Ostsee - De bannig groote Tour

For everyone who is interested in some great hiking in the north of Germany, you can take part in the "Wanderthlon" organized by the Lübecker Bucht Tourism. You might think that, just because the north is flat, there is no great hiking for you. Sorry to disappoint. The "De bannig groote Tour" is a 30 km long day hike that leads you from the ocean, through fields and incredibly forests before heading back to the ocean town again. It is not a route for beginners. It is crucial that you have great shoes with you, warm up and take enough food and water. You can refill your bottles at the Scharbeutz information center at the beginning and the end, but on route there is no real option to fill up. Get your fresh hiking pass from any tourist information beforehand. You can use the pass to collect stamps along the hike. Once you have collected all 4, you can exchange them for a hiking pin. So there is a little treat at the end, if you are interested in bringing home a little souvenir. Please be aware of the opening times of the tourist information center. As you can't get a pin if it's closed.

On a site note, I had a little concrete trauma. A good portion of the route is the same route I had already hiked the year prior during the Megamarsch, where I had utterly ruined my feet. Check out my blog post for more.

Officially the Tour starts in Scharbeutz, but we started in Haffkrug, as we knew a good parking spot. I really liked our decision to begin this way, as we started with an ocean view and ended with an ocean view. It was a really incredible day to hike. There was not a cloud in the sky, the sun was high up and the promenade still empty. It was a public holiday and most Germany around that time are still waking up, getting breakfast or getting ready to start their day. My dad, Sierra and I started walking past the promenade towards Sierksdorf, where we left the beach and started heading inland towards the fields. Walking past the amusement park "Hansa Park", we followed the road for a bit before turning left, on a mission to get my first stamp at the beautiful "Gut Wintershagen - Dat Reethuus". Continuing this path on sections of the "Way of St. James" towards Oevelgönne. Beautiful yellow rapeseed fields as far as the eye can see.

Sierra probably had the best of time as she found two incredibly stinky mud puddles, she used the only right way. Rolling around left and right. Absolutely dripping in mud, she shook herself off, made me look like a dalmatian, and together we continued down the path and entered the first beautiful forest section. I was glad for that part, as it was getting really warm and Sierra really needed some shade. It turns out that the mud protection shield was not enough for her, despite her original plan. We had a couple of trees to climb that had fallen across the path. But it added some more adventure to it, and who doesn't like to climb trees.

The section after the forest until Stawedder is pure road walking. Can't say that this section was enjoyable. I do not appreciate road walking, and with little shade, this section simply sucked. When we got the second stamp just behind the bus stop at "Hof Altona" we took a little break as Sierra needed to cool down before walking the second stretch of road. If you need another break from the sun. There is a bench at the halfway mark, nicely tucked away in the shade of the hedge on the left side.

Good news is, this is the only section we didn't like. Once you make it, you reach a beautiful lake and forest section. You can get the last stamp in Gronenberg at the beekeepers place on the right side. We did a tiny detour as I wanted Sierra to have access to the lake, drink some more water, swim and most importantly...wash the mud off. After this refreshing dip, we continued walking back towards Scharbeutz. Beautiful trees, a bit of elevation and even on such a great day, nobody around. A few ponds around - not drinking water, bird songs and beautiful trails to walk.

By that time, my feet were still feeling fine. They were aching a bit, but I didn't feel as bad as they used to. My trick is to use every break to take off my shoes and massage the bottom off my feet. It also helps to carry a cork ball, which I didn't carry at this time. I used my own tricks to get my feet back into shape. After our last break and foot massage for me, we decided to kept walking through the forest and soon reached the beginning of Scharbeutz again. This moment felt great as we were getting closer to the ocean now. And the ocean meant the end of our trip.

We walked into Scharbeutz towards the tourist information to get our last and final stamp. When we got close we were greeted with a marching band, hundreds of people and a lot of food tents and activities around. Of course, we made the only sensible decision that it was all for us, as we just finished our hike. A celebratory marching band. What a great way to finish. Highly motivated, we started making our way through the crowds towards the info center. We were a bit lost and could not find the box but filled out our water bottles as the information center has freshly running drinking water. When we had just given up hope, we saw the box just on the right side of the information, tucked away a bit. Unfortunately, the stamp was gone. And we were not able to finish our stamp book. There is always someone taking away the joy of others. Please don't be that person. Let the stamps be, we hiked a long way for this. We did take proof pictures and started making our way along the coast back to the car. The wind really picked up since the morning when we started, but it was beautiful nevertheless. It was incredibly busy at this point as we started to make our way back. Hiking 30 km does give you permission to get some fries and ice cream before heading home. So this is what we did to celebrate the end of our hike.

The route