Today was another heatwave – and we rode far too long looking for accommodation – We ended up doing 95km.

We had a good start to the day with a conversation with the husband of our inn-keeper. He works on the river enforcing regulations (like a traffic policeman). We learnt that the maximum draught on the river boats is 3m, although they can sometimes exceed this when loaded. The locks were built to only take draughts of up to 4m. The larger passenger boats are over 100m in length. They can still turn around on the river as it is wide enough.

                            

More than 100 metric tons of water flows by every second.

On parts of the river there are no specific rules for the side of the river boats need to keep to on. On other stretches they have to keep to the left.

We crossed over to Germany from Austria at the Jochenstein hydroelectric power station and locks. The border is in the middle of the river. Kris had to push the bikes up 90 steps to get to the other side (My bike is too heavy for me too push up the steps). Those steps probably help to keep the passenger and bike ferry at Engelhartszell in business.

       

There is an education centre directly on the German side of the river, and a lot of children and their teachers were very involved in outdoor education programmes.

The next big town of Obernzell was very neat with paintings on many buildings and a lederhosen factory on the outskirts, reminding us that we are in Bavaria.

Another 20km along the river and we reached Passau. The city looks wonderful as it appears around the bend in the river with it’s various onion sharped turrets. Then you see a castle up on the hill to the right, with walls built along the cliffs. We entered the city via a bridge.

             

We obtained a basic map for the Eurovelo 6 route beyond Passau at the tourist information office, had a quick ride through the old town and an ice cream. We headed back onto the northern bank of the Danube by passing over the power station just beyond the city – this one had no steps.

Our next stop was Vilshofen, where we crossed to the south bank of the Danube over the bridge into town. The Vils river joins the Danube here, so the Danube is slightly smaller up stream.

We considered stopping here, but decided it was too early as it was only 1.30pm. This may have been a mistake. We decided to do another 20km to Osterhofen, the next big town. When we arrived at Osterhofen we found that the tourist information had closed at 12. It was unbearably hot standing in the town square trying to make sense of the information boards. There were signs indicating that some town celebration was happening over the weekend. Kris asked at one of the Pensions on the square and they were full. He was referred to another a few doors down, and it really didnt look that flash. I thought this would surely be reasonably priced, being in a small town and all. But they wanted to charge 90EUR – more than we paid anywhere else including Vienna and Budapest! So we decided to ride on.

We stopped and spoke to a man on the street who said that Moos was a good town, with a brewery where you can stay. We stopped at Moos – unfortunately the brewery was all closed up (with no sign that you can stay there), however the town had lovely gasthauses. We stopped at a promising looking one, but they had become only a restaurant with no rooms! It seems there were no rooms in the town. The proprietor was apologetic and even filled Kris’s water bottle up with soda water.

So we rode onto Plattling, another 10km in the heat – although it was already beginning to ease by now. At Plattling we got some help from the library (referred there as tourist info was closed) – they gave us the names of a few hotels that seemed affordable. When we got there the first one was expensive and didn’t have internet. We went with the second, which was also expensive but at least had wi-fi. So we felt we were overpaying for a very ordinary accommodation in the end – and we were exhausted.

We cheered ourselves up with some delicious food from an excellent supermarket. European supermarkets are like heaven when you have been riding the whole day in the heat – they are cool and full of great food – hovering near the fridges is a cheap treat. We had a picnic and then a couple of beer’s at outdoor cafe on the town’s main street.