Monat: Mai 2017

Today we slept a little bit longer until 8.30am.

We ate the rest of our yesterdays dinner and packed our stuff.

We decided not finish our first stage of the journey in Aachen. We need a longer rest for about 1-2Days without walking
and that would mean we would make a stop until the rest of the planned time, so we could drive back home now instead.
It was about 10kilometres till Aachen about 2 hours walking.

we concentrated on the walking itself, so I did not shot any pictures until we reached the Aachener Dom, a really huge
and impressive cathedral.
Unluckily there was a restauration process on one part of the cathedral, so I only had one side to take some photos without the scaffolding.

It was just a kilometre from the cathedral to the main trainstation.

We bought two tickets and luckily the train was already there and waited for us. We had two hours until Duisburg, there we had to took another train. From there it was just 20minutes.

Seems strange that we only needed two and a half hour for what we needed 8 days on our feet.

As we finally reached Voerde, our hometown, we saw a car near the trainstation. It was the car of my grandma to whom we were on the way. She was taking lunch in a small bistro.

So we stepped in and said hello. Same procedure as every year. A meeting with my  grandma always ends up in lots of beer and other tasty drinks.

This was the first stage of the journey, but we decided that we will make the next one this year, at least in fall.

We woke up on our regular time around 7am.

We took a bath in the whirlpool than we went in the bistro and ordered breakfast from the buffet.

Our way today should be dominated by walking again nearby the river Worm.

After a couple of kilometres we came to an old mill. We obviously looked very interested, because we were invited in a coffee real quick.

About half an hour later we left the mill.

Every meter more brought us closer to the border of the netherlands.

Of course we made a short excourse there to a small tavern, where we met a nice old guy from around our hometown. The world is one big town.

He normally lives in Africa, but is now since a couple of months here in the netherlands.

It was a nice hour to spend with him.

We followed the road and the river.

Again it was a beautiful way through the woods.

We saw an interesting Memorial stone.

And later on a blindworm crossed our way.

After about 20km our bodies and specially our feet struggled. We ordered a Hotel room again in a town called Würselen and we had to made our way.

As we reached the hotel we had nearly no more energy. Checked in, payed the bill, went to our room and took a shower. We went to the supermarket around the block and bought some things for dinner.

Now we are lying on the bed with tons of food and drinks and watch TV.

Asterix by the vikings.

Nice ending of the hard day.

We ordered our breakfast for 8:30am so we had the Chance to sleep a little bit longer.

This was the plan, indeed we woke up at 7am, but we slept very well.

The breakfast was good, buns, cheese, jam, eggs, orange juice and of course coffee.

After the meal we packed our backpacks and gave back the room keys.

As a little present we gave the tavern host the white rose we received after our yesterdays dinner next door and we promised to come back during the next medieval festival there.

The weather forecast was not the best, but it should be stable and about 20 degrees celsius.

Our route led us the first few kilometres in a really nice and quiet river called Rur. Some beautiful landscape. A good variety from the last days.

Not only the nature itself was really refreshing, we saw quite a lot of different animals today. Mostly geese, Ducks and swans but the number was quite impressive.

Some kind of animal crossed our way a couple of times and I was the first time abled to use my macro lense in my camera for a living being.

A couple of kilometres later we had a little discussion about our plans, the walking itself and our tired and powerless bodies.

We made a long break in result of it.

Coffee, nougat-donut and strawberry cake.

Could be worse,hum?

On top, the saleswoman in the bakery gave us some hints for the next route and additionally she filled up our water bottles for free.

She would have allowed us to camp in her garden, but up to this point she had to work about 5 hours more and in this case, no option.

The best point was indeed that we found a 10euro bill. Lucky people we are.

We followed the way she told us, and it was totally the right decision.

Rapefields, old farms and strongholds nearby the way next to a smal river called Wurm.

As we decided to make a stop to refresh our feet, we pulled some attraction and after a short while we were surrounded by cows. For the international audience, the black and white ones are called “Schwarzbunte” in german.

As we finished our stop I can’t hold myself and i had to touch and stroke them. In return they followed us about 500m to the end of the pasture.

Our personal cow parade.

Short before Geilenkirchen, our final destination for today, we saw the most impressive retirement residence I have ever seen. Stronghold Trips.

The day comes to an end and we again chose a stay in an hotel.

Not the cheapest choice but a comfortable and safe one.

We chose a good one. In direct contact to the train station and a 3 star hotel. Wasn’t the plan, but simply the whirlpool is worth the money after 5 days of trekking.

We die some last shoping in the next supermaket and now we’re sitting here typing our dairies and drinking beer.

Tomorrows aim is aachen, and this could be the last day of this stage, maybe. We’ll See tomorrow.

Cheers everybody.

Today was  not a good  day.  The weather was fine but our bodies wanted their tribute.  The last march was a little bit harder than excepted.

I didn’t shot fotos all day long until we reached Wassenberg, our first mini goal, by around 3pm .Our intention was to take the local camping site but of course it was closed and on top the weather changed and we could hear some thunder growling in the far , yet.

So we decided to take a hotel room again and  make ourself a nice and comfortable evening in Wassenberg.

So we had a warm bed , time to make the laundry and for me to load up the blogs of the last days, because we have a stable internet here.

Wassenberg is a nice town around an old castle. Pretty little roads, old buildings and really charming.

We get ourself a little cheese plate and some beer in a restaurant right in front of our hotel.

At the end Steffi got a little present, we were a little bit confused.

We walked a little bit through Wassenberg, but nearly all shops were closed at the moment and then the weather changed. Two interesting buildings crossed our way.

I hope you can see it on the right hand picture. A pikachu with a n arrow throughthe breast. I like it.

After a couple of beer later we decided to go to bed early , hopefully the  next day will be better.

The night was horrible. Around 0am we woke up by some noises right next to our tent.
It sounded like some kind of crying and dying child. Really scary shouts.
We were really scared. Steffi took a look in the internet and found out, that it was a deer with
some warning calls. But there was no sleep for the next hours. Some kind of noise preventing ear plugs solved this
problem.
I want to see anybody of you hearing this noises right next to you, you didn`t know what it is, not to be scared.

The morning instead was quite beautiful. Sun and birdsounds. Nice to wake up.
The first step out of the tent made clear that the night was really cold. A thin layer of ice was on the ground and on
the freshly grown weed.

The bad point is that the tent was pretty wet and therefor we have to dry it. Luckily there were a couple of old wagon
the farmer has obviously no need for in the next few minutes.

We grabbed our stuff and followed the road to a town called Oedt. Not really much to see, excapt a big impressive church in the middle of the town

A quick visit by the lockal bakery for the biggerst hunger was the next step.
We left Oedt as quick as we stepped in and followed the road up to Süchteln. Nothing really nice to see so we nearly
passed by, except a quick visit in the local tavern. 12am and opened, time for a repleshingly brewed drink.
A nice old lady gave us a hint for a really nice shortcut.
She was right.

The road to Dülken was nice to walk. Nearly all of the way lead us through the woods. We passed by rivers, a chapel and
did a lot of meters up and down. Funny, we passed by an highrope parcour garden in the woods, like the one we work in
the summer season in Haltern.

We reached Dülken about 1:30pm. We visited the local kathedral and one of the countless cafés.
There we figured out our final destinationfor the day. It should be the Gasthof Timmermans in Schwaam.
About another 10km to go.

From this point on our feed began to hurt.
Not just a little bit, real bad.
We have not muh to tell about the last part. We were just focused on the next steps until we reached the hotel.
I have to remember myself to thank my wife for this decision, because this place is really awesome.
Pretty location, nice tiny floors and rooms, good beer and better food.
I will remember this place for the future.

Another day is over now. We didn’t made as much kilometres as we wanted to, but we finished a distance as long as we could.
But let’s start at the beginning.

The day started in the best way I could imagine. Sunshine on mass and a free breakfast.
We met the owner of the youth-hostel very early in the morning, who told us that we can use the shower and toilettes if we
want to and invited us to take a breakfast there.
Not too bad when you remember the fact we got our stay there for free as well.

So we packed our stuff and get in the woods.
Best weather for walking.

After a couple of kilometres we traveled through a town called Stelen.
A really nice place to be and they have a nice church as well.

For some reason a have a fable for some religious arciecture, I have no idea why.
We kept on walking until thepoint Steffi has to return to her Minecraft adiction. *rolleseyes*

A couple of hours and a city called Kempen later we asked a couple of farmers if we could set up our tent on some of
their fields and astonishingly the second one we visited gave us his ok. (The first one was not at home so we had no
chance to ask.)

Good place for the night.

Now we finally started the next episode of our journey. Nearly 3 years passed by since we did the first one.
We are so glad we decided to start today.

In fact we wanted to start yesterday, but Steffi has to take a visit by the doctor. So I had some last chances to make the
last shopping and bring our car to the service station.

Around 11am we started. My grandpa brought us to the point we stopped on Day 1.
Again we took the ferry to set over to the other shore of the rhine.

After a quick stop at Steffis grandpa, yeah it was some family-day-thing, we started. Heavy loaded backpacks and a couple
of kilometres in front of us. We had an aim for the first stage and we want to reach a place called St.Michelturm in
Schaephuysen, yeah I know it’s some kind of fucking hard to pronounce.

We passed by some beautiful blooming rape fields. Could have been better, if the weather has been a little more sunny, but
we had fun.

We reached and left some smal villages behind us until we reached a bigger one called Vluyn. There we had to stop and get
an ice cream and a latte macciato whith some special flavour.
Not really much more to walk we stepped over some really curious sign on our way. No idea what is going to cross over
the street the next two kilometres.

One our later we reached Schaephuysen. There is a big dairy with a big graffity on the wall which made my day.

As we reached the St.Michelsturm, we had some little problems getting some place for the night, but as usual, some friendly
words leading to a better posiotioning.
We set up our tent and I managed it to kill all our data volume for the mobileinternet within a couple of minutes.
So I’m sitting here, typing my words in an editor file and tomorrow we will set up our article in the next place where we have
free internet.

Good night everybody.

Okay we did it. The waiting time is over now and there is only one more night we have to sleep. Hopefully we will.

Our initial plan was to start today, but Steffi has to struggle with a very obstinately cold and therfor we will visit the doctor the next morning and then we will start our journey.