A non-vegan vending Machine and other excitement.
Day 8 started much as most of the days; with it taking a surprisingly long time but slightly less than previous days, to pack up. We left the camping and turned to do-battle with the wind.
This morning has two events of note, firstly we come to a rural vending machine. This is one of my areas of interest when cycling: "vending machines and their contents”. I've previously found them for bread, strawberries, salami and coffee. This one was in fact 3 vending machines in a shed, one for cheese, one for meat and one for milk, which you needed your own bottle for.
I had to stop my perusal to get out the way though, as an actual customer arrived. He was very friendly with a great dog and wished us luck on our cycling trip. He was very positive, didn't suggest at all we were doing it wrong which has frequently been the case, especially randomly when we are together. I think when I'm alone people just think I'm mad, rather than doing a specific thing wrong; it's just all wrong and I've clearly no idea what I'm doing and will likely die. As I set off to cross the Pyrenees, one man informed me it was hilly, clearly in the expectation I was unaware. Today’s man though was all smiles, he didn't even mention that photographing the vending machine was odd. So cheered by this positivity we continued to our chosen first stop, where the reviews said the food was good but the mini-golf dated. As we wanted food and not mini-golf this seemed fine. I was curious though, how cutting edge did the reviewer expect mini-golf to be on a random rural road. The food was excellent, the mini golf was indeed not space age but we met our second round of positivity when a local cycling club pulled in. Apologised for disturbing our peace and explained they were there 'just for a fun' ride of a local club. They were also impressed and positive for our trip. Maybe it was something in the air but I could get used to all this positivity. The sun shone and we peddled onwards, lunch got me my daily intake of chips but was largely drowned out conversation wise by an odd motorbike convention going on. Some sort of small engined motorbike get together.
In the spirit of the positivity of the day, I will say they seemed to be having fun and to each their own but not something I'll be rushing out to buy. I like my ride with a little less whine. At some point in the afternoon we rolled into Germany. Country 5!
5 of probably 8, so I'm really front loading this one for both countries and borders. Around 80km things got a little weird, now I'm fairly certain we didn't ignore a no-entry sign. Hannah speaks German and I'm fairly good at road signs but we did find ourselves on a very empty, part gravel, road going past mining equipment for what it was not clear.

The rail tracks across the road were clearly un-used now, the whole thing was a bit creepy and I kept expecting some one to rock up and ask us what the bloody hell we were doing there. To which I suspect the answer "just riding along, heading for Nord Cape" wouldn't be met with the same positivity as it had been earlier. No one came though and we managed to get back onto the road definitely not via a path that clearly said no-entry, that would be wrong. Spirits lifted by not ending up playing a bit part in some larger story about secret mining operations on the German border we arrived at the campsite and did battle to try to achieve clean clothes, during which I discovered I don't understand how dryer settings work in English let alone German but I have some maybe cleaner and somewhat dry clothes.
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