The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;
Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;
Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;
Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say.

[JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Tuesday 10 July 2018

Monday 6 July - Along the River Wutach at Bachheim

I don't know whether this region is saturated with good walks, or whether by random chance we just keep hitting the good ones. Either way, we had another nice little outing today.

I hadn't seen an elevation profile in advance, but I suppose it stood to reason that, as we were going to be walking alongside a river, there would likely be some descent to reach it. It turned out to be 170m, which isn't much, but was made to feel more so by being covered in a relatively short distance (plus the knowledge that at some point we were going to have to regain it).

Once we reached the waterway the initial section alongside it was pleasant but not overly remarkable. Then we reached the first bridge:

See the 'window' in the rock face on the other side of the bridge?

From there we were walking along the very base of a limestone cliff, from under which, at a couple of points, there were streams gushing out:


It was a lovely and interesting place to be - nicely shaded on a hot and sunny afternoon.

Even when not under the cliffs, it was a steep sided valley, and in one place nature had won, by taking out the path with a land-slip. No problem, said the path maintainers, we'll just chuck in a couple of rustic bridges and everyone can continue to enjoy the walk as normal:

It was a small diversion to the other bank of the river - you can see both of the temporary bridges in this snap. Judging by her yelp, the woman just ahead of us was taken by surprise by the bounciness of the first.

The bridge that was to take us back across the river for the final time, for the return leg of our circuit, was a more substantial affair:

Why the roof? No idea!

A short distance up a side stream started our re-ascent, which then took us through forest and meadows. The sky was starting to cloud over by the time we got back to within sight of Bertie, but it was still another hour or so before the sun was obscured and the day started to cool.

Whereas our last walk was advertised as 8km but came out as 10, today's was advertised as 8 but came out at 6.5km (including the bit we added by way of an exploration of the area immediately surrounding our nightstop).

4 comments:

  1. Ho! Absolutely loving both yr blogs! That's a covered bridge - protects the wooden structure from weather. There are still a fair number of 18th and 19th century structures standing - mostly in Central Europe. Tho' you might've seen The Bridges of Madison County (1995, Clint Eastwood, Meryl Streep). Or read the book.

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    1. This bridge was clearly much newer than those dates, but it would explain it if it was a replica of the original bridge. The fact that only this bridge (of the three permanent bridges we used in this immediate area) was what bamboozled me as to why this one alone would have a roof - but a plausible explanation would be that a bridge has stood at this point for far longer than at the others.

      Dare I admit that I have neither seen the film nor read the book?

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    1. Quite probably, but why only on this bridge and not the others in the area? I think Humphrey has probably answered that question: that historically this particularly bridge always had a roof, thus it still does, whereas by the time the other bridges were built they didn't feel the need to add such extra protection.

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