E11: Golzow – Ferch

Friday, July 27: Day n of the scorcher, very hot and sunny to begin with, but the cloud varied quite a bit. Signs of a thunderstorm towards evening

Hiking: 31.8 km

Kevin’s

I had been woken at around 3:00 by someone having a very hot shower, and someone else (the boyfriend) vaping in the lounge. I hope the shower wasn’t meant as contraception, although it looked very much that way (especially at that time, and with the vape). I couldn’t sleep much past 7:30, and so started on my preparations for the hike.

The smaller roll was had for breakfast and the larger one set up with bell pepper sausage for lunch. That with now four litre bottles of water was packed away and I was ready to go with the first set of trains. Had to stop by the bank for some cash, but even then I took a set of trains one too early, and a good thing, too, because it took most of the twenty minutes waiting time trying to ascertain where the 580 bus left from (all other bus lines appeared to start with “6”). Finally nailed down the bus, asked the driver and identified the temporary bus stop that he was planning to use.

There must also have been an issue with traffic around the forest fire, because as we were about to enter Lehnin, everybody seemed to be wanting to exit the motorway, and a gigantic traffic jam ensued. Our bus driver did the best he could, and we had only about ten minutes’ delay in the end. Then it was off onto the track again.

The pack certainly feels lighter without the computer in it. I seemed to be doing more than 5.5 km/h which gave me hope that I would reach the bus just after 4:30. The track was in fairly good condition, and for a while the signs were behaving. I had one complete hydration break at 11:00 and 12:00 and had wanted to have lunch around Michelsdorf (there was a picnic table just before the village that I should have taken) but had to wait until Lehnin until an opportunity arose. By now I had to consider whether I wanted to swap two empties at the supermarket there, on continue on (there was enough water), so I chose to march on, as I was expecting 17 km, and it was just on 1:30.

The following track was basically a sandpit for cars, and a side track for everyone else. Klaistow turned up as an intermediate destination and after the very beautiful, sandy-bottomed lake of Kolpin (I would have jumped in if I had had the time), also the final destination of Ferch. However, the distances to Klaistow were all over the place, and the distances to Ferch seemed to be OK in the beginning, but they, too, became reduced over time.

At Klaistow (unmistakable, the asparagus fields) there was a major civil defence operation in effect, a helicopter to dwarf a double-decker bus, all ambulance services, a couple of private contractors and many a volunteer fire brigade. I tried to move through the ensemblage as innocuously as possible – it was clear that this was the outer supply ring for the operation at Fichtenwalde, which now could only have been less than a couple of kilometres away. Anyway I was back on my track and passed a fire brigade unit that was pumping water to the front line. All very impressive stuff and I let them do their job.

Over the A9 for hopefully the last time I was soon in Ferch and now the call of the day: Whether to continue on to the center of town. I had in memory that it was more than 1 km, possibly two, and on arriving at 4:30 I chose the safer option. The other one would really have been touch and go. I now set upon finishing the last bottle of water before arriving at Schlachtensee. About half an hour later we were in Potsdam (different approach this time) and I was making my way to platform 7 when I noticed that a young woman who had joined us at some stage on the bus, and had obviously been hiking to judge from her attire and spectacularly suitable boots had a highly unusual gait – the right leg seemed to be rotated anticlockwise by about 10°. Anyway she took off down the escalator with this gait and managed to get the very next S-Bahn (three minutes from bus to train), which I in my nonchalance missed – and the next train was cancelled, leaving me with twenty minutes to spare. Time for an ice-cream – pomegranate seed and lemon this time. Then back to my train.

Interactive Map

In Schlachtensee stopped at the first supermarket for tomorrow’s refreshments and lunch. Back here no news from Kevin about the towel, should have taken advice from the hitchhikers’ guide, so went down to Aldi who had a set of two hand towels for €4.99, and returned here for a shower. Started some preliminary planning for the final two stages. Was given the lowdown on the students’ laundrette here (works with contactless cards – if at all – and is fairly cheap), so that is where the final laundry will be done tomorrow. Then went down to Fansipan Restaurant for half a dozen fried wantans with dip and salad for starters, then fried noodles (! no fried rice here) with chicken and salad, and a beer for €13.9.

Rain failed to materialise but the moon came out of the eclipse quite well, pity I couldn’t see it at the darkest totality. Was awoken at 3:00 by a troupe of party girls, who were soon subdued.