Süßmaustour: Küstenwache
Shot on Fujifilm X-T3 with Fujinon XF 16-80mm f4
Nervous initiation
It is my partner’s and our first bikepacking trip. The empty, not yet filled space between expectation and reality made me nervous. During breakfast I check my bags contents more than twice and my watch in all the in-betweens. My mind is racing and I not an active participant in the breakfast talks. Subconsciously, I check the bags again before we leave. With every pedal rotation, I try to exchange nervousness for familiarity. I am in the infamous tunnel. Once I know we will reach the train in time, I notice my legs relax and autopilot slowly phases out. It feels like I regain control over my body and senses again. Difference I notice next: The bikes feel heavier, handling more sluggish, and velocity slower than usual.
When our wheels leave tarmac for the first time, we come into contact with Brandenburg’s finest granular material: sand. Riding becomes challenging. The track we leave in the sand resembles the track of a snake. While I concentrate on my line, I hear Wiebke curse and wrestle with the line she picked, sometimes even laugh at the absurdity of us moving through the sandpit that is Northern Brandenburg instead of tarmac. With every kilometer on sand, she explores different tactics of overcoming obstacles, lack of experience, and escaping the notorious mosquitos.
Something is always missing.
In the best case scenario it is not good weather.
High Noon
Too soft mattresses and the dreaded mattress gap release us into the next morning and onto the breakfast buffet that served a plethora of East German stereotypes. We eat from plates, like my grandparents own, try to get filter coffee from hell (two liter thermos jugs) into our system while bringing down the average age by twenty years.
We leave the nostalgic place on endless tarmac waves and drift through the open landscape. The still frequent pavé village roads are a non-welcome variation within the monotony of wide landscapes and flat roads. After a small coffee and big pastry, we exchange riding surface again but not monotony. In the middle of nowhere, we cross seemingly abandoned rail tracks when a handcar appears, stops and lets us pass. The only thing missing is tumbleweed to complete my wild-west fantasy.
Milestone I: Selling the Stoke
If it was not for new ticket machines and digital signs, I would have assumed the station to be abandoned. Long weeds overgrow the tracks, were not yet vandalized windows and doors are nailed shut, toilets or a store are nowhere to be found. The periphery feels forgotten. Consequently, we sit on the ground enjoy a chocolate croissant we bought inn town and board the train to bypass around fifty kilometers of monotonous Mecklenburg flats. One thing is clear: This is supposed to be fun, to sell the stoke of bikepacking, to sell interest. Celebrating small wins, party pace and not forcing anything are non-negotiable.
There is no hiding on a bikepacking trip.
Everything you face, you face and live through together.
Navigational aid towards cake
While the suburbanized flock into the city, we use the Rügendamm bridge to pass from the urban into the rural. Accompanied by tail wind we coast through endless yellow rapeseed fields, roll over empty streets and idyllic dirt roads. Time flies by. When we reach the ferry, we are already fifty kilometers in, in other words halfway through our longest day and almost at iconic cape Arkona. The only thing missing is a café soothing our caffeine addiction. We tick off three possible locations we identified on the map unsuccessfully, each around five kilometers apart of each other before we decide on a classic bicycle-travel-supermarket experience instead of a cozy café. We score high in calories but low in caffeine.
After we dodge around 555 roots in a magical beech grove, the lighthouse of Kap Arkona appears. My fascination with lighthouses remains inexplicable and consequently compels us to climb the observation tower that we consider to be less visited. As lighthouses serve as navigational aid for sailors, it does for us to and, thus, guides us to coffee and cake. In our minds, we consider it a perfect day already - Tailwind, beautiful scenery, rare contact with cars, coffee, cake, lighthouses. Fifteen kilometers from our destination, we are greeted with a ferocious crosswind that as we turn from South to East turns into a full-on headwind. Thoroughly exhausted, the hot shower soothes our battered souls.
Quiet floating
When my eyes open, they wander to the open window, my ears follow listening for wind noise. After a few moments, tension eases and for a couple quiet moments my head sinks yet deeper back into the pillow. At breakfast, we are easily dissociated from the other guests: functional gear and full plates seem to be out of place. With a warm cup of coffee in hand, my gaze wanders into the distance, to Kap Arkona. Twenty kilometers seem far and as I remember the headwind from yesterday, I get up to get another chocolate croissant.
After breakfast, we cater to our new routine packing our bags and our bikes before heading down the east coast. The day feels light as we float across the island and walk its beaches to touch the sea. We allow ourselves a lot of breaks in the quiet corners of the island and end our day in an old forester’s house where we brew tea, eat and hide away under puffy blankets.