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Journal: |
I was greeted like a long-lost friend by the hotel owners when I
arrived in the dining room for breakfast and then, sadly, made a pig
of myself on their fresh bread rolls. But they overlooked my
coarseness and the chef/owner was good to his word, giving me a lift
back to the point where I left the Westweg yesterday to look for
accommodation, thus saving me about 4km of walking on what was
already going to be a long day.
I was going to be operating
without a map today, but was confident that the superior German
trail-marking system would get me to my destination, Hausach. (When
I bought my maps in Frankfurt, I bought the Black Forest - North and
the Black Forest - South maps from Kompass, not realising that there
is also a Black Forest - Middle map that I need.....dah! If
Hausach is large enough, I hope to get the missing map, or an
alternative there.)
It promised to be perfect weather for
hiking again, with clear sunny skies above a cool morning.
Having about 32km to go, and not wanting to arrive too late, I
resolved to keep moving as much as possible. For the first few
hours, I saw few other people, despite it being a Public Holiday,
and enjoyed the solitude of the quiet forest with occasional
sweeping views in one direction of the other. As for the past
few days, the Westweg was mostly on forestry roads interlinked with
single track trails, and seemed to have been chosen to show the best
of the deep forest as well as the most spectacular view points.
I made good progress and around late morning noticed an increase in
fellow travellers, particularly on mountain bikes.
At a sunny
spot for lunch I ate my hotel-prepared goodies, including an apple
(unusual for me), and had a brief chat with a lady (~50yo) who had
been travelling the same route as me, but had left a day later.
I complimented her on her speed and she was embarrassed, but she was
certainly getting along at about 30-35km per day. She lived in
Hausach and was finishing today. I could tell she had sore
feet like me because earlier, from a distance while we both ate our
lunches, I had observed her with her boots off walking around in the
grass (giving her feet a cool massage) and then lying on a bench
with her legs and feet in the air.
After lunch the trail got
really busy and, along with some fellow hikers, I was almost run
down by mountain bikers from behind on several occasions. In
one case, one elderly lady was given a shouted warning from behind
and, without looking back, ran in the wrong direction.....it was a
very near miss.
The last part of the day was steeply
downhill, which is always tough on sore and tired feet, but I had
the compensation of having made good time and easily found the Hotel
Blume where a room had been booked for me by last night's hosts.
It is a very nice recently-renovated hotel and the proprietress
speaks good English and has a fascination with Australia, though has
never visited herself. There is a 1937 picture of the Sydney
Harbour Bridge in reception, taken by her father who visited as a
merchant seaman several times pre-War. He was drafted into the
German Army in the Second World War, taken prisoner on the Russian
Front, and wasn't released until 1948...three years after the war
finished! We have it easy. She said that when they have
finished paying the bank back for the hotel renovations she will
definitely be visiting Sydney.
I went for a short walk around
Hausach before dinner in the hope I could buy some drinks and snacks
(cheaper than the hotel), but everything was closed for the Holiday.
The town is reasonably modern with some light industry on the other
side of the railway tracks. There was nowhere obvious to buy a
map. A shorter day tomorrow, but it's likely to start with a
stiff climb out of town.
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