Stage 5 – Deventer

Waking up

I woke up In Stroe, which you of course remember from the post yesterday. Chickens had worked hard to lay some fresh eggs, and I was served eggs and bacon. My favorite in the morning.

Both Victor and Gerdine had to leave around 8am, so I left their place around 8am too. Thanks again Victor and Gerdine!

The trip

Today was going to be hard, I knew that in advance. 36km were scheduled, and although I trained that distance, I did not train with fully packed backpack. And that really makes a difference…

I walked through a part of De Veluwe, which is a big natural foresty area, that was formed about 200,000 years ago. Beautiful to walk through, with lots of things to see. The first break I took was after I walked for 2.5 hours. A well deserved energy drink was my reward. I continued my walk through De Veluwe, and into city of Apeldoorn, where I had another break.

When I reached the center of Apeldoorn, I thought it was time for a good burger. The universe did not and served me a raw burger. I returned it, and went to a bakery to get some croissaints. Yummy. But no burger….

Again I continued, took another break about 3km before I reached my destination and got some extra energy on Twitter, and I needed that.

It brought me to the finish line. 38.5km in total. I crossed a personal border, had an emotional last few kilometers, thought of my family, and how I miss them. They also give me strength to carry on, and get to Berlin.

The temperature was about 24 Celsius, and that’s pretty hot for hiking. My feet were a bit hot and that resulted in two blisters. No worries, all under control.

Here’s a link to the route I walked: https://strava.app.link/erBj9xATVW

The pictures

The evening

I arrived at Ruben’s place and we drank a beer in the garden. After I took a shower we had dinner, and good conversations, about WordPress, Deep House and Game of Thrones. We even drank a beer from Deventer. I pushed out another update, and fell asleep.

See you tomorrow!