ajft

Must be Spring! The university campus is full of nesting birds, including a rather aggressive Noisy Miner that swooped down and pecked me on the back of the head when I walked too close to its nest. A first for that species, I'll add it to the list of magpies, mudlarks, swans and hawks that have attacked me over the years!

A new week, a new disease... I must have been away from Melbourne for too long, coming back I've caught the latest local cold.

Always around when you least need them! This morning on the train a group of six ticket inspectors came through the carriage checking tickets and keeping the peace. After yesterday, is this a coincidence? Why can't the train operators just face up to reality and put back one or two guards/inspectors on every train.

Aw hell, go away travelling for four weeks and what happens. Johnny Cash and Slim Dusty both dead, what else happened while I wasn't looking?

Fun and games on the train this morning. A bunch of strung-out looking druggies were smashing the doors and each other, swearing and smoking, fighting either amongst themselves or with someone they didn't like. Just as I was getting off at Huntingdale, one of them decided to start hassling other passengers, asking for money and threatening to stab people. A long and fruitfull conversation with the police ensued, a call back later confirming that at least one of them is in custody for a later attempted robbery.

Big joke: Reading the newspaper this evening, there was a quarter page advertisment telling people to catch use public transport as a relaxing way to get to work.

Nearly back to normal, apart from waking up around 4 a.m. and gradually listening to the world come alive. Assorted chirpy birds, cars in the distance, the first train of the morning, the clip-clop of someone walking down the street, a ticking noise every five minutes from the lounge room... hang on, that's the thermostat! Seems that the house-sitter must have turned the heater on sometime, then forgotten to turn it off — its almost impossible to tell by looking at the switch whether the stupid thing is on or off.

Still at home with my foot up, recovering.

I guess this will confuse things, but this is the first entry since we got home yesterday, first entry since we went away in August. As the mood takes me and time is available, words and pictures will appear to fill the gap.

The pictures would have started to appear today, except that although the camera, laptop and external drive are all sitting here at home, the cables to connect each pair are sitting on my desk at work! Oh well, maybe tomorrow...

Reading

[http://www.infowarrior.org/]

Richard Forno's website. From an article “Hooked on high-tech” that appeared in the Age.

A four a.m. landing, hobble along to retrieve the bikes and the luggage. Time for quarantine and customs with the bikes, the boxes had to be opened to check for mud. AQIS staff polite and helpful as I've always found them, they even handed us tape to fix the boxes back up.

Outside to catch the shuttle bus into town, and the first major problem of the trip with carrying bikes on public transport. Typically, after four weeks of no hassles in three countries, there's a problem here in Australia. The bus driver took one look at the boxes and declared that they wouldn't fit and couldn't go in his bus, then made a big song-and-dance of moving people from the front seats to the rear and folding seats up to make room. The luggage rack was only a third full, and there were a whole 16 people on his forty seater bus!

The bus timetable, posters and information booth all made no mention of the cost of the tickets — surely something that most customers are interested in. At $13 one way, I'm not surprised that they're embarrassed to display it! A tram ticket to within one suburb of the airport costs around a quarter that, no wonder Sky-Bus and the taxis are resistant to the idea of a normal public transport link to the airport, that's quite a lucrative racket they're running.

Seven a.m. and we were home at last. A flurry of unpacking, then a day spent snoozing in bed, or endlessly filling and emptying the washing machine. Somewhere in there I managed to get to a doctor and was told that I'd sprained my ankle four days ago, to go home and rest it and to make an appointment with their physiotherapist — the receptionist interjected that this would “probably be sometime between two and three months from now”, as they were fully booked.

A blur of plane travel — a long, drawn out, uncomfortable blur. I took my shoe off and my sprained ankle sweeled up so much that by Singapore there was no hope of putting a shoe back on. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get it comfortable. Even under the seat in front, airline hostesses managed to kick it as they served meals. Pointing out my bandaged ankle only seemed to elicit a “sorry” in addition to the kicks, but didn't stop people tripping over it.

  Today: 0km
  Trip: ??km

Where?

Milan, Heathrow.

  Today: 0km
  Trip: ??km

A bad night's sleep due to the noise, the sprained ankle, the heat, and the stuffy room. In the morning I somehow managed a one-legged shower in the miniscule shower cubicle without flooding the bathroom or falling over and further injuring myself.

Where?

Milan.

  Today: 0km
  Trip: ??km

Where?

Peschiera, Verona, Milan.

  Today: 0km
  Trip: ??km

Where?

Fusina, Mestre, Peschiera.

  Today: 0km
  Trip: ??km

My early morning walk around the campground left me with free day passes for the vaporetto — a woman I met was leaving today and she had a pair of three-day passes, she thought it would be a shame to waste them and gave them to us.

We'ld started talking after the two of us almost walked into each other, both were too busy watching an enormous container ship glide past, almost near enough to touch.

Breakfast in the café, more 1980's music. Cyndi Lauper and the Village people, endlessly repeating. How the barman can stand it I don't know! We escaped back to the tent to plan the day's activities. Caught the 10 o'clock ferry across to Venice again; then hours and hours of endless walking. Boats here are used for everything — deliveries, garbage collection, workman's cars, ambulances... We hopped in and out of shops, looking at glassware, looking at paper-ware, hopefully trying to find a wedding album! The glass is too breakable, the paper too bulky, neither really suited to carrying in a backpack — and both are quite pricey!

Another ferry across to Murano, home of the Venitian glass industry. We debated catched the ferry all the way around from the Arsenale on the south, but decided to avoid the hour-long trip, to walk across to the north and catch it from there. Dived back into laneways and alleyways as we zig-zagged through some very non-tourist parts of the island, ordinary grocery shops and cafés, no glass, no souvenirs, finding our way without too much problem across to where we wanted to be.

Onto the ferry and across to Murano, then an hour or more spent looking around the glass museum. An impressive collection of Venetian glass from the 15th century to today, together with archaelogical glass finds from back to 100BC. Some of the three or four hundred year old pieces were almost indistinguishable (to me) from pieces created in the last decade! Most of the museum is labelled in English as well as Italian, but the layout of rooms is slightly confusing, and with no map or floorplan we nearly missed visiting a few rooms.

Exausted on leaving the museum, it was definitely beer o'clock. The first café that we sat down at refused to serve just a drink — for some reason there can't be enough profit on €5 beers without food as well! The second attempt was more successful, two cold, refreshing beers for only about two-and-a-half times what they cost in Australia!

After the beer it was time to start heading home, lest we be forced to do the unthinkable and have to pay for a meal in Venice! Back to the ferry, then packed in like sardines for the Murano-Venice trip with all the homeward-bound commuters. A long and tortuous path through lanes and paths and streets and stairs to the Stazione to check train timetables for tomorrow, then back to Fusina wharf, just like yesterday, we were just in time for the 19:10 ferry. Another sunset trip across the lagoon, magnificent colours as the sun sank through the pollution haze over the oil refinery. Three large cruise ships or Mediterranean ferries were all leaving at once, dwarfing us as they silently moved past in the channel, and the bay was so thick with tiny fishing boats that it looked as though you could use them as stepping stones to get from one side to the other. What were they fishing for? The water looks shallow enough for it to be shellfish off the bottom — with the islands only one or two metres above sea level, is the water here that much deeper?

Back to the campground for a beer before dinner, the barman's accent jolting with the friendly greeting of “Gidday, waddaya wantmate?”

Dinner of pizzas and another half litre carafe of wine, nothing exotic, everything tasty, everthing enjoyable. Then off to bed with the distant sounds of the refinery and ships passing in the lagoon.

Where?

Venice, Fusina

  Today: 0km
  Trip:

A last breakfast in the hotel and then a minor victory — they're happy to let us leave the bikes in the basement for a couple of days while we head off to visit Venice.

Off to the station, lugging the luggage, then try to find a working ticket machine — one that would accept notes! The problem with the machines seems to be that they were too successful, and they were all full and couldn't accept any more money! An armed guard and a bank employee were visiting them one by one, empting the cashbox and restarting the machines, and then instantly a queue would appear at each revitalised ticket machine. I was amused to see that inside the machines there appears to be a very ancient IBM PS/2 running OS/2, and not once did I see a crashed one, unlike the numerous Windows blue-screens, such as on the information kiosk that sat there for three days!

The 10:38 train to Venice Mestre, luckily we got on ahead of the crowd and managed to get seats in a compartment, every other seat ended up taken and there were people standing in the aisles for the two-hour trip.

Complications at Mestre, the only information counter is hotel information, and they wouldn't hand out a map without a booking for one of their listings. Eventually the girl relented and was waving a hand vaguely at where camping grounds “nearby” might be found. Finally she said that she could make a booking at another campsite — not in Mestre, but close, “on the beach at Fusina”, a short bus ride away. Not only could she make a booking, but she could give us a discount voucher and also a map of how to get there! We took the vouchers and the directions and went outside to find a number 11 bus. After about ten minutes it arrived and the driver started shouting at us and pointing across the road. Seems that the tourist office keeps on directing tourists to the wrong bus stop! Crossed the road and waited another half an hour for the bus in the right direction, then stayed on the bus to the end of the line at Fusina. For a while we wondered where we were going, the bus seems to head off into endless miles of derelict industrial ruins and rusting junk, before finally arriving at Fusina where all that remains is the ferry, a carpark and the campground.

Surprise — Jo realised that its the same campground that she stayed in five years ago! “On the beach” seems to have been muddled in the translation from Italian to English. Yes, the campground is next to the water, a steep rock wall seperates it from a major shipping channel! It was very impressive to see a container ship the size of an office block go drifting past through the trees as we were putting up the tent.

It's also directly under the flight path for Venice airport, but somehow that wasn't mentioned in the description at the information booth!

A quick exploratory walk around the campground, the €5 lying on the ground near the tent was grabbed and added to the beer fund, then off to the facilities to do some much needed washing. Laundromats are in short supply in Italy.

Definitely a backpacker-oriented campground, domestic visitors are not the intended audience — but would probably be made as welcome as we were. Seemed to be run by ex-pat Australians. Internet café, shop, bar, café and restaurant, bad 1980's pop music playing in the bar, four or five Kontiki tour buses filling one parking lot, and masses of dorm rooms and near-outdoor showers for the summer crowds.

Also handy is the Fusina ferry terminal, only a couple of minutes walk across the road.

Half an hour to travel across the bay, then we spent three hours getting lost and found through the maze of lanes and alleys that is Venice. A fascinating place to visit, but no way would I want to live there, too damp, too expensive, and bicycles are forbidden!

We headed back to Fusina for dinner as it started to get dark, to avoid the cool of the evening and the heat of the prices. Venice is expensive! I saw a €6 beer and a €4 coffee. Still, there's obviously enough tourists who are prepared to pay that, but I won't be joining them.

Dinner was a thoroughly enjoyable, and far more affordable, affair in the campground. Eventually the bad 80's music drove us away from the bar and to bed, but a newly arrived coachload of 20-something Latvians made for a very loud evening! Partying in the nearest dormrooms, laughing, singing and dancing, they were in for a big night. The aircraft overhead and pounding dance music left me thinking that I'd never get to sleep.

Where?

Verona, Mestre, Venice, Fusina.

  Today: 0km
  Trip: ??km

Where?

Verona, Mantova.

  Today: 0km
  Trip: ??km

Where?

Verona.

  Today: 99.70km
  Trip: ??km

Where?

Peschiera, Verona.

  Today: 81km
  Trip: ??km

A long climb up from lake Idro. We passed through the charmingly named village of Crone, then gained about 600m in altitude over ten or so kilometres. One “longish, darkish tunnel” that was luckily straight-ish as well — for it was indeed both very long and very dark! Roughly half-way up the climb the road levelled out to cross a bridge, then turned sharply into a climb complete with 14% warning signs. I left Jo to continue on my own, passing endless signs warning of “2 Tornante” — a quick zig-zag and up some more.

At the top nearly half the group were sitting around waiting to catch their breath, so a great photo shoot was undertaken, fifteen or so cameras lined up in the middle of the road while Nigel worked his way through them all, puzzling out the intricacies posed by a myriad of styles, designs and controls. Ed's arrival nearly put an end to it all as he rode triumphantly through the middle of the cameras, narrowly missing the lot! Within minutes of the majority leaving, Jo arrived, closely followed by Roger, and were greeted by an almost empty hilltop!

A long and windy descent, magnificent in the most part, but one or two scary moments with oncoming cars when we realised just how narrow the road was! Jo and I stopped for a drink and some fruit in the first village that we came to, unfortunately just after the group of ten had been in and upset the proprietor by picking through all her peaches and bananas looking for the ripest ones. “Don't touch the fruit!” — a warning we heeded well. A fantastic final descent through steep olive groves to Lake Garda, then around the shore of the lake to lunch.

Where?

Idro, Peschiera.

  Today: 98.30km
  Trip: ??km

Rained all day.

Where?

Ranzanico, Idro

  Today: 99.27km
  Trip: ??km

Rained all day.

Where?

Bárzio, Ranzanico

  Today: 69.63km
  Trip:

Sometime around five in the morning it started to rain — quietly at first, then a solid downpour that sounded as if it would last for days. My temporary patch on the pinhole in the tent's roof held, but other parts leaked where the walls touched the floor, or where the tent is just too old and worn. There was no point in staying inside and getting gradually wetter, so even though it was supposed to be a short day's ride, Jo and I got up early and sat around in the marquee.

Everyone got up early because of the rain, then sat around with glum expressions watching the water run down the paths and under the tents. Being such a high-traffic caravan and campervan-oriented campground, the individual sites are almost completely bare of grass, so the whole place turned instantly to mud.

Over breakfast the rain eased off, and then after sitting around for another hour we all started to roll out of camp around 10 o'clock — except that Jo had a flat front tyre. Removed the sliver of glass from the tyre, in with the spare tube, and off we went.

Sixteen kilometres to the ferry at Menággio, the temperature rising and jackets coming off as it became increasingly steamy.

Ferry ride across lake Como to Bellagio and a pause for a coffee and a bite to eat. Jo and I managed to accidently jump the queue by sitting at a table by ourselves, while the other six all sat at one large table. Also present in the café was a dozen members of the BMW formula one team in matching shirts and jackets, I've no idea whether any of their drivers were present! Still thinking that it was going to be a short day, with an easy ride to tonight's town, we headed out to visit the chapel of Madonna del Ghisallo, the patron of cyclists. One by one, or in groups of three or four, we all missed a turn off due to Andy's odd route notes concerning a stop sign and a turn. Two or three kilometres further on, and heading south-west up the ridge and along the lake shore, Jo and I stopped to consider the map.

The lines on the map seemed to indicate that we could cut across country, down to the river and back up to the next ridge to rejoin the correct road, so Tony, Jo and I tried bravely to take the short-cut. After climbing steeply up through a village, then zig-zagging down towards a creek, the track eventually petered out as a vanishingly small lane into someone's farm. Maybe it came out the other side, maybe we'd taken a wrong turn, we weren't game to try any more variations, so headed back towards Bellagio, spotted the missed turn, and made a second attempt.

I think if there had been a printed profile of today's route that far fewer people would have tried to visit the chapel, it was several hundred metres of climbing up through misty clouds, then a very discouraging descent before a final eight hairpins up to the top. The chapel itself is amazingly decorated with at least a hundred years of donated jerseys and bicycles.

There's a cycling museum being built next door to the chapel, it looks strangely abandoned. Signs seem to indicate that it was started, or designed, in 1998, but it appears that the building site was abandoned about a third of the way through construction. Maybe they're just taking a break...

The eleven kilometres back down to Bellagio passed in a blur, along the way the clouds had thinned again, giving us good views down to the South-eastern arm of Lake Como.

An hour or so to wait for the ferry to Varenna, then came what we thought would be an easy twenty or so kilometre ride around the lake then up the valley of the Tioverna to Barzio. Unfortunately we had no route profile, or notes to tell us that it climbed quite steeply towards the end, or that we'd left it too late in leaving the lake.

The ride up the valley was quite enjoyable, even if the clouds did close in again, the traffic was light and the villages attractive. There was a major detour around one smaller town where a landslide had destroyed the main road — and a number of buildings — and we had to detour off along a very narrow track. Eventually, somewhere around Introbio, as the rain came down again, Andy and Rose caught up to us in the van and persuaded us to forgo the pleasures of ten kilometres of climbing in the gloom and the rain, and to get into the van for a lift up to the town.

We were staying in the Hotel Esposito and looking forward to a group meal in their dining room. The meal started off well, but after a tasty first course the main course of two or three small and very salty sausages was not well received.

Where?

Porlezza, Menággio, Bellagio, Varenna, Barzio.

Postcards

  Today: 106.35km
  Trip: ??km

Where?

Cannobio, Porlezza.

  Today: 0km
  Trip: ??km

Germans, Germans, Germans... Every car we see, every person we pass, every conversation we overhear. As soon as we enter a shop and the shop-keeper realises that we aren't Italian, they start talking German to us. All very polite of the Italians to the German tourists who are their main source of income, but it's starting to get a little annoying since we don't speak German!

Cloudy this morning, a late lazy breakfast and a slow walk into town for stamps and to write postcards. The first challenge of the dy was entering the post office/bank — the anti-bandit doors had us completely fooled. Eventually we got in, a dozen stamps were purchased, and we managed to get out again.

Coffee and a long lazy sit by the lake, post cards to everyone on our list. At least I think we got everyone on our list...

Where?

Cannobio.

  Today: 89.14km
  Trip:

Where?

Bellinzona, Cannobio.

  Today: 83.66km
  Trip:

Where?

Andermatt, Bellinzona.

  Today: 103.77km
  Trip:

First the Grimselpass, then the Furkapass — what a day!

Where?

Interlaken, Andermatt.

  Today: 84.74km
  Trip: ??km

A crisp, cold morning greeted us today, everyone in fine spirits — even Eddie, who somehow seemed to have forgotten that Swiss mountains could get cold, even in the summer, and had forgotton to bring any warm clothes. An abrupt climb out of Broc first this morning, cold too, in the forest. The best thing about it was the smell from the Nestle chocolate factory down below! On the road there was one big climb at around the 20km mark, from Jaun up to Jaunpass. Six kilometres of steep road in the warm sun, the views back down to Jaun were magnificent.

At Im Fang, Switzerland suddenly became German, it was strange, one minute we were still in the French part of the world, the next minute everything had gone German, the look of the buildings, the road signs... Strange too, since it wasn't at the top of a ridge, or across a river, the divide seemed to be half-way up a valley.

Where?

Gruyères, Broc, Im Fang, Interlaken.

  Today: 103.82km
  Trip:

Around the lake to Villeneuve, then after stopping at the shops to stock up on vitals, Jo and I missed the turn off for the bike path. On and on through town we went, out the other side and then nearly ended up on a major road — the same major road that the route notes warned us not to get onto. Andy arrived just as we were trying to work out where to go next, and redirected us back into the centre of town, with directions on finding the bike path. Once on the bike path it was supposed to be simple: “just follow the signs to Aigle” said the notes.

The bike path headed off into the woods, then there was an endlessly infuriating hour of zig-zagging back and forth, farmland to woods and back again. Single lane farm tracks criss-crossed the plain in a grid, some were marked as cycle paths, others were simply lanes between the fields. The fields themselves were full of 2m high corn, too tall to see over in many places. The cycle paths were labelled A, B, C, D and E, with not a sign to be seen with any town or village names! After just about giving up in exasperation, we finally found ourselves heading into Aigle, having travelled 47.5km for what was marked as 30km in our notes! Over a large and spicy lunch of kebabs the others all related various tales of woe, swearing that this was the last time that any of us would ever chance riding on a Swiss cycle path, and threatening Andy with various forms of dismemberment. The distances covered varied from 35km up to our maximum of 47km, the group that made it in the shortest time had abandoned the notes and ridden straight along the highway.

Up the valley from Aigle, we came to the first climb of the trip, switchbacks up from the plains and into the start of the hills. Motorbikes wound their way up the hill, while a pair of touring cyclists with fully laden panniers went swooping past downhill. Then twenty kilometres or so of climbing through picture-postcard scenery.

After arriving in the campground at 5:15, I hurriedly changed and leapt in the van in an attempt to get up the hill to the old city, and to try to visit the H.R. Giger museum. It would be unforgivable if I came here and didn't try to visit... Hurrying in from the carpark, across the cobble-stones, past the restaurants, hotels, souvenir shops and usual mix found inside mediaeval walls. Only foot traffic is allowed inside the old city walls, so no traffic to contend with. Then the juxtaposition of the Giger museum and accompanying Giger bar next to the old castle. I was out of luck, the museum doors were being locked at five to six and I wasn't allowed inside for a quick peek around. Richard and a few of the others had managed to get inside an hour or so earlier, but were being unceremoniously herded out by the attendant who wanted to go home.

I made do with photos of the outside, and some refreshing beers in the bar, marvelling at the work that has gone into the detailing — disturbing detailing that it is in places. Still in need of a shower from the riding, I had a brisk walk back to the campground only to find that both the showers I tried took my money, but neither gave any hot water. A quick rinse in icy cold water and then try to find a powerpoint to recharge the camera, since I'd just about flattened the battery in the Giger bar. Not a chance, almost all the powerpoints had locked covers! I managed to sneak five or ten minutes with the camera plugged into a shaver socket while I wrestled with the showers, but not enough to fully recharge. It was the epitome of the Swiss camping ground — coins for the shower, coins for the washing machine, even coins to get a bucket of hot water for washing up!

Unwashed, cold, in a bad mood, and out of coins, I was only just in time to jump in the van to go back up the hill to the old city for the group dinner. Good food and great surroundings helped improve the situation! As we were leaving, the sun was just setting in a magnificent display of purple and orange, just a little too dark for my camera to capture. Everyone walked back from the hilltop to the campsite, our designated drivers having partaken freely in the wine and beer with the meal. The air temperature dropped rapidly, reminding us that although it was still summer, we were quite high in the hills.

Where?

Cully, Aigle, Gruyères.