Yesterday leaving the Alte Kirche Pension was freezing, for the first time we had all our winter gear on. Cycling was the usual mixture of quiet roads, and forest roads, but instead of the flattish ride we even had a 2km hill. The top of the hill had a large archaelogical site where bronze ages pots had been found. The next forest path was a challenge with a fallen tree trunk blocking the path.It was 42kms before we saw a sign advertising coffee and cake, no lunch . It was 2 elderly sisters running a cafe from their beautiful garden. Their garden was full of oak trees over 200 years old and lovely flowers and hedges.Even better we got tea/coffee and cake although there was no lunch on offer it was very pleasant .Pause Cafe..

The next 18 kms were on top of the dikes into a very strong head or crosswind so minimal protection or windbreaks. Our speed dropped at times to 8kms an hour, plus the paths were very bad, overgrown and broken.We passed one interesting railway bridge that had been bombed in the war and then the east german side had not rebuilt their side after the war.We also went through a small village Gorleber whose antinuclear protests prevented a full scale radioactive waste dump in their salt dome. The locals put yellow crosses in their front gardens and the scale of protests lead to Germany gradually getting rid of all their nuclear power stations, all to be gone by 2020.Gorleben still has some nuclear waste stored there but no more was added.

By the time we reached Hitzacker we were totally zacked…Luckily although it was still high season till 3rd October hotel rates had dropped in Hitzacker significantly, probably the low water levels in tne Elbe were impacting visitor numbers. The result a very nice hotel room.

The news was talking about 2 storm fronts converging over Germany on Monday, then when I went online to check if we could catch a train Deutsche Bahn had a warning saying it couldnt guarantee trains on Monday because of the storm. After our 2 hour delay at the beginning of the holiday because of storms we didnt want this again.We decided to leave by train on Sunday , as there was no ferry running at Hitzacker because of low water still, we’d have to have been cycling on the dyke paths again on Sunday out of Hizacker so couldnt do a lot of kms quickly. The better path was of course on the other bank still Hizacker was a very quaint island to visit so I’m glad we chose left bank.Under normal conditions you would never have a problem as you’d just switch by ferry from bank to bank. Fate was against us .

SUNDAY-We arrived at Hizacker station at 945am, and the station rapidly filled up with bikes with panniers. Clearly everyone had had the same thoughts. We were worried we wouldnt get on the train. We all got on somehow and luckily noone was getting off till Luneburg the final stop so bikes could be carefully untangled before changing to the Hamburg train. So an early end to our trip and 100kms less cycled..oh well another time we’ll do Cuxhaven to Hitzacker and complete the Elbe fully.We didnt realise bikes were only free in the Hitzacker area so the ticket collector wasnt impressed we didnt have a ticket for our bikes on the Hamburg train, we were able to buy a ticket without a fine, phew.At least we had bought the right ticket for ourselves as it was impossible to read the zones even with my glasses on…

Hotel Hafen Hitzacker

Great value comfortable hotel, amazing breakfast