Nykobing Falster to Rostok to Hamburg to Almelo

Up at 6:30 today as we want to get to Gedser in time for the 9am ferry. As luck would have it the day was sunny, cool, but no rain; I wore my long finger gloves again. I had a quick snack of jam on bread and then we were off at 7 on the dot. We made pretty good time (saw a ginormous hare), probably the fastest section of the whole tour so far at 19.6 kph. I got the tickets and then we had a short wait before boarding.

Once on board Tony got a coffee and then to use up some coins I got breakfast. It was quite pleasant sitting looking out over the Baltic in the warm, with the sun on my legs, while eating breakfast. After that I was feeling pretty satiated so I dozed on and off until we were almost there!

Once there we headed down to the truck deck (lower level where the bikes are) and waited to be let out. Then a quick run through the terminal, no border check for cyclists, and we were on our way to the station in Rostok.

We made very good time which I think is a combination of both the weather and that we have been this way before. We got to the station with heaps of time to spare; only to find out that the best we could do (from here at least) is to Hamburg. We went with that and will see what we can do when we get to Hamburg.

I went and got a hot choccy and a strawberry and rhubarb slice; Tony thought it was too cold so he went back into the terminal. I sat outside to finish them, had a break for a bit, then went and got Tony and we went up to the train platform. As luck would have it the arriving train came in over half an hour before hand so we had time to load and get settled. Some load mouthed eastern Europeans came on just before the train departed but they got bored and fell asleep after a while.

I took the opportunity to upload all of the photos to my laptop, peruse and index them and then get to this part of the diary. Then I spent the rest of the trip to Hamburg reading my E-book!

Once in Hamburg, which is a rather large station, Tony minded the bikes and I went and tried to get tickets to Almelo. After a 15 minutes wait the nice lady at the ticket office found a route with 5 trains that would get us there at midnight. It’s going to be a long day but we’ll get there.

We went and found a spot near our platform then I minded the bikes while Tony looked for something to eat; but didn’t find anything. I then went off to see if I could find a WiFi hot spot to let the hotel know I would be late. In the end I found a Telekom hot spot (just look for lots of people standing around) and was able to download emails before the connection died. There was nothing from the hotel and I was wondering what to do, then the obvious thing came to mind, I rang them! All set, no problems they are a 24 hour hotel.

I then got some Chinese take away, in one of those little American take away boxes, chicken vegies and noodles. By the time I got back it was time to go down to the platform and shortly after our train arrived. So I had my Chinese once we were on the train.

Train ride to Bremen – Read my ebook. We noticed that most people got off at the first stop.

Train ride to Osnabruck – Read my ebook. Same again with people getting off. Weird.

Train ride to Munster – Read my ebook. The stations are getting smaller and less well maintained.

Train ride to Eschede – Read my ebook.

Train ride to Almelo – Read my ebook. WooHoo the Netherlands!

What a long day! We arrived spot on time at midnight, then a quick ride through the quiet streets of the town to the hotel which is actually quite large and modern. We went to our separate rooms; I showered and passed out around 12:30…