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Walking along the Via Romea Germanica from Stade, near Hamburg, in Germany south through Austria and Italy to Rome.

Thursday 12 April 2018

Hasselfelde and Nuestadt / Harz – Days 16 and 17 on the way.

Leaving Elbingerode was interesting!  There are some things that should be easy, but for some reason turn into a bit of an exercise.  Fortunately I stopped on the way out and bought some lunch, because I mucked around trying to exit the town and as a consequence was running later than intended. 

Then I got distracted by the enormous workings at the limestone quarry.  It is huge, as you can see from the pictures.  It is also quite noisy, and so was glad to get into the forest and the peace and quiet.  The weather has definitely started to warm up (on some days!) and as the day was quite warm, I did away with my first layer of clothing.  I haven’t sent the merino layer home yet as the Alps are still to come, but for the moment I can safely put them towards the bottom of my bag.
 The massive limestone quarry


A nice rest stop further along - away from the noise of the quarry

Up until now the felled trees have just been a spectacle.  However they have now started to become an obstacle.  On more than one occasion I have had to clamber over or around trees blocking the path, and sometime the signs have been felled along with the trees!  Coming into Hassafelde there were side belts of trees just flattened, though these were not an obstacle because it was a road, not a very busy one (a couple of cars maybe), but because of that the tidying becomes a priority.
A reservoir that I walked beside for many kilometres
I had to divert onto the paddock to get around this obstacle

In Hasselelde I stayed in the Church Office building, sleeping on the couch.  This was what Jens had organized for me.  It was nice and convenient for departure the next day – always a bonus.    For once I got straight out of the town and was in the first village quite quickly.  That, however, was where the word quick got lost, as did I, frequently!
 The church in Hassefelde.  The building I stayed in is at the back,  on the left 
 The couch I slept on
Hasselfelde

Soon after the village of Stiege, a pretty place on a lake, I did nothing but waste time.  Sometimes I went one way, only to decide it was the wrong way and return to try and find another sign (they were scarce!).  Sometimes the path I had been following (starting with a sign) would come out at a place where there were no signs and so I would have to cast back and forth looking for one.  At other times the signs had information on them that didn’t tally with the information I had and so I would spend time trying to work out if that meant I would be heading in the correct direction. 
 Looking bac towards Hasselfelde, across the sodden paddocks

The lake at the village of  Stiege

The biggest frustration with today though was that I had to negotiate so many obstacles.  At one point the path headed straight through about a dozen felled trees, yet to be cleared.  Fortunately there was a bare paddock next to the path so I could detour through that, but then I had to make sure I had returned to a pretty skimpy little path and not got on the wrong one. 
This little chap bustled across my path

I had left at 7.30 in the morning, and imagine my frustration when at 12.30 I had only covered 11 kilometres!  When the forecast rain arrived an hour later and I slipped and skidded my way over tree debris into Neustadt, I decided it was time to call it a day – about 9 kilometres short of where I intended to go.  I will have to review where I am going as I have had quite a few shorter days, and I think I will need to catch a train or bus to catch up, otherwise I won’t make it to Rome before I have to fly home!
Just an idea of the felled trees.....
.....and the stumps left by some of them
 Neustadt
the church at Neustadt, and the interior (below)


1 comment:

  1. Lack of signage certainly takes away some pleasure but funnily quite often creates fun stories and memories. Keep it coming, absolutely loving it, it's become the thing to check first thing each morning.....wonder what Janet got up to this time? 😀😁😂

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