Saturday 1st June. Mauthausen to Persenbeug. 65km.

Mitterkirchen. The sign on the flood barrier  shows how high the water reached on 14 August 2002
 

Emergency flood barriers being erected at Persenbeug.

Well, it was a perfect cool and dry day, and a lovely ride which had elements of farce. When we emerged off the track and onto a local road at Dornach, there were about a dozen fire and emergency men milling about, putting up flood warning signs and closing our cycle path. There was also a camera man taking pictures and video. We were told to ride on the road above the track, because the track was flooded. When we arrived at Grein, there were more uniformed men erecting flood barriers at the waters edge and we decided (after much debate) to continue along the north side to Persenbeug. However, after 5km we came across a roadblock and we were told there had been a landslide at Sarmingstein, and we should backtrack to the bridge at Grein and take the south side which we did. It turns out that other cyclists ignored the roadblock and had no trouble getting past the landslide.

Then, when we arrived at Persenbeug, there were dozens of fire brigade people putting up emergency flood barriers there too. The cycle paths have now been closed, because it has been raining heavily in central Germany, and they are expecting the Danube to rise substantially some time tomorrow. We spoke to one of the fire brigade officers, who said that even the roads for cars will be closed at some point, so we are going to sprint off first thing tomorrow. Stayed at Pension Melita, Persenbeug - very nice.

Route: Mauthausen - Mitterkirchen - Dornach - Grein - Freyenstein - Persenbeug.