2020 - Day 8: Baumwipfelpfad Bayerischer Wald and Sommerrodelbahn Grafenau

The summation of today is what goes up must come down.

Today we headed south to visit a couple of attractions located quite close together around a 45-minute drive from our holiday home, the Baumwipfelpfad Bayerischer Wald and Sommerrodelbahn Grafenau.

Although my understanding of the German language is far from great (it has been 23 years since my grade D at GCSE), one thing I do like is how they simply add words together.  Baumwipfelpfad can be broken down to Baum (Tree), Wipfel (Tops) and Pfad (Path), so our first point of call was a tree top path through the Bavarian Forest.  The route is 1.3km long and has elevation up to 25 metres through the beech trees, firs and spruces of the mountain forest.  The walk has a number of activities for the kids and the highlight is the 44 metre tall observation tower, often referred to as the “Tree Egg”.  Forrest and Matty are at an age where they go from best of friends to arch-enemies at least a few times each day and often who is first to do something is the catalyst for a falling out.  Today was no different with disagreements about who should go first through a number of the activity walkways causing the first falling out, but an ice cream and the adventure playground was enough to repair the wounds and friendship was restored!

Matty's turn to go first!

The inside of the Tree Egg.

The boys racing ahead with Petr.

Made it to the top.

Easy to see why it's called the Tree Egg.

We then made the short drive to Grafenau for the Sommer (Summer) rodel (Toboggan) bahn (Train), something that I’ve been looking forward to since we started to plan this holiday.  The best way to describe the toboggan run would be to imagine an individual rollercoaster running down a steep hill with the rider deciding how fast (or slow) to go using a brake handle to control the speed.  This particular run is a 300 metres ascent by a modified ski-lift then a 1,250 metre downhill run back to the starting point.

From my research I thought that Forrest would be old enough to ride with an adult, but the age limit was actually 3+, so Paloma could also join in the fun too.  We knew that Forrest would love the ride, however we were not too sure about Paloma, but she was very keen to have a go.  We ended up having three rides with the kids swapping between trips with myself and Amber, and by the last run Paloma was ordering me to go quicker, so it was certainly a hit!  It was difficult to take any photos of our own, so we bought the official photos of our last run at a very reasonable 3€ each.  To find out more there’s also a promotional video on Youtube.

Heading up the Sommerrodelbahn.

Smile for the camera!

We then made our way back to Bayerisch Eisenstein via a quick stop off at the Frauenau Glass Museum.  As well as having a number of interesting glass sculptures in the grounds that are part of the Gläserne Gärten and an impressive playground, the museum café also served very good drinks and cakes!  As has been the case a few days this week the weather started to turn late afternoon and we had a few rumbles of thunder and some rain on the final part of the drive.

"Feniks" by Jeanne Melief.

Paloma loving pressing the information buttons.

Finally, a quick update on our plans for the end of our holiday.  As you’ll have seen in the news the COVID-19 infection rates in France and the Netherlands are increasing and both countries have been added to the naughty list invoking a 14-day quarantine on return to the UK.  Ever since the news that Belgium was on the list we’ve been coming up with a few contingency plans since we’re keen to avoid the need to quarantine if possible so that Forrest can start back at school without missing the first two days of term.

We currently have two return crossings booked, one by Eurotunnel from Calais to Folkestone and the other on the overnight ferry from Hook van Holland to Harwich.  What isn’t clear at the moment is whether a non-stop drive by private car from a low-risk country (such as Germany) direct to either the Eurotunnel or ferry port is deemed a transit, if so quarantine is most-likely not required.  Hopefully we’ll find out more in the coming days and we can firm up the final few days of our trip.

Blogged by Matt.