This night I did not fight the black slugs.
Oh, now I had a war against the ants. I was sure that I had sealed every hole in the tent, but around 3 o'clock a.m. I discovered that a great number of ants had invaded my home. I put some of them down, but then I put up with the fact that the rest of the gang spent the night wandering around in the tent. And actually they did not do me much harm.
A list with troublesome creepy-crawly might look this way:
1. Black slugs
2 Mosquitoes
3. Ants

The weather was now decent. Sun and 10 degrees C. I was on the road again 6.17 a.m. and started out with 5 kilometres downhill. Then I crashed into the morning traffic towards Gotha.
That was serious business.
I had counted on using the main road all the way to Gotha, but very soon I found out it would be highly dangerous. The road was narrow and the traffic absolutely frantic.

Another problem was "Spurrillen". As quickly as possible I found a "Nebenstrasse". It was somewhat better, but still with a problematic quantity of traffic.
No wonder I did not see other bicycle riders at all.

I came to Gotha, where I made a stop at a red light. I found out that I was just outside a bakery, and soon after I was occupied with my almost ritual breakfast. The next thing to do will be to cross Gotha and make my appearance in the north-eastern part of the city. It could be rather difficult.

Finding my way through the city was no problem, but I came up to the surface in the northern part. I decided to stay on that route and adjust later on. This stage should have been flat, but there were all kinds of hills.
But that's ok.
The problem is that I practically all the time meet "Strassen-schäden". It's unbearable.
I am not making any progress.
14 - 16 km is what I can ride.
I wonder if I am in fact riding in the former East Germany?

I am now in a bakery in Mackenrode. The lady in a shop, who has a very sweet lisp told me, that the border between West- and East Germany was just outside this village.
This very moment I am consuming an enormous piece of a pink layer cake.
It's indescribable.
I also bought ….
….. a cup of coffee.
I am just south of the Harz.
It's going to be tough.

Up and down it went towards Bad Lauterberg, where I had located a camping site. 3-4 km outside the town there was some roadwork and a sign with the text "Glockental Camping". While I stood there pondering on the situation something strange happened once again. Exactly the way I had experienced it in Linz in Austria I heard someone call out: "Hi Holger"
This time it was John, a bicyclist from Nr. Sundby, who is a member of my old Club. He was in the Harz with his family. I made an arrangement with him about going to Glockental Camping. We did so and put up our tents close to one another.
We had a beer together and talked about our holidays.

Then it started to rain. John told me that he and his family wanted to go to a restaurant in Bad Lauterberg to have dinner, and he asked me if I would join them. I'd love to, I told him. We found a nice restaurant where we had a wonderful dinner. This was a very nice evening indeed. After the return to the camping site we shared 3 beer before we went to sleep.

Back to main page
Back to Czech-diary-main-page