximately 12 minutes after the rain started. It would follow us all the way to our destination. At the sight of the lovely, but large, Pennine Mountains, I was told that "at the local cricket grounds they say that if you can't see these mountains, it's raining, but if you CAN see the mountains, then it's about to rain...!" This is England after all.

We were seen off by Ken and Edith, Irene and Jim’s parents, Penny, Alan’s wife, and Cousin Andy, Jim and Irene’s son. We rode for just over an hour before the strength of the wind and angle of the rain got the better of us, and we found shelter under a highway overpass for a quick drink and for Jim to call Irene to request four whistles. He’d had an idea: if one of the four ever zoomed off in front, a whistle could be easily used to announce to them that a stop was required, or a turn was approaching. This was apparently instigated by him seeing me “zoom off” a few times in the first hour – little did he know that far from being supremely fit and ahead of the game, actually I was doing as the lone Aussie should ...  trying to keep warm in the freezing English rain!

Another 40 minutes later we had climbed to what Alan believes may be the highest point of our whole trip (although my brain knew that it was impossible, my legs told me that we must have be higher than Everest...!). Of course the good part of this was that we had to then descend that same ‘hill’ – a huge descent past many hikers and a few other riders. Unfortunately the wet, slippery and narrow road meant I had to be much more careful than I would have been usually, but I still managed to hit my top speed of the day, 56.4km/hr.

At the bottom waiting for us was the lovely town of Castleton where we stopped for a coffee, and it was here that Alan pondered the vast road that lies ahead of us: “If you did a survey of every person in here looking at us and asked them where they think we’re headed, not a single sole would guess that the answer would be ‘Istanbul!’”. Our last stop of the day was at Ladybower, where we indulged in Irene’s magical flapjack. She had packed four pieces, forgetting that Dan is yet to join us. Jim and Alan shared the fourth after Parri declined. Tonight over dinner, however, the real truth came out: actually, I would have loved a share in Dan’s piece, but was merely being polite. I cursed them all the way up the next hill! And wasn’t it a hill! Probably smaller than that earlier described, but with my shocked legs now entirely jelly, it felt like mission impossible.

We arrived in Sheffield at four in the afternoon, just 5 minutes before Irene who, bless her, had driven our panniers to Sheffield (I think the locals among us had planned ahead since they knew what the Pennine Mountains had in store for us!). We stayed at Jim’s brothers house and Peter and Christine were more than welcoming. Tonight we went for dinner in the local pub. Cream of mushroom soup and a Giant Yorkshire Pudding that I thought would be appropriate given our stay in Yorkshire – only to be told that actually the pub we frequented was across the border in Derbyshire, hmmm...

So that was that. Thankfully rather uneventful, but Day 1 has been checked off the list...

THE ROUTE

Day	Date	Month	From	To	Country	KMs	TOT
1	27	Aug	Poynton	Sheffield		55	55
2	28		Sheffield	Snaith		85	140
3	29		Snaith	Hull	Hungary	70	210
3	29		Hull (Ferry)	Rotterdam		0	172
4	30		Rotterdam	Haarsteeg		105	315
5	31		Haarsteeg	Venlo		100	415
6	1	Sept	Venlo	Koln	Germany	95	510
7	2		Koln	Boppard		105	615
8	3		Boppard	Frankfurt		110	725
9	4		Frankfurt	Frankfurt		0	725
10	5		Frankfurt	Wertheim		105	830
11	6		Wertheim	Rothenburg		90	920
12	7		Rothenburg	Rennertshofen		115	1035
13	8		Rennertshofen	Schierling		95	1130
14	9		Schierling	Windorf	Austria	115	1245
15	10		Windorf	2 x1/2 days rest		0	1245
16	11		2 x1/2 days rest	Ottensheim		105	1350
17	12		Ottensheim	Grein		90	1440
18	13		Grein	Krems		100	1540
19	14		Krems	Vienna		100	1640
20	15		Vienna	Vienna		0	1640
21	16		Vienna	Bratislava	Slovakia	85	1725
22	17		Bratislava	Gyor		90	1815
23	18		Gyor	Esztergom		110	1925
24	19		Esztergom	Budapest	Hungary	80	2005
25	20		Budapest	Budapest		0	2005
26	21		Budapest	Keskemet		90	2095
27	22		Keskemet	Mako		118	2213
28	23		Mako	Timisoara	Romania	84	2297
29	24		Timisoara	Bela Crkva	Serbia	109	2406
30	25		Bela Crkva	Bela Crkva		0	2406
31	26		Bela Crkva	Dubova	Bulgaria	113	2519
32	27		Dubova	Negotin		103	2622
33	28		Negotin	Lom		103	2725
34	29		Lom	Pleven		128	2853
35	30		Pleven	Veliko Ternovo		101	2954
36	1	Oct	Veliko Ternovo	Veliko Ternovo		0	2954
37	2		Veliko Ternovo	Sliven		108	3062
38	3		Sliven	Demirkoy	Turkey	101	3163
39	4		Demirkoy	Saray		110	3273
40	5		Saray	Outside Istanbul		100	3373
41	6		Outside Istanbul	Istanbul		37	3410