Grémecey - Vic-sur-Seille
Effective distance: 14 km
Extra distance: 7 km
Elevation: 350m up, 400m down
Min altitude 202m, max altitude 310m
Active hours: 5h39m
Steps: 40039

Sleeping in the field went okay, and I started my walking at 7.23 with half a cup of freshly picked blackberries (those were in the ribbon).
I passed through Grémecey, and then walked past a field where someone in a tractor was turning the ground and their dog was walking along. The dog was somewhat alarmed by my approach and kept barking, and then the person halted the tractor, climbed out, scooped up the dog (German shepherd or similar), and put it in the tractor too. When I passed it sat there like it rode there often.
Then I walked into the forest, where I met two deer, one young, one grown, and probably a pine marten. There are advantages to starting early. Otherwise, the forest was wet and muddy and the paths sometimes hard to find. It struck me how different an experience this forest would be if the weather was dry and sunny. The paths would have been sandy, not mud pools, the grass I kept walking through wouldn't have soaked my trousers, and my sandals wouldn't have kept picking up the mud.
Once I got out of the forest, it started to rain; not too badly but enough to use my poncho. And always the slippery, clingy mud and wet grass and plants to walk through.
In the next forest there was a narrow, muddy, and very overgrown path that took quite a while. After that something went wrong. I turned out to have missed a road to the left, which I discovered more than a kilometer on. So I had to go back, but looking for the path and the marking I missed I couldn't find them. The path the map and GPS sais I had to take didn't exist, the path that was there wasn't on either map. And 'path' is a generous term: mostly it was where all the tall grass had been flattened by vehicles. I tried cutting through the forest to the path I actually wanted, but it simply wasn't there. So I struggled back to the 'path', decided to follow it as long as it ran in the general direction of where I had to go. But I got pretty annoyed and grumpy. I can't follow non-existent paths, not when there's impassable plant growth all around, I needed my poles because I kept sliding on the mud, my feet and lower trouser legs were soaked, and I was very thirstly as I had not had enough water since yesterday afternoon. I was counting on the next village to refill water, but this way it took very long to get there. Eventually I came to a care road that would lead to Salonnes (the next village) and followed it; I'd pick up the route again there.
So I reached the village, found a random outdoor tap (got to use my filter for the first time) and then I met someone who could refill my bottle with proper tap water. So, no longer thirsty.
After Salonnes it was another very narrow, very overgrown, wet and muddy path. And of course these paths are not just overgrown with anything, of course it has to be motstly nettles and brambles. It slows me down a lot.
So instead of 11.30 I got to Vic-sur-Seille close to 13.00, which, with the rain and the fact that stores are closed between 12.00 and 15.00, made it impossible to follow my ambitious plan of hiking another 32 km to the next campsite - and with all the detours I took that would make over 50 km today, 46 (the original plan) would have been quite ambitious enough.
So, in spite of having walked only some 20 km, of which only 14 were actually toward my goal, I had to stop at Vic-sur-Seille and will sleep at the campsite here tonight. At least it gives me plenty of time to plan the next two days.

Geschreven door Jewaontheroad