Distance: 109 km
Elevation: 618 m
I started late into the day. Detlef and Sabine as well as their friends, who were all traveling by kaiak, wanted to know much more about zis and my fundraising project. It was a very good and inspiring exchange of thought and experiences.
Unfortunately, I had also been stung by a bee the day before. As a result, my left arm felt hot, swollen and was hurting. I had hardly slept during the night
I left the river Elbe and was heading towards Celle now. That is a significant detour but I wanted to meet old friends at the “Friedenshof”, a community that tries to establish a different way of living.
The road was uninspiring but always had a cycling path. I have to acknowledge however that I am spoiled by now, thinking back to the awesome and beautiful landscapes the weeks before. So I listened to a good audio book to distract my mind (“Zero”, a thriller on digital surveillance playing in a near future).
I arrived late in Celle at a camping site called “Silbersee”. The place looked like one of the places I had come across in Eastern Germany. A bit run down, mostly empty but really beautiful as such. I started chatting with the owners, Thomas and Sabine, over a late Pizza at the bar. It turned out that they bought the place 1.5 years ago from the city of Celle. The place was mostly avoided by tourists at that time. Much rather, refugees, people living on social aid and former inmates of the nearby prison had been placed here for many years in abandoned trailer cars and huts.
Even today, over 40 people live here with permanent residence. I was not even aware that those trailer parks actually also existed in Germany. I only knew of them from the US.
Since I was really tired and suffering a bit because of my arm, I went to bed early.
