I don’t remember if we ever talked in English class about the activity I call “hiking” or if I brought back that specific term for that acitivity from a holiday in the US in 1996. When I started travelling to the UK on holiday as an adult I realized in the UK they like to call the same activity “walking”. Which felt and to be honest still feels a bit weird. I walk to the bus stop. Or the shops. I go for a walk as a slowly ambling stroll in a park. If I put on heavy boots, carry a backpack, pack a water bottle and some snacks and take my trekking poles, I’m not going for a walk, am I? I’m going on a hike!
I grew up with parents who loved to take the family out on a hike, which might be why it took me a long time to get interested in hiking as activity as an adult. In my early 40s to be honest. And even then I wasn’t doing it consistently, it was and is more an on / off kind of thing. When it was I was hiking up Ben Lomond in 2017 or did a section of the Capital Ring Walk in London in 2022.
Every once in a while, I have even considered a proper hiking holiday on one of the many long-distance routes here or in the UK, even though I’m drawing the line at carrying my clothes and all my stuff in a backpack. I’m too high-maintenance for that and luggage transfer is expensive.
I don’t think I’ll ever even consider hiking the actual “Camino de Santiago” (Way of St. James) – the legendary hiking pilgrimage through northern Spain – to the tomb of St Jmes in Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. But over the last decades all over Europe historical pilgrimage routes which feed into the Camino have been re-established, with digital maps, proper way markers and all.
One of them – the Westphalian route of “Jakobsweg” (Way of St. James in German) is passing through my federal state. 200 km from Osnabrück to Cologne. This one is supposed to take 11 days with an average daily hiking distance of ~ 18 km. I won’t be doing that. I plan to do it bit by bit; taking public transport or mix of car and public transport to get me to and from my starting / end point of each section.
Part 01: Osnabrück – Natrup-Hagen (~ 17 km)
Saturday, 14 September 2024
Time spent on the actual ‘Way’: ~ 6h 20 min
Complete distance that day: ~ 21 km
Even though I was in well enough physical shape to walk 15 – 20 km a day, I had no idea how this first day would go. No idea how quick or slow I would be. Spoiler alert: I was / am slower than the “average” walking time I found on various website about this walk. Which was bothering me for a moment until I realized that I don’t have to give fuck about average. I will do this my way. And if that’s slower than others, so what? Others probably won’t take as many photos as me either.
All in all, the trail was well marked, even though I sometimes was overly cautious and impatient and instead of trusting that I was on the right way checked the digital track on my map way too often.
In Osnabrück my day started with lovely walk (another 1.5 km to add to my tally) along the river and through mostly empty city centre streets – it was early Saturday morning! The path led than from St. Peter’s Cathedral, the official starting point through the old city centre and on for quite a bit through the city. Residential areas, the occasional park, but basically urban area. That only changed about half way through, when the suburbs finally turned into a more rural scenery.
After the half-way point I was considering to walk further than originally planned and get to the next alternative train stop. Yes I had that alternative planned out as well. I’m a plan-for-all-contingencies kind of person. Especially when it became clear that I would reach the planned for train stop in the long afternoon lull between departures and might have to wait there for about an hour. Between km 12 – 14 I realized pushing on would be a stupid idea, because my feet were getting tired. I also knew there’d be another 0.75 km back to my car at the end of the day and also some steeper sections after my originally planned final stop for the day. I did not trust my tired feet anymore to manage those without stumbling or worse. At km 16 I was very glad that I had given up the plan to push on.
Shot with a Canon Powershot G7X Mark III
Gallery best viewed on a larger screen than just a phone…
“I place one foot before the other…” is a lyric from of a Frank Turner song (obviously…)