Hiking around Schwelm

Schwelm is one of the rare places inside the VRR region, around which there are plenty of hiking trails. And therefore, we’d like the weather to be sunny whenever we go there. Well, this was very much not the case today. And due to the strong wind, we weren’t even able to complete the trail.

But still it’s worth mentioning that this trail was way more challenging than what it looks like on the map below. I knew that we were not really going through existing hiking paths, but still it’s a little bit surprising that there were entries for these “paths”, as there were places which could not be traversed straightforwardly. We might have been lucky that there weren’t so many people today in the end.

And so, as you can see on the photo, you might have to be physically fit in order to cross these small streams. At some points we could find some timber to make provisional bridges. At other points we simply had to jump to the other side or simply splash through the water. Except for the rain water, my hiking boots did not get wet. I’m pretty sure that others suffered quite a lot along the way.

There’s this nice small town called Beyenburg, which we’ve visited several times. On the edge of this town, there’s a nice café where on warmer days we can sit outside and order coffee and cake. Today, of course we stayed inside. Usually people hate us for the dirty clothes. They were actually fairly nice with us.

As it started to become seriously windy after the break (there was even a huge tree that fell on the way, exactly on the spot where I was), we decided to finish the tour quickly. I must say this was the most adventurous hike that we’ve ever done so far. If ever you come across this page and think of doing it, I’d rather recommend you to take a different route. The region is absolutely beautiful, so take rather different paths and enjoy the nature more.

You can find the map from  this link (in kml-format) or this link (in gpx-format).