Weather: 🌤️🌤️☀️☀️🌤️
Lunch: 🥪🥪🥪🥪🥪 (5 out 5, flammkuchen and kaiserschmarrn in Cregelingen)
Track: 🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪 (3 out of 5, nice trail through forest, fields and villages)
Marking of the trail: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4 out of 5 stars, mostly easy to follow)
Trailmarking vs GPX: ❔❔❔❔(4 out of 5 question marks, the trail follows neither the ERA gpx nor the option in my app. It took quite some guesswork today to find the correct route. We made a hike of our own in the end)
Campsite: ⛺⛺⛺⛺ (4 out of 5, flat, next to a bathable river with picknick table)
I have never: made a reservation for breakfast while free camping in the forest. But it was a good idea I did!
Happiness level of hikers: 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉(5 out of 5, Clean for the first time in 7 days and 4 deserts on 1 day)
Name of followed trail: Main Donau weg, sort of…
We leave our rubbish in the bin at the tower. I also leave my shoes and hiking pole behind. The shoes have carried me from Schiedam to here, more than 1000 km! Well used, time for the next pair to take over. The hiking pole is with me since my other one washed away in a river in New Zealand. It has served me well for thousands of kilometers. After a short thanks, I leave them in the bin, at a place with a view.
We walk down the hill to the bakery, where I made reservations for breakfast! We have a feast for breakfast, with strawberry cake, fluffy bread and smoothies! Happy and full, we leave to start our hiking day.
We hike the Main Donau weg, but soon the trail leaves my GPX track. After a while, we miss a sign, so we guess where it might have gone. This is the start of our navigation struggle of today. The trail we end up following is a wine trail that goes through the fields and through the forest. We have a nice break in the shade there, eventhough Mark squashes my tea egg with his foot… Luckily we can make it round again with our wooden marble from the marble track we did a few weeks ago.
A couple that walks by tell us that this is the best forest. No need to go any further to Istanbul, according to them! We have a nice chat with them and continue. Great to see that people live their own area so much, but we’ll have to see before we decide 😁😅. We walk to Cregelingen, a village on the Tauber with some amazing houses build on the old city wall. Here it’s time for lunch. The restaurant that has a spot in the shade for us has flammkuchen on the menu; flammkuchen it is! And: kaiserschmarrn die dessert! Second dessert of the day! After our lunch, we pick up E8 and walk through the fields to Finstelohr. By then we’re all quite hot and in need of a drink. We look for a bench in the shade, when I hear voices. It sounds like a Biergarten… When I walk towards the sound, I find a café, that is indeed open, but only for a birthday party, it seems. A lady in a festive dress sees us looking around and invites us in. We end up ordering a drink to have in the garden and get a piece of cake as a present! Third dessert of the day.
Refreshed, we continue and get some water in the next village, before we walk the final 5 km to Tauberscheckenbach, where we pitch tent at a picnic spot along the Tauber. That means: time to have a bath! It’s been a week since we had a proper shower, so we’ve been looking forward to this moment for a while. We even started composing bathing songs like ‘Tobbern in die Tauber and ‘1 keer trek je de conclusie, douchen is een illusie’.
As soon as the tent is pitched, we go for a bath. The river is cold, the stones are wobbly, but ahhhh it’s so good!
Happy and clean, we make dinner. With a dessert of course! After that, it’s soon time for bed, because we’re all tired after a long, but great day of hiking.