A walk in the forest - Bayerisch Eisenstein

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It was an easy day to document today. We had a walk in the forest.

In the Bayerisch National Park there are walking trails (wanderwegs) everywhere and all are well sign posted. There are forest trails and what we would call minor roads but good enough not to be 4WD. We took a trail going to Schwellhausl, firstly on patchy snow then a good covering further up. The forest is quite different from NZ with very tall conifers spaced out like our pine forests. There are supposed to be owls, beavers, wolves, deer, goats, etc in the forest but we saw and heard virtually nothing all day apart from the odd human. This huge national park has been set aside to go completely natural so perhaps it will take time particularly in areas close to civilisation. Also perhaps many animals hibernate in the winter. We will find out when we visit the NP Headquarters on another day.

Schwellhausl was a little hamlet of out door activities, a small lake, an animal enclosure and a restaurant/bar. We called in for a beer in it's nice, warm traditional restaurant. Yes, a beer, on a cold day. A hot chocolate would have been more sensible but in this country, any time is good for a beer.

Then onto Ludwigsthal where we caught a train to Regen for some groceries to cover the rest of the week, then home. A nice cruisey day of about 10kms in the hills and woods.

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