Distance: 23.5km
Duration: 5h and 1.5h break
Weather: rain in the morning and sunny after 2pm
This was the first time that I started my walk in the rain – and I loved it! As long as it doesn’t rain heavily and with the right rain gear on, I enjoy walking in the rain. Not only is it less exhausting but it also encourages me to do longer distances between breaks. Why? Quite simple – you can’t sit down anywhere unless there’s a cabin etc along the way. Therefore, I pushed myself much harder to keep going. Due to the weather, I met only a few cyclists on the way and most of them looked quite unhappy with the weather.
After lunch, the sun came out again and it felt quite tropical with the humidity and the warmth. The good thing was that my rain clothes dried fairly quickly.
I treated myself with coffee and cake before crossing the Elbe via ferry. The final stretch took me for a few kilometres through a fairly wild growing forest. The path was overgrown with many nettles and thistles, so I really had to look down where I walk. As it was a bit monotonous, I also had my audiobook on and was fully emerged into ‘days that changed the world’. So while I was walking with my gaze down and the concentration on the audiobook, I suddenly heard something snort. I looked up in astonishment and looked right into the faces of two adult wild boars and five freshlings. I am not sure who was more surprised to see the other but I just froze and so did they. The family was about 10m away before they started running deeper in the forest. After a few metres they stopped though which made me feel uneasy. However, when I saw that there was one freshling left behind who they waited for, I found it quite cute how caring they acted.
The remaining stretch of the forest was about 4km long and I wasn’t sure how scared I should be. To be on the safe side, I turned up my audiobook on loudspeaker as sort of early warning system. Later on, three more freshlings were running away but I didn’t see the parents. I don’t think I ever walked so fast with my backpack on my back and nearly 20km under my belt. When I got to the B&B, I asked the owners about the wild boars. Apparently, there are many of them in that forest as it’s closed season where they can’t be hunted. That’s why the roam so freely. And as long as you don’t chase the little ones, they shouldn’t attack a human. It’s only dangerous for dogs, especially when they are hunting dogs and they go after them. Still, I am not too keen to see them up so close in case that there is a misunderstanding that I could want to harm their freshlings. There, I fully support a peaceful coexistence 😃
Despite this adrenaline boost, I could have walked for quite another while. It made me realise how much impact the temperature has and how the heat can really tire you out.
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