Riding towards Calais

After Kappeln, we needed some "vacation" from the rainy and cold experience of Brodersby. We found an affordable apartment in Blomesche Wildnis (Glückstadt) with own kitchen and stayed there for a few days. THE opportunity for Skippy to do some nami for us :)
In fact, the cake was tasting soo good, that she made it two times in those few days :D

Delicious cinnamon cake

Tasty salad for lunch with BBQ-fried soy and eggplant.

Though luck for us, the owner forgot the password for the WLAN. Several days without internet - our backlog just piled up. We also went to Hamburg - shopping at Globetrotter, Louis, vegan shop and an emergency stop at Starbucks to check email and vegan places. I was a bit disappointed from Globetrotter and Louis compared to those in Berlin. In Berlin, the shops feel spacier and cleaner. Well, we got what we needed and went quickly to eat in a vegan restaurant "Loving Hut".

Vegan food for Wolfi

Oh - this was good, could have had some more ...

Skippy was supposed to have something lighter without soy/wheat, but then there were these weird soy medallions.

Springrolls (which tasted like 'kaalikääryle'), rice noodles and yummy salad.

Skippy had again her butt-problems, so we went to Cuxhaven to visit "Elbe - Orthopädie" in the hope they could help Skippy. We decided to take the ferry (quite expensive - we paid a total of 12.50EUR one way) to cross Elbe.

Ferry Glückstadt - Wischhafen

HUGE container ship crossing our way and we needed to give way

Took a while ... I wonder how many thousands of containers are there ???

The guys collected rubber ducks :D

They were everywhere on the landing poles ... strong sailor and little boys :D

Evening walk in Cuxhaven

And yes, the winter got extended :D

The next day Detlef had time to look after our seat. So we went there, took the seat down, removed the seat cover and measured Milady's butt and her "pressure points".

They do all sorts of things from seats to prostheses

They decided to replace the centerpart of the seat with a different kind of material.

Detlef - the boss flexing out a piece of Skippy's seat.

Modified seat to release pressure points in the butt and it fits the color of the bike ;)

Elbe Orthopädie

The real boss of the house

After we figured out how to use an electronic stapler :D we put the seat cover on and the job was done. THANK YOU very much!!!

Obviously we complained enough about the expensive ferry (we went over three times), and so they allowed us to stay in one of their empty flats which is currently under renovation. This was very kind. The bikes were parked in the inner yard and I did some maintenance. For some strange reason, the front axle bolts got loose. First I did not get it what happened. When we were in Hamburg, the speedmeter went off occassionally, which meant there was a huge clearance. During our stay in Blomesche Wildnis, I tried to tighten them according to the manual, but then the wheel did not move anymore either. Strange behavior. I called Peter, he could not advice any more then RTFM. OK, I dissambled the front, so that I could remove the wheel. All parts looked fine to me, then I put them back together and now I was able to apply the appropriate torque without problems (and the wheel still moving). Well, I need to keep an eye on those screws.

Tightening front axle bolts

We were good to go and off we went to enter Netherlands. We found a sweet place directly besides a canal, so you could tie your boat directly in front of your room :D

Pension B&B het Smidsvuur

Neighborhood

Shoping street

Plenty of those kind of bridges - traffic lights for boats, barriers for street traffic

More pics of the neighbourhood - we wondered about those huge living room windows, where others can easily look into your living room.

Small harbour in the village

Breakfast in sun at the landing stage

And we got some company during breakfast - unfortunately the diets did not match, so no food for those fellows

We spent two nights in a sleepy village called Aardenburg, made it quickly through Belgium and entered France. Now we need to figure out how to get with sidecar and dogs to UK and we need to find a vet to give our girls the required tapeworm vaccination.

~ Wolfi