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Journal: |
I was still annoyed with myself for losing my credit/debit cards
and money when I woke up in the morning and went down for breakfast
at 8am, checking nothing had been found at hotel reception on the
way. In the end, I cancelled the cards by phone last night,
figuring they were now long gone. I also spent some time last
night working out where I could get to a cash machine the quickest
via bus from the hotel. There were about five different bus
routes (a couple only ran on weekends and holidays to service hikers
and mountain-bikers) operating from the hotel and I chose one that
would get me to a village with a train station, Ottenhofen, in less
than 30 minutes, leaving at 9:25am. There were quite a few
footnotes on the bus timetables I couldn't understand (my German is
even worse than my French), but the bus turned up as hoped and I got
off in Ottenhofen and quickly found an ATM and became solvent again.
The hotel had accepted one of my other credit cards and the 8 Euros
I had in loose change was enough to pay for the bus.
I was
starting to feel things were coming together again when, while I was
waiting to get a couple of rolls I had ordered for lunch prepared, a
bus back to Mummelsee came and went, much earlier than I had
expected. Analysis of the bus timetable revealed that it was 2
hours until the next one, meaning I wouldn't get back onto the trail
until after noon. Curses! Oh well, I decided to make the
best of it on a mild and overcast morning, by reading my eBook,
watching the comings and goings of weekend hikers and bikers (some
arriving by vintage steam engine), and listening to a large German
brass band that conveniently set itself up at a nearby band shell.
Very pleasant. There were hundreds, if not thousands of
Germans out for a day's hiking, mountain-biking or sightseeing in
the Black Forest. They came in all shapes and sizes with all
kinds of gear and it was quite inspiring. (I did notice that
not many mountain bikers wore toe clips, even though most of the
trails seemed pretty tame.)
Eventually my bus came and I
returned to Mummelsee and immediately rejoined Westweg at 12:45pm
aware that my accommodation options were uncertain and might be
limited. The trail stayed high (about 1000m) on the western
ridge (hence Westweg) of the Black Forest mountains and, for long
stretches, had uninterrupted views far to the west, south and north.
The scenery was excellent and it was not surprising that so many
Germans chose this particular area for their weekend recreation.
As had been the case yesterday, the trail passed several small ski
resorts, one with ski jumps, which didn't look too bad from the
bottom, but looked terrifying from the top. That's a sport
that takes some courage.
At one point the trail crossed some
alpine heathy meadows which made a change from the conifer forests
and reminded me that I was quite high. My original plan,
assuming that I had all day, was to hike to a place called
Alexanderschanze where the map indicated there was some kind of
hotel. About 7km before I reached it, I noticed what looked
like another hotel off to the left that wasn't marked on the map.
I toyed with the idea of checking it out, not knowing what was
ahead, but it would have meant backtracking a little, so I ploughed
on. Sadly, the hotel at Alexanderschanze was closed and
somewhat derelict. Curses! Plan B was to hike off the
trail down a road a few kilometres to a village called Kniebis that
looked large enough to have a hotel. By this time it was after
6pm and I feared a bivvy sack in the forest without dinner would be
my fate. Kniebis turned out to be a kind of winter sports
village and was quite spread out. I set off down a side road
with signs indicating a hotel and guesthouse with little optimism
given the place seemed to be geared towards winter and most houses
were closed up. I finally found a hotel which seemed eerily
quiet at about 7pm and I wandered in the unlocked main door but
couldn't find anybody, eventually blundering into the kitchen where
a chef (who turned out to be one half of the ownership team) pointed
me in the right direction.
The lady owner seemed unsure about
whether she wanted me in the hotel but I gradually won her over and
her daughter, who spoke some English and was helping serve dinner to
a couple of other guests, came over to help me understand what was
being offered. In the end it all turned out very well.
They took my dinner order and had it ready for when I returned after
a shower; they explained that it was a public holiday tomorrow and
called to book me a room in the village I was aiming for; and they
offered to prepare me a lunch for the trail tomorrow.
Everything was at a very reasonable price and the dinner was
excellent.
I watched the German version of Mama Mia as I
updated my diary and felt happy with the way the day turned out in
the end.
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