A Walk in the Woods - and along fields and streams

It rained every day for more than a week, and it has been unseasonably cool - as in we have had the heat on in July! But today was promised to be OK and not so cool - a high of 70° and mostly sunny.  Let's take a walk, Werner said.  OK.

We'd heard about this area from a friend - the Nordpfad (the Northern Trail), a collection of marked walks through moors and forests and little valleys.  We picked a relatively short trail - 10 k - and packed up.

Actually, a couple of water bottles would have been enough, but a picnic is always nice, and you never know if you might want to take a little nap or read a book.  And Werner is ever prepared for rain no matter the forecast.

The starting point is outside a very small village about an hour's drive from home, and we were shocked to see so many cars parked there.  Late to the party it seems.

One of the "highlights" of the walk is the various types of surfaces, and that was no exaggeration.  Asphalt, cobblestones, gravel, needle-covered paths through the woods, grassy walks.

If we hadn't brought our own, we could have fed ourselves along the way -  wild blueberries and raspberries - tasty they were!

(No, these are not the deadly berries from The Hunger Games!)

And Burial Mounds!  Lots of them from the Early Bronze Age (1600-1200 BCE).  Some were easily identified,

others overgrown.

By this time, we were hungry for real food and lucky us, we found a picnic bench for our spread - slaw, fried chicken, grapes, watermelon, tomatoes.  And fudge..

Back on the trail, there were flowers

and bridges over the Oste, some in better shape than others,

and for part of the time, amazing blue skies.

10K seems to be a challenge for my left hip these days but it was worth the effort.