I had managed to persuade some friends from the institute to accompany me to Bad Urach on Sunday for a 12km walk along the Schwaebisch Alb, but the storms on the 9th (and similar predictions for the 10th) convinced them to postpone. So, I made a quick plan for the day: test the alternative route onto the Schwaebisch Alb for my trip to the Bodensee.
I had a late start, leaving home at almost 10am. Instead of catching a train somewhere, I immediately headed south to connect to the bike path down the Reichenbach valley, which starts just at the southern end of Stuttgart. After the obligatory quarter of an hour scratching my head
trying to work out where I was in the suburb of Lenningen, I connected to the bike path and was away. From here on it was a good cruise all the way to the Neckar valley. It was a beautiful day, much like Saturday morning, but as you can see in the photo there were clearly stormy clouds about. This was taken just as I was climbing out of the village of Aich, looking north-west back towards Stuttgart - and look at all those beautiful red poppies! I connected to the Neckar at Neckartailfingen and rode down towards Mittelstadt. I had been here before - coming home with Lydia and Chen from a wonderful ride to the ruined castle of Hohenneuffen last year - but
I still made the same mistake we made then and looked for a path on the wrong side of the river. As it was now midday, however, I decided to make this wrong turn a right one and eat my lunch next to the Neckar. You might notice in the photo that the river was brown with all the sediment turned up by the storms on Saturday. Even so, I could see trout fighting the substantial current heading up towards Tuebingen. That and watching the antics of the sapphire damselflies made for a wonderful lunchtime (oh yes, and my super-duper cheese sandwiches). Now came the least pleasant part of my trip - the trek through Reutlingen. Apparently this city once had the highest concentration of millionaires in Germany, due to the lucrative cloth trade centred here. I think that's all gone now, and today it is basically just another large town in south Germany (population 100000). And for me all towns are bad - I'm not sure what it is about them, but I find navigating through them incredibly difficult. It is simply too easy to get disoriented, and of course this happened again. It was also about this time that I noticed the weather closing in from the north-west, with dark clouds fanning out over the sky. So when I finally found the correct path, I was wondering if I would make it onto the Alb at all.
In one of those strange twists of weather that I've come to understand is typical of Germany, the dark clouds passed straight overhead without even the slightest hint of rain! As you can see from the panoramic shot above, the weather looked fine as I came to the foot of the Alb. In this photo the bike-path leads towards Reutlingen, which is less than 3km away - but how easy would that be to forget!
The ascent of the Alb was exhilarating, but not very difficult. Although my legs were feeling pretty tired from the long ride from home, I still managed a respectable pace. As before, the transition from climb through the hillside forest to the rolling countryside of the Alb was practically discontinuous -
I turned a corner and there I was in open farmland. It was now 4 hours since I left my front door and I'd managed about 65km. I spent some time resting at the top, which was almost a rural idyll - rolling farmland framed by forests, tree-lined paths and a flock (?) of goats with their kids in the paddock. I now made for the ruin of Greifenstein castle, which was only about 5km south-west of my position. Unlike the last time I was on the Alb, the path was relatively flat and it was a pleasant ride. After hunting around the forest, I finally discovered the ruins. But alas, not all castles are equally ruined - Greifenstein is today little more than an outline of a castle, with only the 2m-high foundation walls remaining (see photo). It was during this time in the forest when I realized that I had absolutely no anxiety about blundering through the German forests - I would never go for a solitary bushwalk in Australia. I find it difficult, however, to understand precisely why this is. Of course, the 
consequences of getting lost in the Budawangs, for example, are much more severe that getting lost in the Naturpark Schoenbuch, but this isn't it. Neither is it the much greater range of unpleasant wildlife in Australia. There is something about the bush which just makes me tense when I'm alone, as if I know that I am an intruder in a forbidden place - and I just don't get that feeling in the forests here. Perhaps it's all due to having watched "Picnic at Hanging Rock" when I was too young or something like that, but I wonder if it's anything deeper... 
After taking in the view from Greifenstein (above), I noticed the dark clouds coming back so I decided to set out for the train station in Reutlingen. Of course, the path back was much easier now that I had some idea of the city, which is great news for when I eventually do the trip to Lake Constance. Furthermore, doing a long ride again made me feel relaxed about the prospects of an over-night bicycle trek. The only problem will be to carry enough fluids, as I find I can drink upwards of 5 litres on these outings...
