Safe Return Doubtful

For the last few days I have been in Saxony at the eastern end of the Harz mountains. There is plenty of good hiking and mountain biking here, as well as snow sports in the winter, though they are really well used by visitors, as it is quite a populated area of Germany; Leipzig, Dresden and Nuremberg are all within an hour. 

To my advantage it was a cold and wet weekend, and though Monday and Tuesday have been clear, the weather has put off a lot of would-be visitors. It was a long weekend in Germany, with the Unity Day bank holiday. 

In Jöhstadt I stayed at the Railway Museum, which was emptying after a busy day just as I arrived. The narrow gauge railway was constructed in 1892 after much petition from the local people who felt they were being left behind by the improvements in rail travel elsewhere in Germany. It ran from Wolkenstein to Jöhstadt for 24 kilometres and carried mainly freight up until 1986 when the factories it served closed. Soon after a group of locals formed a preservation group, though for many years got nowhere, and were considered as harebrained by politicians and much of the rest of the country. But they didn’t give up, and raised money and awareness of the venture over the next decade, even starting the initial steps of renovation themselves. It reopened to great celebration in 2000, running just 8 kilometres to the village of Steinbach. There are now museums at both termini, and it is popular to walk or cycle between the stations, along the Schwarzwasser river, then return on the train. In some journeys the train crawls along, barely moving, while a three course dinner is served. 

On Monday morning I put together a circuit that took in the local hills, giving a view of that section of railway, returning on the river trail. 

We then moved about fifty kilometres to the west, along the Czech border to the village of Erlbach, which is at just over 500 metres above sea level and offers excellent hiking access to the ridge of the Harz mountains that makes the border for ten kilometres or so, known in Czech as Vysoký Kámen.

This section of the eastern Harz is called the Elster mountains, and is famous as the rock columns resemble a ruined castle, and in wartime over the years have actually been mistaken for a castle. These days they are very popular with climbers, but also hikers as they provide an excellent viewpoint. The quartz ridge, with a bed of slate, is in effect a wall that continues for several kilometres. It has been a protected area since 1907 though was still threatened with quarrying during the subsequent years. 

The other appeal of the area is that the car park for outdoor activities, which also serves a pub and restaurant and an outdoor museum of farming, is a great place to stay when it’s as quiet as this. 

A bonus too has been that there has been quite a bit of rain in these three days, but it has been at night. Today’s weather was warm enough to spend the afternoon outside after returning from the four hour hike. Roja dozed in the sun while I worked. Just as darkness fell heavy rain set in.