Gartz

It’s bad enough waking up in a strange room and for that half asleep moment you think “ now where the hell am I? “. But the very worst that can happen is forgetting what day it is. ! Luckily we’d stocked up for breakfast last night so we could get an early start , because we’d completely forgotten that today is SUNDAY. Might not seem that big a deal to you but here, nothing is open…. It did mean though that no one was up. It’s 6.30 and a beautiful morning. Just saw a fox dart across the track. We are riding beside the Finow canal, a much smaller canal than the Oder, which runs parallel to it ,only we are much lower down in a valley. We’re heading to the much anticipated ship lift.It came into sight long before we got there as it straddles the roadBuilt in 1920 to eliminate 9 locks on the shipping route from the Baltic to Berlin, it lifts huge barges up 36 metres in 20 minutes. The canal from Berlin is the part on the right crossing over the road, the craft then enters a basin filled with water., huge counter weights means there’s very little effort to lower the basin down to the lower level then out they come , heading for the sea. The other structure is a new ship lift to replace this old one. Not sure why?Oderberg. The old paddle steamer is now a restaurant. We grabbed a coffee from the hotel opposite.We took advantage of the quiet roads and took a main road to Parstein. Our destination is going to be over 80kms away today so we’ll take any advantage we canWe keep passing over this huge pipeline which is being laid from Berlin to somewhere north. ( 1.2m diameter !) it’s good to see the turbines aren’t moving today. No wind. As we follow the Oder north, we run beside this huge wetland /floodplain, some of it grazed or in hay ,but which is usually covered in water ( or ice) in the winter. It’s wonderful biking and by now there’s lots of families out ridingWe’ve just passed Criewen ( and the barge that came out of the ship lift ) and if we’re looking happy it’s because we’ve just clocked up the first 1000kmsNow when I said nothing was open Sunday’s, this ice-cream van was doing a roaring trade . which of course we made good use of. We’re at Gertz now and I’m looking online for our bed. It’s been 32degrees today and that beer went down a treat ( dig the haircut )This pension ( BnB ) is the best yet ,set in beautiful gardens ,but we’re too knackered to ride back into town for tea so we’re cleaning out all the meusli bars and lollies from our bags and surviving on that until breakfast ( Sunday Bloody Sunday ! )