Day 115, 3000 km Retz – Mailberg

Weather: ☀️☀️🌤️🌤️⛅
Picnic: 🥪🥪🥪 (3 out 5, nice bread at the Billa supermarket in Haugsdorf)
Track: 🇦🇹🇦🇹🇦🇹🇦🇹 (4 out of 5, nice farm tracks through the sunflower fields and vineyards. Also through a few very cool villages.)
Milestone: 3000 km
Hotel: 🛌🛌🛌🛌 (4 out of 5, nice room in a side building of the town castle, with a very nice breakfast 😁)
Name of followed trail: Grenzlandweg (07)
Special mention: Christian from Haugsdorf who offered us a glass of wine under his Linden trees. Great hospitality once again!

After waking up a bit slow, we start our walk around 9.30 today. We walk out of the city and into the fields. the vineyards seem to be a bit random here, in between fields with other crops. Like it’s just another crop to yield. In most wine region you only see vineyards, as far as the eye can see. Here there are also large fields with grain, sunflowers and pumpkins. Pumpkin seeds and pumpkin seed oil are used a lot in the Austrian kitchen.

The sunflowers are beautiful to see. We enjoy our hike today in these surroundings.

The fresh wind luckily keeps the heat at bay. Mark is feeling a lot better than yesterday. To treat ourselves, we go for another hotel. This time at our 300 km point in Mailberg.

On our way, we find that the prunes are almost ripe. In a few days these trees won’t be safe anymore!

Halfway through our walk, we get into Haugsdorf. This typical Weinviertel village starts with a whole street of wine cellars. Small buildings, with an entrance to a large cellar.

When we greet a few people sitting outside one of these buildings, a man asks if we are thirsty. We are, so we get invited for a glass of wine. Luckily there’s also water accompanying the drink. Christian is a friendly man who loves a chat and regularly invites strangers that pass by for a drink. It makes his life interesting indeed!

We enjoy our time with him. It’s as if time stopped when we sat down to chat and drink together. Bot we do need to continue. Before we leave, we give him something for his hospitality and we get a bottle ‘for the road’ 😅.

We get lunch at the supermarket and walk across the Buchberg to Mailberg. On the top we climb a style into a wild pig reserve (so it seems). A strange, smelly part of our walk. We are happy when we get out again near Mailberg and walk through the vineyards (now much more clustered) to the village.

At the start of the village, we reach our 3000 km point. We celebrate this at our hotel with Christians bottle of wine and a brotzeit meal with bread, cheese and ham from the supermarket, since the only restaurant of the town is closed today 🤨😅.

We have a relaxed evening and I make the last arrangements with Gregory for sending my new backpack. I ripped mine at the frame a few weeks ago and when I emailed them about this, they offered to replace it. What a great service this company has! They’re sending a new backpack to a store in Vienna, so I can pick it up on my way. They have a very helpful customer service.

Mark is feeling a lot better, my new backpack is coming, we had a beautiful walk and had a lovely meeting today with Christian. What a great way to celebrate 3000 km!