They're Off And Running This Time

My strategy of staying awake from Icheon to Prague backfired when I woke at 4.30am and

knew I wasn't getting back to sleep. Henry was awake too so we got up and looked for some food. Stan wandered out a bit later so we decided to pack up and head off. About 6.30am, we were on our way for the first leg to the train station ~20kms down the road. "What?" I heard you say. A train. Yep cos an early leg of the road is pretty rough. 

I found out today is a national holiday, The Matrydom of Jan Hus Day, which made our final destination all the more interesting.

We got the slow train from  Vrane Nad Vltavou to Krhanice, hopped on over mighty vehicles and when to visit a military vehicle museum. There were vehicles from ~1914 to mid-80s of all types and a number of nations. Interesting to see some of these beasts in the armour. Pretty formidable. We stopped for a snack then headed on our journey.

Along the way we had stops for various things including nature calls and for Henry to take photos of poppies. As these were country roads we were cycling through small villages along the way. Interesting to spectulate on some of the ways of life in some of these places.

We stopped at Kosova Hora for more sustenance, this time including beer. There must be something about Czech beer as it didn't slow the rate of progress down.

One of the fun parts of the trip has been slogging up inclines then enjoying the free wheeling down the other side. Most fun, the top speed today was 65.5kmph. 

Onward. More cycling through country villages until we got to Sedlec-Prcice which is about 70km from Prague. These are twin towns seperated by a river. The town square in Prcice was very nice so we stopped for a breakand a coffee. Henry and I had a chat with a kid that must have heard us speaking English so he started asking us questions and practising. His English was pretty good for a 10 year old.

Onto the final leg of the day to Tabor. This is when all the travel caught up with me and it got to the point that I just wanted to get there and lie down. Every rise was a challenge and every descent was a blessing. With a lot of swearing we made Tabor. I think I set a record for emptying a bottle of Gatorade. It was ~30s. I was knackered. We headed to the old townsquare where I cursed Stan for us having to ride over cobblestones. We found a nice little pension, booked in and I headed for the bath. Lucky there was an overflow as I dozed off a couple of times as the bath filled up. Did the world of wonders though. Out for dinner, a few beers and off to bed. 

And that was our adventure on day one. ~125kms travelled. And the church bells chime 8am.