We had our latest start so far today after our evening out in Bremen – and only got going at 10am. We started out in a light rain and left the city through the Burger Park, near the university – going past a large lake in the park. It was easy getting out of the city in this direction and incredibly quiet riding through small towns alongside the river. There were nearly no people around, probably due to the bad weather. We saw some people rowing on the river every now and then. We also spotted three deer standing in a field.

There is a harbour at Vegesack, where the Schulshiff Deutschland is moored. It was was employed as a school ship for the merchant marines beginning in 1927 and is now maintained as a memorial and museum ship.

We came to a dyke just after Rader, which we rode alongside for about 10km.

The route then took us along narrow country roads, too narrow for two cars to pass each other, with regular little towns. We noticed that many of the houses have thatched roofs in this area – and lots of very neat gardens.

The weather became very grey and the the landscape flat. The wheat fields have largely given over to dairy cows and some sheep. The cows seemed lazy – lying down in the fields.

We ended up on a peninsular and had to either back track or take the ferry from Brake to Harriersand. We decided to take the ferry. There was a 45 minute wait for the ferry, so we had coffee at the nearby cafe and restaurant. There were lots of people there – either eating lunch or waiting for the ferry like us. It began to rain heavily just as the ferry came and we got soaked entering and leaving the ferry. Then we cycled a few km north to find the next ferry back across from Golzwarden to Sandstedt. This was a bigger ferry that also took cars. It had stopped raining by this time, so the ferry ride was more pleasant. There was one other cyclist taking the ferry, travelling with a beer in his hand! I think we had more fun than the people sitting in their cars, even though we were wetter.

     

From there the route was along little town roads, we dried off and got wet again as the rain came and went. We entered Bremerhaven along busy roads, not very pleasant.

Bermerhaven has a very modern looking city centre, around the harbour. The tourist office was open and helped us book accommodation in the youth hostel, which was fine. We walked around the shopping centre before finding a nice kebab shop where we devoured pizza and kebabs – the weather was still wet and we were very hungry.