We’re now back in Australia after a great holiday. I’m trying to recall the trip from day 21 onwards in as much detail as I can using Google Maps Timeline to jog my memory. Enjoy. Day 21 (and some of 20) We arrived in Hannover on the evening of the 20th day of travel, put our bikes together, then caught the train south before cycling to Phil’s place, arriving in the middle of the night. Even cycling in the pitch darkness of a cloudy German night, it just felt nicer to be on tree lined roads with wheat and corn on either side. We got to Phil’s around midnight and he was walking the streets waiting for us. I think he could feel us coming deep in his heart, so he came to greet us. We washed off our stink and went to bed. Phil’s place was great. Phil was briefly home from study in Bremen before going to Brazil for a year. His family home is joined to his grandparents place so there are no doors between them inside and they are fully self-contained, but have a gate in the backyard. I really like this layout. Phil’s grandparents aren’t so old that they would otherwise be in a home, but I suspect they will be able to stay at home a lot longer because of the living situation. Phil has two dogs, Hector (ridgeback) and Luna (vizsla). Hector has balls. Balls are not something I'm used to on a dog. Anyway, on the first day we were there we went for a walk with the dogs up a little hill, eventually overlooking an old quarry. Phil sometimes goes up there to read, and the serenity made me realise how long it’s been since I went for a walk to a place there is nobody and read a book (around two years). In the afternoon we cycled up to a castle, but couldn’t really go in because they were setting up for a book reading which you can go to in a castle in Germany if you want. I’m told that similar things happen here. Phil happened to casually work for the catering company doing the event, and was able to smile, persist and talk his way into us being able to have a little look around. On the way home he told us about “Vitamin B” which is what they call the concept of some people being able to talk their way into somewhere while others will get turned around, even if they say the same thing. Kind of a “who you know” type of thing, also an appearance thing. That evening we had a barbecue with delicious veggie burgers. Day 22 At this point we hadn’t cycled for around 10 days (since cycling up to Whistler), so we were getting a bit itchy. Phil went to the mardi gras in Cologne on Saturday, so we cycled up to Steinhuder Lake via Hannover. Looking at it now it was reasonable cycling for Germany, but at the time we thought it was great compared with Canada. There were lots of cycle paths and we did some cycling through the forest. We found a place to camp next to a little canal off the lake. Day 23 I went for a walk in the morning while Hannah slept. I think I was somehow into the Europe sleep cycle by then, but Hannah didn’t sleep until 4am, so she was tired when I was awake. The lake was windy but really nice to ride/read along. We rode back to Phil’s place, arriving around 7pm. Nothing too notable occurred. Day 24 The plan from here was to get to Heidelberg within 6 days. My friends who live there, Meret and Patrick, were going away the following Thursday, and we wanted to have a weekend with them arriving on Saturday the 14th. It’s around 600km and we’d generally been going less than that per day. Plus on my previous trip I generally did 4 days of riding in a row, then had a rest day, so we thought 600km in 6 days would be tight. We made it 102km to Kaunitz for dinner, where the only option seemed to be a fairly gross pizza place where we had fairly gross pizza and normal beer. At the train station (where there was wifi), there was a group of around 20 old ladies who cycled there to play boules/péntanque/bocce. We pumped out another 20km and it was getting quite dark while we were looking for a place. Google maps helped us find some bush off the main drag and we were able to get a good night’s sleep. Day 25 We arrived in Lippstadt at 10:15am and had a quick look around. It was a lovely historic town with a cafe lined square. About 5 minutes after we sat down for the morning coffee it started pouring with rain. We were forced to eat a waffle and crepes, resulting in a longer than anticipated stay. We went to Unna via Welver, including some light drizzle and a headwind. It was nice to find respite when cycling next to corn crops and I thought a lot about the relationship between wind and crop height while it’s raining and one is cycling. We got to Unna and hit a little package of luck. We were going to look for a place for wifi in Unna or keep cycling. As we entered the old town, Hannah heard the ping of a message being received. Unna happened to have the same wifi network as a previous town that Hannah had connected to. We immediately checked the weather and saw that a downpour was imminent. We went to the nearest restaurant to eat and about two minutes later it started to absolutely bucket. Our meals were both absolutely delicious, genuinely Italian, maybe the best food on the whole trip. The weather cleared up and we cycled 35km on a wet road in glorious sunshine. Next to the cycle path to the south west of Hagen there was a small field that we camped in, with super damp air. We made 104km in total that day. Day 26 We were aiming for a Warmshowers host in Bonn, so we knew it wouldn’t be a massive day (around 75km). When we got to the town of Lennep, we were pleasantly surprised by an old town square. By this stage we had learnt that German coffee was trash and if we couldn’t find a place with something Italian written on it, the coffee wasn’t going to be worth it. Fortunately this small town had that and we luxuriated in the sun for an hour or so before continuing on. We made it to Alex’s place in Bonn roughly on time and he made us the world’s greatest salad. I don’t think that’s 100% what we felt like on arrival, but it was exactly what we needed. I had my first shave of the trip and we had an early night. Day 27 Rhine Time! But first, time to clean and oil the chains on the slimmest footpath on the slimmest street I’ve ever seen a bus drive down. The result was bliss. Everyone should clean and oil their chains more often. The Rhine was great too. Previously when looking at my Google Maps Timeline, the points are really close together because I was constantly looking at my phone. Once we get to the Rhine, it basically goes from coffee break to snack break in a straight line because I didn’t need to get my phone out at all to see where we were. In Koblenz there is a giant man on a giant horse statue that I must have totally missed last time (around 50m tall). We kept meandering along the river, racing cargo boats as we went until we got to the same Aldi I went to last time in Oberwesel where there was (last time) a guy at the checkout who was the fastest checkout person I’ve seen by around 30%. He wasn’t working this time. We found a really nice spot to camp between the cycle path and the river. We had a quick wash in the river, much deserved after doing 93km on a hot day. Day 28 This gets monotonous. Woke up, had a coffee in a nice German town, cycled 93km along the Rhine (we went through Mainz just before lunch and I found the spot that Kyle and I camped next to the Rhine last time), had ice-cream on a hot afternoon, had dinner at a German restaurant on the river and slept next to the Rhine just off the cycle path (there was a guy fishing near us, I think he went there for peace and quiet, but by the time we saw him the tent was already up. Sorry German man!) Not far to go tomorrow! Day 29 Arrived in Heidelberg after just 45km by 11am to meet Meret and Patrick before they left to a party in a nearby city. Don’t add up the numbers to work out that the distance from Phil’s place to Heidelberg wasn’t correct, I was probably exaggerating. Days 30-32 Heidelberg is lovely. I went there on my last trip and had a great time and the same thing happened again. The first night we walked down and watched the fireworks with seemingly everyone else in the city.On the second day we went to watch the world cup final. We generally walked around the old town, made and ate spätzle, watched Patrick at jugger training, drank radlers, got a rotor replaced, saw the castle, visited the cemetery (my favourite place actually, I think I wrote about it last time) and had a generally relaxing time. It was ambitious to get there in the time that we did (considering that we hadn’t been doing many k’s in a day previously), so it was nice to rest. Interlude I started writing this post as soon as I got back (end of Aug), and have written a little since coming up to Port Macquarie which got me up to here, but for the last month I’ve been doing other things. I’m going to promise myself to finish the writing today, so from here on in it might be brief, nonsensical, more of a list of things that happened, repeating things above etc. I’m not proofreading it. Day 33 (18th July) Back to the Rhine (Speyer), though the path from here was more ambiguous. The stretches north of Heidelberg which were smooth and cyclist only have now generally become stretches on regular roads. We have an afternoon break near Neuberg at an open air park thing next to a lake. It was great. I was really enjoying Dune at this point, which I had not read previously and is apparently a classic. Afterwards we crossed the border into France and eventually took a path into the forest and camped next to “Hellwasser”. We did 125km in total. Day 34 Finally some decent coffee. The coffee in Germany is generally trash, so we’d been scouting for places with Italian coffee machines. Now we were in the land of amazing bakeries which also have amazing coffee. We stopped in Strasbourg to check out the Cathedral there which we’d heard is one of the best in Europe. It was great, though carrying all our stuff around was not. Out of Strasbourg we followed a canal for about 80km to a weird place called Neuf-Brisach. We crossed a bridge over a dry moat to get into the town, and in the dry moat there were life size sculptures of African animals. There was literally nowhere to eat even though it was a decent sized place, so we ended up eating salad. We rode another 25km and ended up camping in an orchard. 135km cycling total today. Day 35 We had accommodation lined up in Basel, and because we’d had two good days previously, only 50km to go to our destination. We had enough time that we arrived in Basel early and surprised Hannah’s parent at the Basel train station. They happened to be travelling in the area at the same time. Hannah didn’t think of it until the day before because it wasn’t going to be an option with us going to a different continent, but it was great to see their reaction as they had no idea we were going to be there. Our host in Basel Jamila was great and had fun housemates (they were all German). We made an amazing salad loosely based on Alex from Bonn’s. Despite not meeting any Swiss people, I generally don’t go much on Swiss people it seems. I get the sense that they are obsessed with how people see them and think they are better than everyone. I’ve thought this previously when meeting Swiss people overseas, and walking around Basel only confirmed this. Day 36 We cycled to Aarau though some beautiful countryside and I think two decent climbs. There were a few small village dairy type places selling roadside cheese which we bought and devoured. We also kept pace with a Lambo sports car going down the other side of one of the climbs which was fun. Anyway, in Aarau, we realised that we hadn’t had much sleep. In general we were camping around dark which was around 9:30pm and getting up with the light which was around 5am, which just isn’t enough sleep for me (I’m a 9 hour guy). I was falling asleep while trying to read, so we decided to find a place to camp asap and sleep from arvo through to the next morning. Eventually we found a place which had enough cover and was far enough removed from dog walker areas that we could sleep from 7pm until 7am which we did comfortably. Only covered 60km, but we probably needed it. Day 37 Went towards Lucerne via Sursee. I’m having real trouble trying to work out which route we actually took. I can’t even work out which way we went around some of the lakes, but that may be because the edges were private property so we didn’t actually see the lake. We didn’t go into Lucerne, rather headed east towards Zug then down towards Sattel. It was hilly as Switzerland is, so we couldn’t find anywhere flat and relatively private to camp. We were still sleep deprived, so we just asked someone in the hills if we could camp next to their house. The view was amazing. Around 100km done today. (Note to Future Chris reading this, if you want more detail on the route than you have on Timeline, look up the cycling app you used to find a route from Basel to Obersee) Day 38 Cycled to Einsiedeln then over some mountains to Obersee. The climb up was tough and there were some really steep up and down sections on the way there too. The view of the lake from the top was amazing. Once over the top it should have been an easy downhill ride to the lake then across a bridge. I messed up and took a wrong turn which ultimately meant we needed to do some more uphill during the downhill section. Then I realised that we just could have continued downhill and made up the route seeing as we still had plenty of altitude above the lake. One of relatively few navigation mistakes, though reasonably costly seeing as we both had tired legs. We bought some fresh roadside eggs which were delicious for lunch. We cycled next to another lake for a bit in the afternoon (St Gallen Glarus), which was maybe the most beautiful lake of the whole trip. Then we ended up camping in maybe the most beautiful camp spot of the trip, in a valley next to a canal, and had some delicious charred capsicum with amazing cheese to go with it. Days 39 and 40 We cycled through Saargens and met up with a much smaller Rhine, then decided to nip into Lichtenstein for breakfast, then decided to cycling the length of it because it’s tiny and why not. We did a quick tour of the capital Vaduz, then kept going north towards Lake Konstanz. We were in Austria by this point, and very unsure about the plan for the night, let alone the next few days. I thought it would be difficult to find a place to camp seeing as we were close to the lake, so we tried some last minute warm showering at around 5pm and found Sanjay who lived in Lustenau. Sanjay was maybe the best host of the trip. He had an amazing vegetable garden, super outlook on life and we made some delicious food. Because of him we totally changed out route across the alps which ended up being great. He let us stay an extra night even though a Spanish family was coming (we just camped in the backyard). That family was also inspirational as they were a young couple travelling with their 4 year old daughter. On our day off we went up to Konstanz and mostly relaxed by the lake and ate nice food. Day 41 Thanks to Sanjay the plan is now to go through the Arlberg pass, then the Reschen pass before descending into Italy. So we head back south along the Rhine then follow some rivers up into the mountains. The switchbacks to the final bit of the pass are tough but not really that bad, and after a short descent we stop for a beer and burger in St Anton Am Arlberg. From here things don’t go according to plan. We cycle for another 25 minutes before finding a lush field with a bit of cover to camp in. The field is off a gravel road with no fence. We probably knew it was private property, but there was nobody around. Tent goes up, but we haven’t fully unpacked everything. We see a guy stop and take some food over to some cows. He didn’t see us, but we figured he eventually would so we went to say hi. He did not respond well to our presence. First he told us to get off the grass because it’s for the cows and why the hell were we off the track. Our bikes and the tent were out of view at this point. We tried to say sorry, but he was furious and was threatening to call the police. We communicated that we had bags and were going to get them. He went back to his car and we started packing up, but as he drove further along the road he saw us packing up and his mood deteriorated further. He was on the phone, presumably to the police who presumably asked what we were currently doing which was packing up and leaving so they presumably told him to chill out. We kept cycling for a bit, but it was difficult to find a spot to camp (we were in a valley so it was either close to houses or quite steep). There was a campground next to the road which was closed for the evening, but we camped there anyway and just paid in the morning. Around 88km of mountainous cycling today. Day 42 We continued to cycle down then up mountain rivers until we eventually got to the bottom of the Reschen Pass. There were some overweight e-bikers also going up which annoyed Hannah quite a bit. The pass was OK, the ride down the first bit of the other side was amazing. There were some steep smooth bicycle only bits which were so smooth that even with panniers you could fly down them and it was in the trees so you couldn't’ really see what was coming but you could trust it. It was probably as close to downhill that you get on a touring bike. Every 10km or so the path went into a small quaint town with nice Italian restaurants, then went back to the path. After we ate we were looking for a spot to camp but it took a while because there were towns everywhere, so it ended up being quite dark by the time we pitched the tent at the end of a row of apples. About 115km covered. Day 43 At around this point we were learning that using couchsurfing or warmshowers in Italy in July/August is really tough. The Italians go on holiday, either overseas or within their own country, especially couchsurfing and warmshowers hosts. We were aiming to be in Verona in a couple of days, but had been searching for a place to stay in Merano, Bolzano and Trento too, just to have a day off and wash things. We were stopping every now and then to get wifi to check responses which slowed us down a bit. After coffee in Merano and a wrong turn in Bolzano, we decided to stop early at a lido (Lido di Egna) and spend the afternoon there. It was a really nice rest and made up for some of the lack of sleep. We had to pump it into the wind for 20km to get to the supermarket before it shut, then had pizza for dinner which was becoming a staple. We found a relatively hidden spot next to the canal to camp after around 95km total for the day. Days 44 and 45 In Europe you remember which days were Sundays. It’s difficult to find anything, which often sucks when it’s a million degrees and you’re cycling. At some point I think today someone mentioned Lake Garda to us and we thought we might as well go there instead of going to Verona. Turns out we’re fools and should have been planning to go to Lake Garda all along. We went south through Trento and Roverto, then headed west through a valley to the northern end of the lake. We found an open supermarket which had no cold beer section which was normal, but one cold beer in red bull fridge which I bought, intending on drinking it in 10 minutes with lunch when we found a good spot down the road. While putting away the other shopping, I heard the lid pop and my heart sank. This will be forever known as the carpark beer incident, though Hannah is mostly forgiven by now. Coming into Torbole which is at the northern end of the lake, there is a very steep, straight descent. At the top there are a few bars with ridiculous views of the lake. My photos do not do it justice, though if you zoom in, you can see maybe 200 wind/kite surfers. We had a mojito and caipirinha at the top and luxuriated a little before going down to tourist town below. We swam then sat in a super hot laundromat and tried to make a plan. That didn’t work so we were still planning as we cycled down the eastern side of the lake, and we eventually decided to stay at a campground for two nights so we could have a day off. This turned out to be a great decision (though the first night our camp spot was too close to the road and was quite noisy). On our day off we drank coffee, ate food, read and rested in the shade (basically what we were always doing but without cycling). Day 46 I think by this stage we knew that we were aiming to meet up with Hannah’s parents again in the hills south of Reggio Emilia at the end of the following day, so our goal was to make it at least half way there. We got up early to avoid lakeside traffic and decided on the slightly longer cycle route next to the Mincio river instead of roads. We did a bit of uphill to find a nice spot for coffee and a baked treat in Monzambano, then got to Mantua by early afternoon. It was super hot so we decided to hang around for the afternoon, but most places shut between lunch and dinner, so we had to shuffle around a bit between empty lakeside bars and cafes with closed kitchens. At around 6:30pm we headed south to get gelato then pizza, before finding a camp spot just off the main road near an industrial complex. This was the night that was around 100 degrees Celsius with a billion mosquitoes, so I wanted the tent closed because I was getting eaten and Hannah wanted it open because it was too hot, and it was just general unpleasantness in a pool of sweat. This eventually led to us decided that it’s too hot to be camping all the time and that we should find a workaway for a week or so. Just on the weather, northern Italy is super hot. Like, way hotter than anywhere I’ve lived hot. Apparently similar daily max and min as Brisbane in summer (30/20), but 5 degrees hotter on average than Melbourne or Sydney in peak summer. Days 47 We got to the Po River and cycled along it for a bit. It was foggy and we were on local roads with a bit of forest so it was kind of cool. There were a few houses on stilts down by the river which looked fun. Coming in to Viadana we were debating about stopping at a cafe or having cereal when we decided to go to a servo to at least use their toilet. They turned out to have a hole in the floor toilet which wasn’t the best, but they had amazing coffee, superfast wifi, filled us up with water and A1 aircon (it was already 33 degrees outside at 8:30am). Coffee in Italy is great if you like espresso, but the main thing is that it’s great everywhere. You can’t find a bad coffee. They care. We crossed the river and went to Reggio Emilia which is a big city. After gelato and trying to work out which road we could and couldn’t go on, we went to a park to douse ourselves in water. There was an old guy also dousing himself in water who we had a chat to. He was also on the phone the whole time, relaying our super broken english conversation to his mate. Then it was time to head for the hills to try to arrive at our BnB before Wal and Donna. On the way I decided my rotor was too badly bent so I tried to put another on, but couldn’t even get the first one off with the crappy torx thing I had, so I ended up bending the rotor with the pedal wrench which actually worked a treat. It was a small incline up the road over the mountains, until we got to the turnoff, then it was as uphill as it gets. The driveway was gravel and halfway up we got a beep from behind which was Wal and Donna arriving in their hired Panda. We just made it up, then had the afternoon eating and by the pool before having dinner at the BnB which also became a restaurant in the evenings. They tried to put us inside, but the Meyers ended up convincing them to let us move the table so we could enjoy the view. The Joneses would have accepted being inside, so I’m glad I was accompanied by Meyers. The food was delightful and hand made that day. Day 48 No cycling, just four people in a Panda looking for food, wine and castles. We found plenty of each, including one castle that was being renovated by a fella into a BnB argiturismo place (similar to the one we were staying in). It wasn’t open, but he let us look around and chatted for a while. Curious to know how much money you need to have to buy a castle. We went to a winery where the Joneses would have listened to the thing and maybe asked a few questions, but the Meyers talked with the person for hours and it was really interesting. We bought a ludicrously cheap nice bottle of wine and Wal and I contemplated shipping pallets of wine to Australia. More cheese by the pool, then dinner. At some point we confirmed that we would be arriving at the workaway in Motrone in a couple of days. Day 49 The workaway was on the other side of the mountain range, so we were just aiming to get to the top today if possible. Actually maybe “we” were just aiming to get part way up because it was a decent climb, but I was definitely aiming to get to the top. Hannah was generally not very confident about her ability to get up the hills, but we’d just come across the alps, so I don’t think her expectations were high enough. We started on the main road through the mountains, and in Castelnovo ne’ Monti headed off onto side roads to stick to the weird direction across the range that we wanted. This meant going through some tiny villages in the mountains that don’t normally get tourists and evoked a few genuinely curious reactions of “what are you doing here?” We stopped for dinner at a very cool pizza pub near the top of the mountains, presumably there because there were often tourists coming to see San Pellegrino on the other side. We smashed the last bit of the climb as it was getting dark, and struggled to find anything vaguely flat and hidden near the lonely mountain road down the other side. We were a little more cautious about camping in an obvious spot because there were many signs saying that we shouldn’t. Covered around 65 mountainous kilometres. Day 50 Only 40km to go to our destination, so we took it easy in the morning. There were some beautiful old towns to go through, and we had a stop at Castiglione di Garfagnana to look around the town (they were preparing for a medieval festival that weekend) and coffee (and toilet) with a view. We got to nearly where we were going (just a mega climb to go), and decided to check internet, which was lucky because we were told that we should’t arrive before 5pm. We spent all afternoon in a cafe with a closed kitchen, then did the 8km climb to the finish. This was maybe the toughest climb of the trip and takes around 20 minutes in a car to go up or down. We arrived, ate dinner with our hosts and slept in anticipation of 10 days of country work. Workaway (Days 51 to 61) The Place: Motrone is a tiny Italian mountain village at the end of a steep, winding road. The population is around 100, with only 3 kids in the village. You can see from the photos what kind of place it is. The Work: The people we were working for were a Jewish Kiwi couple (Jenny and Geoff) who owned a few small farms in the area. The work included feeding animals, weeding, clearing terraces, gardening, cleaning, clearing out sheds, putting up fences, clipping and transporting chickens, securing a water source, getting dried corn from the cob (I don’t know the name for this), mucking out sheep pens, watering trees and preserving fruits. The hours varied, and it ranged from very hard days (clearing terraces for 5 hours in the morning, then doing animal things for two hours in the evening), to quite easy days (just feeding animals morning and night plus a little weeding). In our spare time we ate lots of delicious fresh food, read, watched Fargo, listened to podcasts and hung out with Jenny and Geoff. Lucca: We were waiting on bike bags for a second time (first was in Whistler where they didn’t make it) and Geoff mentioned that courier companies pretty much don’t come up to Motrone. It was a nightmare trying to work out how to track the parcel from Wiggle to their shipping company to the Italian shipping company, to the place that has the drivers, but eventually we decided to go into Lucca on Friday afternoon to speak to a person at a place. They said that the parcel wasn’t there even though I was sure it was, then they said that it would definitely be delivered next Tuesday even though I was sure it wouldn’t (they had “tried to deliver” it a few times which hadn’t worked). We came up with some contingency plans and stayed in Lucca the night which was lovely. The next day we touristed around a bit. Lucca is a really nice city. Great gelato and pizza, and little wine bars. Geoff ended up picking up the bags on Tuesday the next week, they weren’t going to be delivered. Day 62 We set off for Florence early in the morning on Ferragosto (the biggest day off in Italy). Things started with a crash coming down the steep 8km at the start as we weren’t being sufficiently cautious down the hills after the first rain in a while. All superficial, except some damage to a pannier which is now quite annoying because it’s difficult to fix and make waterproof (any tips welcome). It was just a normal hot Florence type day when we arrived, though the best gelato of the trip helped. Florence is the capital of fashion, and I won’t hear any argument against that. Luckily, I had my bearveralls. Day 63 We cycled to the airport, flew to London (Luton), and made it to Carmen’s place where we were staying for a few days. We did a quiz which we went terribly at, but it was good to catch up with Carmen, EJ, Corin and Youngy. Day 64 A bit of London tourism, then a London night out with the boys. Day 65 A giant hangover, then Secret Cinema. The movie was Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet. I wasn’t sure how fun it would be, but it was ridiculously fun. Days 66 to 68
On Sunday we got a train to the Cottswolds and spent the best part of three days there looking around. It was fun once we realised that we didn’t have to see all the things and could just relax if we wanted to. We thought our flight home was on the Thursday, but it was the Wednesday (found this out on Tuesday), so we came back a day early. Did another quiz Tuesday night with EJ and Gareth. We won this one because Gareth, plus it was an easier quiz and they gave loads of hints. Days 69 to 71 We did more London tourist things in the morning, then rode out to see the Brompton factory in the afternoon where Boonie works as a testis or something. It was great to catch up albeit briefly, then we got the train to the airport where it took way longer than usual to get our bikes on the plane and it took much negotiation. Arrival back in Melbourne was brutal as it was 6am and around zero degrees. We cycled into the city which is where this tale ends. This is now nearly 6000 words, some of it repetitive, so that’s it for now. I’ll write up things between then and now (inc puppy photos), plus a post on cycling things and post next week.
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Chris JonesJust a guy going for a bit of a documented ride. Archives
May 2018
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