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Straight road, slight bend, straight road. Bush bash, soft sand and big rocks. Lovely afternoon and evening with Kai and Kersten from the cycling forum.

Day 4. 136km. Bremen – Hamburg. Map and gpx.

Next to me at the camping ground in Bremen was another guy from the Netherlands (or am I Australian? Or German?), with the same bike (a different model of Koga Miyalta) and the same tent (the version from Fjäll Räven). He was cycling the Hanse route past all the Hanse cities – Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck and onwards. The whole trip was a massive loop in northern Germany. We exchanged notes. It was good to speak Dutch again after a few days of only speaking German.

The cycling today had three distinct sections. The first was on long, straight roads -on bike paths to the side of relatively main roads. The second was following a bike path that was more a Google fantasy than a real world reality. Some roads didn’t exist or petered out, and others would have been challenging with a 4 wheel drive. The third section was lovely cycling with Kai and Kersten from the 2radforum.de cycling forum. Entering and leaving Hamburg was a bit grim (busy, industrial), but the city was lovely. We did the tourist tour, ending with ice cream on the Alster.

My route turned out to be rather obscure. In an original attempt to avoid Hamburg, I planned a route to the south, which I later revised to avoid the Elbe ferry that was not running due to the flood waters. The new route took a dog’s leg path passing through the old Elbe Tunnel. The Elbe Tunnel was nice. A lift down to a tunnel that is exactly one car wide (with 3cm to spare).

Hamburg Centre was sunny and beautiful.

Thanks Kai and Kersten for a lovely afternoon and evening! Looking forward to cycling with you further tomorrow!