Day 102, Kropfmuhl – Ameisberg

Weather: ☀️🌤️🌤️☀️⛈️+ 🥵🥵
Picnic: 🥪🥪 (2 out 5, quick picnic in Oberkappel with plain bread from the supermarket)
Brotzeit: 🥪🥪🥪🥪🥪 (5 out of 5, after arrival at our apartment we got a welcome ‘brotzeit’ (extra meal between lunch and dinner) so friendly and good!)
Track: 🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪 + 🇦🇹(4 out of 5, beautiful trail through the fields, villages and forests in the mountains)
Milestone: Germany ✅
Hotel: 🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌(5 out of 5, good bed, good shower, friendly host, …everything a hiker can wish for)
Name of followed trail: E8, Mittelland weg
Special mention: The hospitality at the appartment is amazing. Thank you Nicole, Manfred and Irmi for making us feel so welcome and making our restday tomorrow an easy one!

Another early start today. We find our that we were almost in the village with our campspot…😅 We also find out that the perfect spot just wasn’t there, and the next reasonable one would have been a couple more kilometers up the hill. So extra happy with our choice to pitch there.

Today we only have 21 km to walk, thanks to our extra kilometers yesterday. We are in for an early arrival at our appartment! So we keep a good pace, aides by some ferocious horseflies that hunt us every step, preventing even short pee breaks at some point. Slowly going insane, Mark askes if I have the insect spray somewhere. Ofcourse. Insect spray! Why haven’t we thought of that days ago?!🤨 We spray our DEET spray and finally have an bite free break! This put the insect spray back into our system, and in the top of my bag 😅🤣!

After this enlightening moment, we still keep a good pace, but we can also enjoy our surroundings a bit more. And it sure is pretty here! Great views over the hills, and nice forest trails.

In one of the villages, we find a British telephone booth, that has actually been used by The Queen!

We have a Almendudler soda at an honesty box along the way (thanks opa Alf!) and walk along the shores of the Ranna lake, before we get to the Austrian border.

After a little over 2 months of hiking, we leave Germany. It feels like a thing, a new country!

We enjoy a schorle (and a nut cake) at the cafe in Oberkappel. The lady of the cafe is really friendly (even more when she hears our story) and before we leave, we get an extra cookie for the road.

We buy some bread at the supermarket and have a quick lunch in the shade, before we hike the last 5 km to our apartment.

The last bit is quite steep uphill, so we’re sweating freely again by the time we get there. Luckily the trail mostly goes through the forest.

We see our apartment from the hilltop, in the measows and framland.

We are welcomed by Nicole and she shows us our nice and spacious appartment. While we cool down a bit, she brings us a Brotzeit salad, very nice and delicious!

After a while Irmi comes by to ask when we need to go to the supermarket so she can bring us. She comes with a cold beer too!

So far, we absolutely love Austria!😍

We rest, shower and do laundry, before Irmi takes us to the supermarket. With bags full of goodies we get out.

At home, we make a good meal and enjoy the slowly cooling evening. We see thunder clouds forming and decide to go inside.

The thunderstorm that follows makes us very happy to be inside tonight 😅😅😅

It’s nice though, because it cools everything thoroughly down.

A lot has already been done today, so tomorrow is a true restday!