Traben-Trarbach to Sankt Margen (Thursday 21st September 2017)

Today we say good-bye to the famous wine-growing regions of Germany and head way down south to another famous region – the Black Forest, or as the Germans say “der Schwarzwald“.

The cloud was low over the Mosel when we left town at about 9:30am. Climbing up the hill we were soon in glorious sunshine and clear blue skies, save for the vapour trails be left by jets flying across Germany. It is actually quite a spectacle in itself. The vapour trail go every which way across the sky. Without a word of exaggeration there would be 12-15 trails kin the sky at any time one looked, including three or four new ones being created in real-time. It’s something one would never see in Australia. Another thing one would never see is the HUGE wind turbines one sees in every direction. There are literally dozens and dozens od them. I know I’ve commented on this before but the number of them is almost overwhelming. As much as I’m a supported of renewable energy seeing so many of these in one place could quite easily tip a borderline supporter over the edge. There are just too many of them. The hills and valleys are gone. All that one sees is the turbines.

 

It was all about getting a pretty long distance from A – B today. According to Google Maps the journey of 360kms was going to take 3hr48m. It took longer than that due to roadworks, unexplained detours through towns here and there and a stop about halfway for petrol, coffee and a change of driver.

The little Renault zipped along very well, able to keep its place in the traffic without any trouble. Although the posted speed limit is never higher than 130kph plenty of drivers pay no heed to that. Apparently exceeding the speed limit by 20kph will attract a massive fine of EUR 40.00. I’ve not seen one person stopped on the autobahn, or anywhere for that matter, by a police officer. So, with that knowledge, Kerry Ricciardo could frequently be seen travelling above 130kph, often over 140kph and when her spirit was up she even got the Captur up to 150kph.

We struck more roadworks about 100kms from Sankt Margen that slowed us up by about `5 minutes. Not bad at all compared to the drivers going the other way. They were at a standstill for about 6-7 kilometres. Two policemen were letting one vehicle through at a time.

Soon after we turned off the autobahn and headed towards the hills. Up we climbed in lovely sunshine on increasingly winding roads until we reached the village of Sankt Margen. With a population of about 2000 people the town sits in the rolling foothills of the mountains further on. As we approached the village the vistas around each bend became more and more stunning. The country-side reminds me of South Gippsland around Leongatha and Wonthaggi – luscious green, steep hills, cows, woods here and there framed by distant mountain ranges. Our host Christian Apel was there to greet us on arrival. We were only about 15 minutes behind the arrival time I’d told him when I rang him from the autobahn (just before we hit the roadworks). Incidentally, because the SIM I bought only supports data (no voice) I called him via Skype (using Skype credit I had) and sent an SMS to his mobile phone as a backup because the phone call was a bit dodgy. He got the SMS.

The one bedroom apartment is very well appointed and comfortable. It’s like a nana-flat under the same roof-line as his house but with its own entrance on one side. The view over town from the balcony is great. We’ve got off-street parking as well. When we’d unloaded to car we drove in to to town for a beer and mineral water and a Black Forest cake. Then we continued on to the next village, Sankt Peter, to stock up at the supermarket. Back at home we sat in the balcony with a drink and watched the shadows creep across the valley.