Hiking around Porta Westfalica

We came to Porta Westfalica relatively recently. The reason why we came here again was not only because it’s a nice area, but also because a few weeks ago Hilal moved to Osnabrück and still decided to organize a hike there.

Even though the destination was clearly super far, there were still a lot of people signing up this time as well. The weather was also pretty good, so probably people wanted to go out.

Morning at 8:55 at Düsseldorf Central. As there was no train between Cologne and Düsseldorf, our RE6 was starting from Düsseldorf Central. The train was obviously there on time. Then the train remained there. At some point, there was an announcement that there was a technical problem on the train. As it kept remaining there for close to half an hour, I switched to the nearby IC, also because I wanted to work on the train. In principle the IC was not supposed to arrive earlier than the RE, but because of the delay, it overtook the RE, so that I could join the group again at Bad Oeynhausen. It was the best train ride ever.

There was another problem attached to it: DB canceled every second train going back to Düsseldorf in the afternoon, so that if we were going to miss the train at 4:33pm, we would have to take one two hours later, meaning we would arrive in Düsseldorf around 10pm. That would be really late. I told this to Hilal, and suggested modifications to make to the track. Apparently he got a different agenda and changed the track quite significantly.

The view on the Porta from the train station is quite impressive. The others were quite excited to know that we were going to visit. The weather was also perfect to take photos from there.

After the super annoying bridge with so many unsynchronized (at least for pedestrians) traffic lights, we got into the hill that we also crossed last time. However, instead of going right through the nature, Hilal somehow decided to go through a road, which was apparently included in the last minute. That’s a bit of the problem when you create a track relying only on Komoot. It doesn’t really tell you how the track is.

But then things got a lot better. It’s just a piece of nature around this area, which you can also see if you look at the map, but since it’s surrounded by trees, you get the feeling that you are in the middle of a dense forest.

There was another hiccup that followed a few minutes later – an inexistent path. We couldn’t have possibly predicted this one, since it’s also marked as a hiking path on OpenStreetMap. That’s a rare case, but Hilal was very apologetic about it.

There was a restaurant in the forest where we had a break today. We went there last time, but did not really stop there. I remember that I got a coffee to go there, but for some reason they refused to pour coffee directly into my bottle. So I had to do it myself from the cup that they gave me. For this reason, I was sort of suspicious of this place this time, but the staff were super friendly (I mean, they were not unfriendly last time either). I could even have lunch that I had brought from home there.

There were so many new people today. Some of them didn’t really look like they were particularly enjoying the hike, but the others were super excited. Good job Hilal.

We then went ahead through the top part of the hill. This area has a very thin stretch of hill that goes from the east to the west, so you have the possibility of simply following the hilltop. We did so accordingly, which made the second the part of the hike a lot more interesting than the first part. There was on part where Hilal was saying was a mountain bike path, but I simply ignored him and went ahead.

There was this mysterious site covered by a glass house. Not sure if it’s an archaeological site or else, but the installation looks more promising than how the site actually is.

There were so many interesting places along the way, which made it difficult to stick to the train schedule. When we arrived at the Porta, I had to check my watch nearly all the time, and we also didn’t have so much time to explore the area. We took a few photos and dashed to the train station.

The return journey was just as chaotic as the outward journey. The train kept accumulating delays, but I personally didn’t mind it much, as we had a really good time on the train. No ice cream today, and it’s gonna be super cold on the upcoming days. Pity.