Weather: 🌤️🌦️☀️☀️🌥️⛈️ (hot and humid 🥵 )
Picnic: 🥪🥪🥪 (3 out 5, lunch from the backpack. 2nd lunch at the Landgasthaus)
Track: 🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪 (3 out of 5, nice trail through forest and farmland, I think we’ll have many of these in our 60 days hiking Germany)
Hotel: 🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌 (5 out of 5, a surprise hotel can’t get less than full score!)
Name of followed trail: X2/ E8
We wake up to the sound of geese, and find 3 of them waddling next to our tent. What a funny thing to wake up to 😁. We have had a bit of a disturbed night, because Marks air mattress has a leak. He needs to blow extra air in 3 times. Luckily we’d set the alarm an hour later, but we’re still tired when we wake up.
When packing our gear I superficially check the mattress for leaks and find it! Mark fixez the leak while I pack the rest of the gear. when almost packet, it starts to rain a little , but the cloud is really big and gray. We rush everything inside but luckily the rain stops again quickly.
After breakfast we say goodbye to Adriaan and hike through farmland and into the forest again. It’s beautiful, but really warm and humid. Combined with us still being tired of yesterday’s hike, we make slow progress. Even more so when the trail diverts from my gpx file and takes us along a 3km extra loop. Very pretty, but to us, unplanned.
So eventhough we thought we’d get to our possible lunch at the Landgasthaus early, it takes longer than expected. Ofcourse we get hungry sooner than expected. So again, the magical wraps from England are used. We now only have our German ‘safety wraps’ left.
Along the way today we see the largest strawberry fields we’ve ever seen (strawberry fields forever😉), a beautiful small river and a couple of brooks and more farmers at work with machines we can only guess the purpose off.
We also meet a cyclist who recognises us as fellow campers and/or pilgrims. We have a chat with him. Great to hear his stories about all the friendly people he met on his travels. This is a lesson we’ve learned so many times, but sometimes need to be reminded of: you meet so much kindness and friendliness along the way when you are open to receive it. A lesson that was repeated yesterday and confirmed today by the stories of this cyclist. Thank you Uwe for sharing your stories with us!
After our lunch we hike 4 more kilometers to the Landgasthaus, hoping that it will be open and serve food. It does! When we get there, we decide to ask if the have a place to sleep. They do! So we give in to the fatigue and decide to give ourselves a break. We have a nice cold Radler (freshly made from beer and sprite) a good 2nd lunch before we have a nice long shower and clean our sweaty clothes. Time for a good rest and a good meal! What a joy to take a surprise break like this!
In the evening, when we’re upstairs in our room, the expected rain and thunder finally come. The sound of the rain on the roof and the thunder outside is quite comforting. I really don’t mind this indoor night tonight! 😂😅