A memorable last day of cycling: soaking wet, in extremis one more totter (Antwerp dialect for fall), and sleeping in a high-tech "morgue".
Along the way, I did not take a single photo today! As predicted, moderate rain the whole time, with the last hour, as icing on the precipitation cake, some blistering rain on top of it. My mobile phone was safely tucked away in a waterproof pouch from which I did not want to remove it with wet hands and while dripping, as it would make him completely unmanageable.
The stretch up to the suburb of
Tallinn was actually even quieter and more beautiful than yesterday, but the rain made it impossible to enjoy it. It included another stretch of gravel through a forest, where I saw three moose, a pair of wolves, a frog and a bear.
Which of the four did I really see?
After about two hours, my stomach started grumbling, but as it was such a rural road, I could not find shelter anywhere to take a break to eat something. Only after about 30 km was there finally a bus shelter that offered me protection. This break was not to last long, as I was cooling down fast. It was 13°C today, 10 degrees less than yesterday. By now autumn must have definitely arrived here. Glad the cycling is over from today.
And unbelievable but true: at 4 km from my final destination I took another fall in slow motion, my first totter (fall) of this trip!
In Tallinn, the great cycle path I had been following for the last 20 km ended and cyclists, as so often in cities here, had to share the pavement with pedestrians. Consequence: at every side street or entrance to a house, I had to cycle down the pavement and up the pavement each time. Persistent padang down and padang up again. For one such pavement up, there was a big puddle so I couldn't see how high it was. And just that pavement turned out to be much higher than all the others! My steering wheel made half a turn to the right and as a result I came to a stop against a garden fence.
Fortunately, I was driving very slowly and landed on my feet, but the bike was hanging completely off balance to the left and I couldn't stop that menace. So we ended up on the pavement together in slow motion. No big deal. One front bag had come loose on one side and my right wrist hurt a little because it had been the one that had been lifting most of the weight, but that pain was gone after five minutes. Fortunately, despite the impact against the pavement, no spokes of the wheel had broken.
A little later I arrived soaking wet at the hostel I had booked, and there I did take some photos as it was no 'normal' hostel.
When I booked, I did not know whether my night cough would be gone. To avoid disturbing or infecting anyone, I preferred not to be in a dormitory of six. At Booking.com I saw a hostel with individual capsules and booked one of those sleeping boxes there. The very first time in my life in such a thing! I had seen that this was commonplace in Japan.
Of course, there was no receptionist, which is too personal. Check-in was done at a machine in the intermediate hall. There, fortunately, I was already dry. A piece of paper with a personal code came out of the machine and with it I could enter anywhere: the lobby and also my sleeping box and personal locker.
When I got to my 'room' with 10 sleeping boxes (a.k.a. 'capsules'), I thought I was entering a morgue! How grellig (Antwerps for creepy) that was! This sight took some getting used to.
My box opened with the code, but changing into it - as it should be demure - was of course impossible with that soaking wet bulldogs (Antwerps for stuff) around my body, or my mattress would get all wet.
Good old style I changed in the room.
Shoes and empty suitcase had to go in the locker, where there was a pair of slippers. All my panniers didn't fit in there, of course, but I could tuck them away between the outer sleeping boxes and the heater.
Inside the box, it was quite futuristic. Like a dashboard in a space capsule. Claustrophobic you better not be. Headphones hung ready, USB ports, you could control the air supply yourself, the night light, sleep mode... For safety that night in the dark, I was going to put my headlight next to me anyway. Equipment was also hanging from the ceiling. That turned out to be a TV, but I still couldn't get more than a 'no signal' picture on that with the remote control. They could have provided a manual for 'old cakes' like me at this high-tech thing, haha. 😉
