In the end I did manage to reassemble my bicycle. It took about 25km for everything to 'settle in' again but it is going OK. In fact it's going very well, I have now ridden it accross about 160 km of Bavaria. I was pretty sleepy when I left Munich airport and nearly ran over the first people I met on the shared walk/ride path near the hotel. It's a strange feeling when you veer left to avoid people and they deliberately go right towards a collision. It's usually about then I remember I am supposed to drive on the right in Europe! The town of Freising is only 7km from the airport so was my first destination. As I suspected my friends were not at home and I left town at around 2.00pm riding along a part of the Isar Radweg that I had seen several times before. The track is mainly blue metal roadbase type construction and is not too bad to ride on near Freising.
Bravely fighting the jetlag I wanted to ride enough distance to make the next two days easy - I managed about 40km all up and that took me as far as Landshut (pronounced larnd soot). A busier town than I had planned to stop at but the tent had been left in Perth as a (effective) weight reduction scheme, so I had to take a hotel where I could find one. Thinking of Landshut will remind me of cobblestones for a long time. Can I give you a tip - Australian roadbikes with alloy frames and hard racing seats are not your most comfortable cobblestone road travel device.
After working hard in Thursday's hot sun, Friday saw me riding out of town in the rain. In fact it kept raining for about half the day. Both I and the bike and gear got plenty of mud on us and missing as many puddles with submerged rocks became the morning's challenge. As you can see from the photo's the scenery made it worth getting wet, not to mention the satisfaction I obtained from arriving in Germany by plane and leaving by bicycle! Everywhere you go on one of these things is an achievement.
Around 11am I felt weak and I realised that although the bike doesn't use any fuel, I need to concentrate on fuelling my body to do the pedalling.
In the afternoon I became somewhat disorientated and pedalled hard for hours as I was dissapointed on my lack of progress for the day. When I finally found where I was on the map I had actually gone much further - my total for day two was somewhere between 80 and 90km möstly on dirt riads with bumps, puddles and rocks - not bad for a beginner I thought.

The Isar Rad was special and showed me a very natural (if you forget the reactor for a mintue) sside of the country. Riding a treadly in Germany allows one to take tracks denied to motor vehicles and you see more. At one point on Friday I was riding along the top of the levy bank when I was passed by several motorcycles around 50 meters off to my left, ön the road. All they could see was farmland to the right and some poor b***** on a tpushbike on top of the bank. However I could also see the Danube river off to my left. Made me wonder why they were there at all really.

This morning I awoke in a town called Pleinting feeling pretty beat up. It took some courage to climb back on the bike, but I had an easy ride - only 28km into Passau. The traffic on the bike path is picking up but not to extreme - just a few bikes where along the Isar there were hardly any at all.

Arriving in Passau was a shock - this place is a real tourist trap. Bus and boat loads of tourists all wandering around looking at each other and shopping. Not really my scene. Sandi finally arrived on a train from Freising and I was pleased to see she had been able to (basically) assemble her bike. It was set up OK for downhill runs (she hadn't bothered to fit the pedals) and after I borrowed a pump from a parked bike we had it rolling down to the hotel.

While Sandi sleeps off the effects of two long flights, I have been exploring Passau in the evening. It's a much nicer place at night, less people about and really beautiful in the twilight.

Tomorrow we begin the Donau Radweg and hopefully can ride a bit slower along a sealed path. I'll try to take a few pic' for you. Meanwhile - enjoy your work!