Around 9 am we started packing our stuff. The tent was very dewy although it hadn’t rained during the night. We gathered around the camping fire with the other hikers and ate breakfast together. Today’s hike was to be about 14 kilometres long, so we started the tour around 10 am.
Dewy tent at the camping site
The first part of the trek went through the forest alongside the main road, leading us later on into deeper woods and at the end through the region’s many wine yards.
The tree was rich in cherries
Somewhere halfways we passed the Rietburg chairlift (German: Rietburgbahn) that runs from the village Rhodt and up 535 metres to the ruins of the medieval castle of Rietburg. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to take a ride up but a few hundred metres later we stopped for cake and coffee at Rietania-Waldgaststätte, a small guesthouse.
Best apfelstrudel ever (Rietania-Waldgaststätte)
Senior couple enjoying their day
We passed one end of the small town Sankt Martin on our way to the final camping place, on the highest mountain of the region, Kalmit. The way up was steep and with our blistery feet, indeed a challenge. But on the way we met an older gentleman (approximately 75 years old), running the same route to the top of the mountain. He greeted us and wished us a nice hike promising that the hard way would pay off. This gave us extra energy to finish the last challenge of the day.
The way up the mountain Kalmit
We had nice weather on the way up
At the camping place the tent was set up for the last night. We had food left for two dinners, but ate it all up. Somehow when eating in the wild, the food, even if it is something as simple as pasta and cheese from a tube, tastes special and delicious.
Tortellini a la Kalmit
Looking out for the fox
A man responsible for this wild camping place came to greet us and warn us that there was a fox living in the forests and that we should’t be frightened if he payed us a visit during the night. It was apparently a fox used to people, but would sometimes steal boots from hikers so we were precocious and hanged the boots high on a tree.
We did not see the fox this night, maybe he was curling up somewhere under a tree, because the night on Kalmit was the coldest one on our tour.
This post is a part of the following article: Wild Camping in Germany