Prague to Lake Bled Distance 600kms Total distance 1250kms
After a night of heavy rain we set off on the road to Lake Bled only to find that the headlights weren't working – as it is the law to drive in Europe with your lights on all the time, we thought we had a major problem ( eg fines $$$).
We stopped at the first service station and checked the fuses, sprayed WD40 around liberally, and probed and looked , all to no avail – a biker we met at the service station from Brazil stopped to offer us some assistance but he couldn't find the problem and suggested that we drive on regardless – the 2 spotlights were going and I could flash full beam but no low beam – I could have understood if it was the Harley but not the Honda getting wet electrics – anyway, we carried on with the intention of finding a repair shop in Austria. The countryside outside of Prague is beautiful but you can see the effects of 40 years behind the iron curtain with lots of buildings and houses in disrepair and a general state of neglect. We cruised on a secondary road which was much like SH1 in NZ – slow and no room for passing for about 100kms. Lots of trucks and cars passing without aadequate room...anyway, we crossed the border in to Austria ( no customs check yet – just empty boothes where they obviously used to be). Immediately the difference in the standard of living was obvious – nicely painted houses, new machinery, tractors, smooth roads etc. After buying our autobahn vignette we set off for Linz and repairs for the bike lights – we eventually found a Honda repaitr shop in a small town south of Linz, and told the service guy about my problem – after entering the bike details in his computer and disappearing for a while he came out to the bike, flicked the switch which turns the lights on ( I swear I'd never even looked at that even though its right by the start button!!) and asked what my problem was – doh!! what a TWIT - I can see you all sayinjg...well, anyway, we didn't have a problem after all.
We stopped at the first service station and checked the fuses, sprayed WD40 around liberally, and probed and looked , all to no avail – a biker we met at the service station from Brazil stopped to offer us some assistance but he couldn't find the problem and suggested that we drive on regardless – the 2 spotlights were going and I could flash full beam but no low beam – I could have understood if it was the Harley but not the Honda getting wet electrics – anyway, we carried on with the intention of finding a repair shop in Austria. The countryside outside of Prague is beautiful but you can see the effects of 40 years behind the iron curtain with lots of buildings and houses in disrepair and a general state of neglect. We cruised on a secondary road which was much like SH1 in NZ – slow and no room for passing for about 100kms. Lots of trucks and cars passing without aadequate room...anyway, we crossed the border in to Austria ( no customs check yet – just empty boothes where they obviously used to be). Immediately the difference in the standard of living was obvious – nicely painted houses, new machinery, tractors, smooth roads etc. After buying our autobahn vignette we set off for Linz and repairs for the bike lights – we eventually found a Honda repaitr shop in a small town south of Linz, and told the service guy about my problem – after entering the bike details in his computer and disappearing for a while he came out to the bike, flicked the switch which turns the lights on ( I swear I'd never even looked at that even though its right by the start button!!) and asked what my problem was – doh!! what a TWIT - I can see you all sayinjg...well, anyway, we didn't have a problem after all.
That night we stayed in a campsite ( our first camping night) in a beautiful site on Attensee ( a lake near Salzburg) and Carolyn said that if they were all like this, then she could cope – Greg, you will be pleased to know that we used your cooker for the first time to cook pasta and it was delicious and Steve, note that the swanning about in hotels is over!! – the sun was shining, the view was magnificent and it was warm – we had been driving in temps of about 15-20 all day with intermittent rain and so not what we had paid for..
Unfortunately it rained that night and so we had to pack up a wet tent and set off in the rain – it was also cold ( about 13-16 degrees) and so our original intentions of going over the mountain passes was put on hold, and we used the autobahns to get to Slovenia – one of the tunnels we went through was 6.5kms and the way they have built the roads out over the side of mountains was fantastic – the weather cleared by the time we reached the border so we decided to go the long way over the mountain to Lake Bled – that was a mistake 'cos a 30 minute ride turned into 4 hours!! We got halfway up this mountain pass when the guy behind tooted to say something was wrong – we stopped to find that Carolyn's sleeping bag and mattress had fallen off the top box – bugger..well, we went in search of it but it had either fallen off the side of the road or someone had picked it up as an early Xmas present – so after backtracking 20kms we pressed on to Ljubljana to find a camping store and get some new stuff – the other problem was that our GPS didn't have Slovenia loaded, (only Slovakia ?? close, but not close enough to be of any use), so we had to use the old way of navigating – stop and consult the map – something we have seen plenty of other bikers doing as we sail past, but alas, not in Slovenia for us..we picked up a new sleeping bag ( for Euro 30 (about $60) and a new mattress, not as good but it will do, and then raced on to Lake Bled – got here about 7:30pm and only just had enough time to set up camp and have tea – our first glimpses of the lake look fantastic so if the weather holds we will do some sightseeing tomorrow.
0 comments:
Post a Comment