Dit zijn de afstanden die er per dag gefietst zijn. Dag 4 was de rustdag.Dag 5 en 6 waren de dagen dat we rond hebben gereden in de Veluwe zonder bagage.
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Black Forest - Day 8 : From Herrenwies to Badener Höhe to Holoh to Baden-Baden and back to Herrenwies
In the morning we bought freshly made bread and continued being happy about our dinner last night. If it wasn't for the dinner we would have been starving. We left without luggage and of course again uphill. We passed the friends of nature house towards the Badener Höhe tower, which were both visible from the campsite. Along the way we saw two nordic walkers, who we didn't mind seeing. Doing that on a flat terrain is weird, but on a mountain it makes more sense. The Badenor Höhe is 1003 meters high. The climb to reach it was pretty tough, especially because it wasn't a paved path but a gravel road. On top we made a picture of the campsite and some other views.
Left is the village, towards the right you can see the campsite
Us two on top of the Badener Höhe.
We could also see the Teufelsmühle, the tower we visited two days ago. This one had metal plates showing what was visible on the horizon and how far away they were, such as villages and mountain tops.
In the distance you can see the nearby villages
This time it was easier to go down the stairs. Back on our bikes we needed to descent towards Forbach, which lay 700 meters lower. The first part of the descent would have been difficult even when walking. It was an long series of loose boulders. We both managed to stay on our bike for the whole 150 meters without crashing. Later the road was still steep and we had to go slow because we couldn't brake effectively. A bit later was a steeper part, about 100 meters long. I went in to it going 40 km/h, continued braking the entire time, and exited still going 40 km/h. I don't know what I would have done if it would have been longer. Here are some pictures of the river we past.
The river was dry, even though it had rained a lot.
The flora in the Black Forest
There were a lot of people hiking in the forest. Someone gave us directions to Holoh, one of the mountains behind Forbach. During the descent to Forbach we took a shortcut which was not a lot faster, but definitely more fun. Here you can see how narrow and steep it was.
The pad was about 30 cm wide and covered with stones and twigs. It was also very steep and slippery.
The road was littered with rocks. Twice there was also a tree on the road which we had to lift our bikes over. In Forbach we wanted to buy food for lunch and then climb Holoh before descending to Baden-Baden. Unfortunately we arrived in Forbach at noon and all stores were closed until 2:30. We would have to wait 2,5 hours.
We decided to first climb Holoh and then buy food in the village. Holoh would be a 988 meters climb, even more than Badener Höhe. It was also a lot steeper and the road was filled with loose sand and rocks. It took a lot of effort to get to the summit. Along the way we took this picture of Forbach:
After rain comes shine, Forbach looked nice in the sun.
Another close-up.
It took about 2 hours to reach Holoh. The signs were very confusing. First you had Holoh, then another village, then a Holoh walking route, and you had the Holoh viewpoint and a Holoh restaurant. We did reach it in the end. The view was nice, Badener Höho was also visible.
When we walked up I smelled a not so nice smell, which turned out to be Bram's t-shirt. There were a lot of people on the tower, but they were all fake. They had driven up by car and then walked the 200 meters to the tower. On the way back we had to descent to reach Reichental. Fortunately the stores there had opened again. We bought 4 chocolate buns and 4 apples that we ate at once. The sun was shining brightly. The road to Baden-Baden passed through Gernsbach, which we had past before on our way to the second campsite. The road from there to Baden-Baden was littered with text. Somewhere it said 2005. I couldn't figure out what it was, then I saw "Jan" and "Floyd" and thought 'wait it wouldn't be Jan Ulrich and Floyd Landis?'. This turned out to be the case, because later it also said "go Lance".
This is where the tour de france passed in 2005. It wasn't a classified mountain, but still steep.
The road wasn't steep, but pretty long. In Baden-Baden we went to an ATM and then to the city center. Baden-Baden is also called Brahmstadt and there was a Brahmstrase, I think Brahm was a composer, Bram of course needed to get a picture.
Bram at the Brahmsstrasse.
We ate ice cream and enjoyed the views in Baden-Baden. For dinner we ate pasta and a tasty bread with raisins, which we ate in the park. On the way back we saw 4 cyclists. The road towards the campsite went steadily uphill with an incline of about 4%, for 12 kilometers. We managed to pass some other cyclists, we could hear them sigh.
Today we had also bought an apfelstrudel, which looked tasty on the packaging. We thought we just had to defrost and heat it, which turned out not to be the case. It needed to be backed in an oven for 20 minutes. Coincidentally the campsite didn't have an oven at all. That's why we put it in the microwave. It didn't end up very crusty, nor tasty, but the apple filling was good. It was also nice that it was warm, because it was freezingly cold in the evening.
Here is the apfelstrudel as it exited the microwave, together with a picture of how it was supposed to look.
We took a picture of the moon, it looked nice with clouds in the background.
At night I had to warm my feet before being able to sleep. The following night I put my jacket around them which helped a lot.
Distance cycled : 76 km