Today was Ginge’s Birthday.  Throughout the day he enjoyed at least 2 pieces of cake, so we’ve decided it’s going to be someones birthday everyday! That was we would definitely blag our way through Europe getting free cake whenever we stopped.

We woke up to a dry day, the weather wasn’t great but it was dry. The planned pass was definitely closed, so we had a plan B up our sleeve that went straight into action. We would use the satnav and leap frog each other to ensure we stayed on track. 

This meant that Ginhge would put the next destination into his sat nav, Laura would put the one after into hers and me the third, then Ginge would do the next and so on. Doing it this way would hopefully keep us on track as the one leading and the one with the next destination would converse to discuss which way to go and the other one would keep an eye on if the mileage to their destination was getting lower or higher depending on the route chosen.

What a tough day it turned out to be, we set off from Rombach just after the rain after breakfast had stopped and enjoyed an hour or so of good dry roads and steady riding. The views were getting better as we approached the foot of the Alps.

We arrived at a turning point and got to the start of the Alps in sight and headed up our first pass, the going was really good until the first coffee stop. Then the weather closed in and the rain came down – it was the start of things to come and stayed with us for the rest of the day.

We were on an alternative route anyway but when we were confronted with the sign our hearts sank! Pass Closed, fuck, I just hope this is not going to happen very often or our journey is going to be a nightmare. So plan C it is, turn around and go back (I hate backtracking) to find another alternative route. This is tough when you don’t know what is open or closed, even though Ginge could understand German it didn’t help when the web didn’t tell him things were closed when we looked the night before. So we were on for a long day, going round the mountain, deep joy!

We were all getting peckish by now after our detours so we stopped for lunch. It meant a wet and soggy group took over one half of the restaurant, they treated us extremely well and looked after us. We left our eet stuff outside under a shelter but we still made the place look like the side of a kids swimming pool with water everywhere. They must be used to it as they didn’t bat an eyelid.

Ginge got his first free piece of Birthday cake after he’d ordered some food for us. He saw it on the menu and said we must try it as it was fantastic, so he asked for Flammkuchen for us all along with hot drinks to warm us up. It was okay but nothing to shout about!

Then it was time to really dig into those reserves and ride to Davos, the long way. We set off about 3.00pm and went straight into driving rain. I was leading and we were going to be taking the most direct route from now and hopefully no more detours. Adding hours to the day is not great as its long, tirig and dangerous in these conditions.

As we were riding Ginge and Laura over-ruled me in the direction I was going. This is because we have a rule and that is ‘democracy rules’. Because of this, if two people say they want to go one way and it is two against one, they win and you have to suck it up and go along with the democracy vote. Their sat navs both said one way and mine said another. It wasn’t until we got to the ferry terminal to cross a lake, that we realised their mistake. The shit sat nav strikes again, they had left ferry crossings turned on and the sat nav was taking them the shortest route. Is it a crap sat nav or is it poor map reading? You Decide, but I wasn’t best pleased with the decision as I was actually map reading and not looking solely on the sat nav to get to the destination. This happened once before in Hungary with Ginge and Mike and they fucked it up then too.

Again, back tracking (I hate backtracking)… This was possibly the turning point, we made slow progress from here, everyone was getting tired and wetter by the hour. So we pushed on, mountains and lakes either side for many miles, our heads down and riding safely in the poor conditions.

We were next to the motorway, but we had not purchased a vignette to travel on there. It would be much quicker but how much was the fine for not having one. We managed to stay off the motorway for a long time but eventually Ginge took the turn onto the slip lane of the motorway and we were riding much quicker instead of meandering our way slowly to the destination. A fine would be okay as we were now really tired and the daylight was running out fast.

At last, we get close and leave the motorway. That was lucky or will they have our number plates and track us down. We didn’t care right now as the weather broke for the last 20 miles, dry and inviting as we headed up the mountain towards Davos. 

As it got dark we rode through long tunnels with a definite steep incline, as we got out the other side there’s snow at the side of the roads. It was also getting colder but we knew it wasn’t long before we arrived. Laura really wanted to stop as she was exhausted and so were the rest of us, but Ginge was on a mission just to get there soon. We arrived shortly afterwards and checked in, tired, cold and wet.

The riding by the group was superb, well ridden everyone. A tough long day today, all we need now is to park up and get a shower to warm up, then get some hot food and a beer and we would certainly be ready for bed.

The hotel had a restaurant and they were just about ot close as we arrived, the reception thought that we were not going to make it as it was so late (almost 9.00pm). We got a great hot evening meal and a well earned beer. Ginge even got himself another piece of cake which was great to round up a long hard day and ready for our beds.

It’s not long once we had gone back to the room that the small bed was calling to be used and a very welcome sleep and rest was in order. Our bodies need to recoup and energise ready for the short day tomorrow. I was sharing with Ginge and even if he snored, he wouldn’t wake me up tonight. I was going to zonk out as soon as my head hit that pillow!