Dogs

This morning I set off shortly after seven o'clock. I wanted to catch the ferry to Ram, which is about 118 kilometres away, at 14:30, so I should have enough time. The second thing I hoped for was that the traffic in Belgrade might be a little less in the morning. However, it's difficult for me to judge whether this is the case because I don't know what the traffic was like later on.

However, I got out of the city quite well and the bridge over the Danube, which other cyclists had described as one of the worst on the whole Danube route, was also okay. Of course there was traffic, but I felt respected as a cyclist.

After that, it was a bit difficult to find the right path at first. And when I did, I came across a couple of dogs barking at me. I drove past them carefully, as I had always done before, and everything seemed to go well. But the last dog, which had initially behaved the calmest and didn't bark at all, suddenly became super aggressive and ran after me barking loudly when I had already passed. He even snapped at me, but luckily only caught my pannier at the back left. If that had been my leg - I don't even want to think about it. But unfortunately the pannier now has two small holes from his teeth. And I was extremely annoyed and needed a few kilometres to calm down again.

I continued on through a few pretty villages and became more rural the longer I travelled. Suddenly I was back on a gravel road and thought to myself, I'll be fine, it probably won't be that long. Little did I know that it would turn into almost 26 kilometres and that some of the road was in a miserable condition. But at least I stayed calm at the start and rode slowly, so I just lost a bit of time. And at the end I also lost a bit of nerve, the longer I rode the more upset I got and the end was particularly bad. A full-suspension mountain bike would have been the only thing to do here.

Now I took another close look at the map and realised that there would be a second section with gravel. I didn't fancy that any more. However, as I had already noticed on the sign when entering Serbia, there are also alternative routes which are tarmac. So I deviated from my planned route and took one of these. I think the route was even shorter and there wasn't a lot of traffic either. But there was a headwind. The last 5 kilometres, until the planned route and the alternative route rejoined, the wind was blowing so strongly against me that I barely made any progress. And now my heart rate was probably a little too high.

I reached the ferry, or rather the place where it departs, at around 13:50, so I still had a break until the second last ferry of the day left at 14:30. As the last one didn't leave until 5 p.m., I was glad to have reached it, otherwise it would have been a bit late before I arrived. However, I couldn't really enjoy the break, as there were at least 10 stray dogs that besieged me. I'm more of a cat person anyway and after the incident this morning, I didn't really feel at ease.

Since the incident, however, I followed the tip I had read before the trip: get off the bike, put the bike between yourself and the dog and when the dog has calmed down, slowly move away. This worked quite well with two or three dogs that I encountered on the way - now I always dismounted first to be on the safe side. But when I was surrounded by 7 dogs just before the ferry station, I followed the second tip: pick up a stone. And as soon as I bent down and picked up the first stone, all the dogs were gone in a flash. So that seemed to work - only the dogs came back again while I was waiting for the ferry.

After the ferry crossing, I still had just under 20 kilometres to Veliko Gradište. However, the wind was now so strong in places that I was only travelling at 12 or 13 km/h, but I still arrived at a quarter past four - in very nice accommodation with a view of the Danube and a super friendly host. Incidentally, I found a stick on the way, which I also took with me for defence against dogs. I don't want to hurt any dogs, but if I am attacked, I want to be able to defend myself. Or hopefully the dogs will shy away from the stick and there won't be a confrontation like with the stone. From what I had read before the trip, I might encounter a few more dogs on my way.