It runs and runs...

Today we set off before 9 a.m., but only a few hundred metres to the next shop where we bought some provisions. The sunglasses were also used again today after yesterday's break. The sun was still shy at first, but came through more and more as the day progressed and only disappeared shortly before I arrived in Pöchlarn. After travelling from Lower Bavaria to Upper Austria yesterday, today I'm travelling from Upper Austria to Lower Austria.

After about 15 kilometres, I said goodbye to Ties again as he was heading further inland to continue east from Graz with a friend in a few days« time. The plan was already clear last night and when I said I hoped to see him again he just said »hopefully not on this trip, otherwise something has gone wrong with you«. As he is taking a much more indirect route with a lot of vertical metres to Istanbul, there is probably something to it... anyway, it was a great time with him and I remembered a sentence that I found on a sign on the border from Serbia to Romania when I was researching the route: »Don't be sad to leave Serbia, but be grateful for the great time you had here." That's exactly how it felt for me to say goodbye to Ties. And I really hope that I will still see the aforementioned sign in reality ;-).

Shortly after saying goodbye, I was again baffled as I stood by the Danube, expecting a bridge where there was none. But this time there was actually a ferry, the first one I took on my journey. Shortly afterwards I was already in Linz, with a beautiful road leading along the Danube before and after Linz. The gravel roads also seem to be a thing of the past, at least for the moment, because today everything was tarmac. I had a marvellous time and made rapid progress, no doubt partly due to the tailwind.

At a junction near the town of Enns, it said that the ferry, which would soon be coming along my planned route, would not be leaving until May. So I took the well-signposted diversions and was soon back on the planned route. This now took me away from the Danube for a while.

Slowly but surely I thought about taking a lunch break, but things were going so well that I didn't even want to stop. Soon the Danube was in a gorge again, similar to yesterday, and now I finally took a break after travelling more than 100 km.

It wasn't far to Pöchlarn now and the route led past beautiful little villages. I arrived at my accommodation before 4 p.m. and was delighted that it had gone so well. And today, too, I had plenty of sunshine and not a drop of rain. At least not during the bike ride. At around 16:10, a few drops did appear.