A morning walking over fields and through villages followed by an afternoon of climbing through forest back to the mountain hut where I stayed at yesterday. I then kept going for an hour or so to reduce the distance for tomorrow and wild camped.
I noticed the attitude to dogs in this area is similar to that in Britain, in that they are treated as companion animals rather than guard dogs to scare wolves, bears and passing hikers. At breakfast this morning there was a white dog one with its owners, another stayed at the mountain hut yesterday. On TV last night a demonstration by police dogs made the evening news. Dog biscuits could be spotted on café counter tops. Little balls of fluff enthusiastically attempted to pull their owners up hills. One very small dog was in a little pouch on his owners chest.
The E3 makes a loop from Králický Sněžník summit to Králický Town on the Czech side then back up to the mountain hut close to Králický Sněžník summit on the Polish side. I believe this was because the E3 was here following the Eisenach–Budapest (EB) Trail, which in Pre-Schengen days, and especially prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain, had to take hikers across the border at an official checkpoint. Those days are now gone, nevertheless I followed the loop, maybe after feeling a little guilty for cutting out a similar loop at the Slovakia-Poland border.
My day began with a walk along the road through the scattered settlement of Boboszów. There were a two humorous pieces on the roadside: rolls of hay made to look like bees and two gentlemen sitting on the roof of a bar. There were also places selling trout (it is farmed in the area) and cleaning products.
Yellow waymarks then led me over fields to Międzylesie, a large village with an attractive cobbled square, or more correctly triangle. Within the triangle was a little park with a fountain and a column topped by and surrounded by statues of a religious nature, with gold highlights.
I bought a coffee and a slab of cheesecake from a bakery but did not enjoy it as much as I expected being still full from the enormous breakfast I was given this morning. At the table allocated to me there were slices of cheese, cold meat, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, watermelon and bread, balls of cream cheese, rolls, grapes and other fruits. Then scrambled eggs arrived garnished with bits of spring onion followed by a piece of cake filled with plums and blueberries.
I continued over grass covered hills passing small settlements and a group of horse riders, now on the blue waymarked route that would take me through Poland. However my continued efforts did little to work off my full belly. At lunch time I unexpectedly arrived at a stall selling bigos (a stew), blueberry pancakes and other delights but could only manage a Coke. The stall was by a busy car park serving a bike park where mountain bikers zoomed around little paths. Young men were out enjoying a Saturday ride.
After the stall a long continuous climb through forest eventually took me to the mountain hut by Králický Sněžník summit. Beneath the trees the ground was carpeted with blueberry bushes. People had been collecting them, there was a basin full by the stall, maybe ready for those blueberry pancakes. I assumed a large red sign indicated I had entered a nature reserve.
At 4:15 I reached the mountain hut where I had stayed overnight previously. This time I just stopped to fill up with water, I decided against staying there as I wished to walk a few extra kilometres so as to reach Lądek-Zdrój tomorrow. Also, when I visited on Thursday the hut was busy, today being a Saturday night it was heaving. I wanted a night in the cool, fresh mountain air so was planning to wild camp.
Leaving the area of the mountain hut my route was obstructed by extensive electric fencing enclosing a flock of sheep. Apparently the sheep encourage wild flowers, presumably by eating any bushes or tree saplings trying to grow. A diversion was marked but I was annoyed as it meant not only a little extra distance but also loss of height followed by the inevitable climb. I followed the crowds of people heading down the mountain at the end of their day out, before climbing onto an inconspicuous, quiet path to the regain the blue route I should have been on.
I followed this for an hour or so through the forest, initially contouring the mountain before a rough and twisting track downhill. Then I decided I had hiked far enough to make tomorrow's walk a manageable distance. From all the evidence of forestry work, such as tree trunks piled up ready for transport, I concluded I was now outside any nature protected area where camping might not be permitted. Although the track I was following was on a mountainside, with steep slopes unsuitable for comfortable camping, I could see from my mapping App there was a flatter area created by a side valley. Here was where I pitched my tent under trees a hundred metres or so from the track. I could still hear people coming down the track as darkness fell at 7:30 pm, but no-one disturbed me as I ate a light tea.
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