Lyrics “One Foot Before the Other” – Frank Turner, 2011
Except for the Felix Hagan post, I still haven’t shared any photos from my trip to London five weeks ago. I haven’t even started to sort through them or tp start editing. Since then I have been to another gig, where I took photos, I have visited the unofficial Banksy Exhibition where I also took tons of photos. I might just work my way backwards through it all.
Last Saturday was a lovely, sunny spring day here, so I decided to make the most of it and tackle another section of the Westphalian route of the “Camino” (Way of St. James in English, Jakobsweg in German), which I had started doing in September 2024.
[I actually wrote the draft for this post already last Sunday, but editing the photos took a while, because… life and work and the whole wide world…]
Part 05: Münster-Dorbaum to Münster-Hiltrup
(KM 61 – 79)
Saturday, 21st March 2026
Originally the plan for had been to use public transport for getting me to the starting point of each of my sections and back home for most of the Westphalian Camino. But German Rail / public transport is so unreliable these days that I often opt for a mixture of car and train to minimize the lack of cancelled trains or missed connections. Once again I drove for about an hour, parked my car, took the train and bus to my starting point of the day and basically… walked back to my car :-).
Some mishap (of my own making) with navigating to that train station meant I missed the 7:41 train which I had planned to take and I had to wait for 30 more minutes. Time to document the fog and street art at the station.
I was dreading this section 05 a tiny bit, because I knew most of it wouldn’t be walking on soft ground on tracks in nature, but on tarmac and cobbles on pavements in the (historic) city of Münster. Even most of the tracks I walked on the outskirts were tarmac, but it was a track lined with trees and between fields and forest and meadows and such. Baby Christmas trees, Snowdrops, an makeshift tipi…?
I passed House Dyckburg, which I had never heard of before and was fascinated by that small church, which was part of the ensemble.
I was raised Catholic and it’s sort of ingrained to have a look into churches, when I come across one unexpectedly. To my surprise inside there were a handful of people celebrating mass. On a Saturday morning and not in German. Not in a language I recognized either. After I quietly sneaked out again I found a noticeboard outside which stated that the Roman-Catholic congregation had transferred this church and it’s use to a Romanian – Orthodox congregation. That explains the unknown language.
Some way further on I came across a clear sign that I’m nearing central (urban) Münster, which is considered by many to be the (or at least one of the) Bicycling Capitals in Germany. Rightfully so. They have quite a few “Bicycle Roads”, where cyclist have right of way and cars – if even allows – have to drive slowly and make way for cyclists. (For some reason I deleted a photo of the red-pink-ish tarmac with big cycle icon on it that Saturday night when I went through the photos on my camera).
66.4 doesn’t mark the distance I walked on the Westphalian Camino so far (though by that point it was round about that, funnily enough). It marks the distance of the Dortmund – Ems Canal from it’s start (in Dortmund, obviously). I passed and crossed that canal on previous outings already and I will probably do again a few more time until I reach Dortmund. There is a two chamber lock in Münster and there was one ship just leaving while I was passing.
To grab the water bottle and hydrate while walking is no big deal, but proper eating needs sitting down. There wasn’t anything suitable at the lock, which I had hoped for, so a bit further on I made the most of what was available. Still outskirts of the city but already more urban. No park or cafes, but an ALDI and a closed Pizza delivery service next door. Not the most cozy and definitely not tranquil, but I made do. I also made do of the ALDI by getting a coke and a candy bar.
Further on I finally reached the historic city centre, with it’s civil services, parks, cobbled streets and lots of people (Saturday lunch time). Lots of bikes too. Münster. If I’m being a sort of tourist (passing through anyway) I felt the need to snap photos of the well known sights.
Once I’ve left the historic city centre, the route still leads you past more sights, maybe even unintentionally. What is an attraction worth seeing anyway? Even I had heard of skateboarding legend Titus from Münster many many years ago. I passed the shop and like the artwork outside:
Even though I have been to Münster many times before, I never came across this (Water-)Tower before.
After about 3/4 of what I had planned to walk this time, I reached my friends’ home. We joked about them being a pilgrim’s hostel now.
Properly replenished I left them to walk the rest of the way back to my car. When I started again my feet felt okay, but I have to admit that the last 30-45 minutes were hard. It was 2.5 km walking on pavement along one long straight-ish road.
One last church to at least look at, if not enter and then finally I was back at my car. And look, there is something written on the chimney by the train station 🙂
Part 04: Greven-Schmedehausen to Münster-Dorbaum (KM 045 – 061), 19 October 2025
Part 03: Lengerich to Greven-Schmedehausen (KM 029 – 045), October 2024
Part 02: Natrup-Hagen to Lengerich (KM 017 – 029), 13 October 2024
Part 01: Osnabrück to Natrup-Hagen (KM 000 – 017), 15 September 2024
