Hiking around Porta Westfalica

There was this one hike that I missed a few years ago around Porta Westfalica, because I got corona just a few days before the event. I was kind of looking forward to it, but I couldn’t do anything about it, and I also could not offer it for some time because it appeared absurd to offer the same track twice within a short period of time. This time, I finally decided to do it, because there was a long weekend with Pentecost, so we had also some time to take the train to go for a long distance.

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Unfortunately the weather forecast was not quite with me. It was basically giving a rather dark picture for Sunday, so a lot of people signed off in the last minute.

Nevertheless there were still around 10 people joining the hike. Quite impressive.

It took us 2h30 to reach Porta Westfalica from Düsseldorf. Fortunately it was a direct train, and I really enjoyed the company, but I cannot deny we felt like we were travelling like the whole day when we reached Porta Westfalica.

Luckily, it was quite sunny there, with somewhat very summer-ish sky, it was nice to see the monument on the other side of the river.

The train station was somehow not quite right at the city, and also not right where we started the hike. The crossings were those where the pedestrians have to press the button to get green, which I never understand why they make it in the first place, as it only makes it difficult for the pedestrians to cross the street.

The other side of the river, right on the foot of the monument, was the starting point of the hike. From that point on, we were almost all the time in a very deep forest. Even when there was the sun, the sunlight was hardly coming through. When the sun was hidden, it was extremely dark, almost like we were walking late evening or something. The trees were actually very high. It felt like the whole space was simply covered by those high trees.

Every now and then we could hear the rain above us, but as the trees were covering us, we mostly did not get any drop underneath. It was such a magical moment.

Today’s track was fairly moderate.  I thought it might be too flat, but I think in the end there was enough high and low. I’d say comparable to places like Wuppertal.

After a very long stretch of this deep forest, we got a huge amount of light when we came out to a field right before we reached the middle point. It was also such a vast area. Well it also ended very quickly as we went back to the forest.

We had a break in the middle of the forest (not so surprisingly). We were simply sitting on the trunk of a tree lying around. I did not take my jacket today, and I have to say I got really cold at some point. We started moving quickly again, as it also started raining.

This time the rain was fairly strong. I was happy that I took my umbrella with me. But again as we were in this dense forest, we did not get quite as much rain as we would have otherwise. It did not keep raining for a very long time, so it didn’t matter much anyway.

On the way back, we were on the top of the hill all the time. When I planned the hike, I kind of imagined to be able to see the surrounding area, but in reality the trees were mostly on the way, so we could not see much there. There was also a Bismarck tower, but even from the top of the tower, we could not see much. What a pity.

Towards the end we reached the monument that I talked about at the beginning. It was apparently built for the Emperor Wilhelm in the end of the 19th century. Luckily the weather was great in this moment; there was this blue sky with the summer-ish clouds. We took our group picture there.

On the way back to Porta Westfalica, we realized that we were just making it to the next train, meaning it was too tight for an ice cream. I made everyone hurry, but as it was still too tight, I ran to the nearest ice cream parlor and got an ice cream just for myself. It looked like everyone hated me when I went back to the train station, but at least I got what I needed. Perfect!