The second day of the trip felt like the first proper day, since i had only gotten started at around 6 the day before. So after getting some stuff in potsdam, the rain had stopped, and the sun had very much come out, I headed off, heading towards Brandenburg. The first 15k were lovely, but then i got to this really straight, really exposed road, headed right into some fairly strong wind, which was a bitch. After pushing through for a while, i thought it might not just be the wind. I broke out my pound shop 'precision engineering oil' squeezing it all over my chain and any other moving parts, much better, I really should have done that before I left. when i got to brandenburg, slimy with sweat, my plans of sitting outside with some ice cream and wi fi may have been a little romantic. The ice cream was great, but the only wi fi I could find was in the shopping center, which got me some funny looks with the contents of my rucksack all over the floor just so could get at my laptop. Thats the problem with having all your stuff strapped to your bike, even simple things like going into a shop is tricky, because firstly it takes a while to take off the tangle of bungee cords and what not, and then getting at anything in a really tightly packed bag means pouring your stuff all over the place.

After refuelling on ice cream, espressos and wi fi, i headed off to Genthin, the bike felt great, and the road was real smooth and straight through a lovely forest, with the sun really low and ahead of me, the advantage of cycling west in the evenings! Coming into Genthin, 77 k from my lakeside camping mat, the forest looked fab, so i decided to go get some food, and come back out the road a bit and find a nice spot. Armed with some kidney beans, shocker, and a few other bits and bobs, i headed back out the road. The impression i got of Genthin was that its quite an industrial town, and scaldy enough. There wasn't many people around, i suppose it was the evening, but the few people still knocking around looked rough as a bears arse, not exactly inspiring confidence in the place i was about to camp. Back out the road, the forest looked a lot more inviting than the people, especially with the trees fab two tone get up.

Once i ventured into the forest, it looked even nicer, especially when you get down low, since the trees aren't in rows, but still have that super straight commercial forestry vibe going on.

Since I was a little wary of the locals, I made sureIi wheeled the bike real deep into the forest, not easy when the weight over the back wheel makes it wheelie at any given opportunity, or just fall over from being top heavy.

Once you cant hear the road any more, all you can hear, apart from the odd distant train, is animals. Now I'm fairly into animals, but when you can't see them, but you can hear them all around you, twigs snapping, or rustling, and its getting dark, forest animals are creepy as fuck.

After settling in, pitching the poncho, lighting the fire with dinner cooking, ( Bear grylls eat your fucking heart out) i decided to get comfy and slip into my new 'Ricky Racoon' sleeping bag. When I took it out of the bag however, the name made a lot more sense, its a kids sleeping bag. I guess i should have read the 150 cm on the end. Oh well, at least it kept the bottom half of me warm, with my fleece, two vests and a T doing the top half just fine. That said, I woke up with a very cold head at one stage, and had to wrap a T shirt around my head, maybe shaving my head has its downsides. After dinner, and with no battery left on my laptop, the only thing on my mind was whether or not i should ring someone to get them to google if Germany has any wild animals that might actually be a threat, which i can now tell you it does by the way, FUCKING WOLVES not that theres many of them, but they're still there, oh and boars, WILD BOARS. I decided against the phone call, as I'd never hear the end of it if i did, even, in fact, especially if i rang my mom. The only other disturbance during the night was when I woke up at around 3, thinking there was someone shining a torch at me, that super moon really keeps on giving and giving.

I woke up feeling well rested, but for some reason I thought my friends where there, when I looked over and they weren't, I was firstly pissed off that they'd headed off without me, but upon realising that I was on my own, I felt a bit lonely and sad, so I went back to sleep, how I deal with most of my problems!,  Oh, and I had the shits, and only three sheets, of toilet paper left, I kept telling myself, make it work James, make it work, so I did.