The River Vecht, part 3

Last week I finally got around to walking the third stretch of this international walk. I had done the first two bits in January and March, but lately I have been doing really well with longer distances and felt I could do this next bit. 

Is it a horse or is it a zebra?
I have to ask my Dad: he is an expert!

It was a stretch of just under 16 km (10 miles), but unfortunately I missed a sign at one point and overshot. Which in turn meant that I had to retrace until I found the sign (which was very clear by the way) and continue on the route. In the end the whole route was just a smidge under 20 km and only because I did a tiny detour in the end. 

Big Papa

I was tired after that. Tired and hurting. The knee is of course a constant nowadays, but I had also developed a blister on the sole of my foot. Regardless of that though: I did 19,77 km! I was very proud of myself I can tell you. 

They didn't cross the river itself, just a little offshoot.

Of course it isn't just the walking itself, I also like to see some stuff and this walk had plenty of that! There was of course the river itself, which we (I took Brom along) had a magnificent view of from a viewing tower. And only a bit later we were sat only a few steps from it. The cows in the field just beside us were beef cattle and not used to people, so they (led by Big Papa) decided to move away.

I think the bigger tractor was spraying some sort of pesticide

We crossed the river a bit later on and from that moment we didn't really see it again. The official name of this long distance walk is The Valley of the Vecht walk, so you do get a lot of walking in the area on either side of the river, not necessarily right beside.

With a distinct smell of cow (which were right behind us)

We got to the small village of Vilsteren and that's where I went wrong. Instead of turning left and into the woods, I kept walking along the main road. Which in turn led me to a farm with ice cream and a toilet. If I had checked properly there, I would have only done an extra few hundred meters. As it was: about 3,5 km. 

I had my doubts already as I didn't see any signs for my route when there were side roads, but it didn't click properly until I really checked and realised: I shouldn't have crossed the railway. Which I had. There was nothing else for it: I had to retrace and find the turning off point. 

I did find it again and from then the walk became more of a trudge. Those extra km had sapped the energy it seemed. The fact that the temperature by then was soaring to about 25 degrees C (77 F) did not help either. But I did get closer as I could see on my phone. 

The boarded up entrance to a former ice house.
Excuse the finger!

Eventually I saw the path to the train station from where I would catch the train to get back to my car. It had taken me over 5 hours of actual walking and closer to 6 hours including stops. The journey back by train took 8 minutes!

Art at the station in Ommen

The next stretch is about 20 km, although I might do a little deal with my Dad and split it in two. But that is not for a while yet. First to recover from blister and knee.