Day 27 - Mcdonalds ensuite to industrial estate bumpy ground camp (To)

The 4.30am run didn't happen - instead I got up at 5.45am, packed up promptly and made my way over to the McDonalds 2 minutes away to use their toilet. I was shortly joined by the others. Michelle was going through a low point and having doubts about continuing, so we did our best to reassure her. After a lengthy sit down/breakfast muesli-in-a-mess-tin in McDonalds we headed off at 8.45am. There was one particularly enjoyable long, flat, tree-lined section of road this morning where I remember finally being able to ride along with no hands (made much harder with the extrawheel and weight attached to the bike). We made it to Hanover late morning, and finally got the degreaser and cleaning brush for the bikes that we desperately needed in a cycle shop en route. Cycling through Hanover was a nightmare with a weird cycle lane/traffic light system which made progress slow. We got through the worst of it and stopped in a McDonalds at about 1pm for some lunch. For the first time in the trip to date we got told off for eating our own food in there, so a couple of us bought something to show that we were actually paying customers. It was a long break and Chris had fallen asleep after about 30 minutes. Michelle was busy using the wifi, and after looking around I had found a socket to charge the ipad. I helped a member of staff take down some decorations from a kids birthday party which made our group favourable and was no longer concerned about getting told to leave for loitering around. Michelle was feeling more positive by now which was great. We finally left after a good couple of hours later and made our way out of the Hanover area. A few hours later Michelle's crank broke - I can't remember exactly what the problem was, but it couldn't be bodged with cable ties. We were now about 30 miles away from Hanover in a small town with no means of fixing the problem. Everyone agreed the best option was for Michelle to go to the train station (luckily there was one only a few miles away) and for her to get the train to Frankfurt, get the crank fixed and meet up with us when we arrived in a couple of days. We saw her off at the station before popping to the supermarket over the road and getting food for the remainder of the day. It was now starting to get late, so we made it a brief supermarket stop before getting on with the cycling. The three of us pedalled until about 10pm struggling to find somewhere decent to camp. We had to settle for an uneven patch of grass on an industrial estate. After finding the least bumpy bit of grass for the tent and eating something in the tent I went to bed at 11.30pm