Wanderung 30

The first leg of our bike trip was by a local commuter train to Hauptbahnhof Hamburg, where we transferred to a regional electric train to travel northwards to Flensburg, which is on a fjord from the Baltic Sea just South of the Danish border.

Then we hopped on the bikes and rode North and then East across the Denmark border and along the fjord to a campground that had cabins for rent. Great scenery and a good bike path except for one steep, gravelly section in the woods where we finally had to push the bikes uphill. But despite the treacherous surface, there we were really careful and had no problems.

The problem came after we registered at the campground and were simply riding over to our assigned cabin. We were "almost home" you might say, and maybe we let down our guard a bit compared to riding in the woods, not sure. In any case, as best I could see while I was riding behind Monika, what first happened was that Monika's left handlebar grazed the wooden fence beside the path. But the fence had staggered vertical boards, one of which snagged her left handgrip and yanked her front wheel wheel staight into the fence where it jerked to a stop.

In slow motion, I watched in horror as Monika caromed off the fence and then fell over to the other side on the gravel path. She fell rather slowly, so at first I thought she might be OK except maybe for some knee bruises. But what I didn't see was that her helmet, although protecting her head from the fence, had apparently pushed down on her glasses hard enough to scrape them down her nose and across her cheek! I immediately stopped my bike and jumped off, but by the time I arrived a few seconds later her cuts were already starting to bleed, but fortunately the slash had just missed her right eye! A nice Danish lady ran over with a First Aid kit to help stem the bleeding and bandage the deepest part of the cut, which was at the bridge of Monika's nose, and I was profoundly grateful for her help.

So we stayed that night at that campground, where I was checking for signs of concussion (of which there were none), washing out her clothes, and making sure she rested. But not being absolutely sure how serious the after-effects would be, I decided we should turn back to Flensburg because there we could easily rest a few days and have the German medical system available if any other symptoms developed. The next morning, despite a collection of bruises and a bit of swelling in the cheeks under each eye, Monika could still see well enough ride a bicycle, so we decided to ride our bikes back to Flensburg. Our new plan was to stay a few days in Flensburg and see things in this northernmost corner of Germany while Monika healed a bit, before continuing our bicycle tour in Denmark.