Having a routine is important. It creates order and sense. It diffuses thoughts of “What’s the point?”. Helps to give a little ‘raison d’être’ to each day. But sometimes it’s necessary to break out of a routine. If only for a short time.
We’ve probably been on hundreds of walks. At home and abroad. Repeated quite a few favourites too, especially around the New Forest. However, there’s no better feeling than to take on a new and adventurous walk. Especially when in a land far from home.
Today, we break out from our cosy routine of city sightseeing. Pull on real walking boots. The local landscape swarms with ‘nature’ trails. Most of them within short starting distance from camp. Site owner Natasha says that all routes are colour coded and can be found on the brilliant app, mapy.cz. It gets dutifully downloaded. Kamenná brána the reason for our 12K loop.
With no hedgerows to cram and delimit the rolling Czechia landscape, it seems bigger than it probably is. Especially at ground level. Everywhere is as lush and green as back home. Surely, there can be no better colour combination than blue, green and yellow.
To get up there we skirt an enormous planting of rapeseed and then turn left. This is the easy bit.
It’s not long before our first little tester aligns itself with our thighs. Silently whispering “OK then. It’s 5K and all uphill. Let’s see what you’re made of.”
At this point, we thought we were supposed to be following the ‘red’ route. After an hour we’d seen not one red mark. Not even a drop of blood. Eventually remembering that that was planned for another day! Doh!!! We carry on up regardless.
The exciting terrain is a joy to be within. Feels almost pre-historic. Thinking about that, it probably is! We’re not the first to walk this way . . .
After a two hour climb of delight and with all muscles still in good working order, it’s time for some sarnies.
We’ve had the ‘mountain walk’ all to ourselves and don’t expect to see another living soul. We forget however, that part of this ridge borders Poland. Then an alien couple suddenly materialise to our right. As if beamed down from the Enterprise. After a polite “good-day” is exchanged, he says “We’ve just crossed from Poland.” “Ah! Illegal immigrants are you?” “Don’t worry” he replies, “We’re not carrying any guns!”
Now then . . . is this what all the fuss is about . . .?
