Stade to Wischafen. Sunday 3 Aug.

As we had to cross a 'tilting bridge' today, just south of Wischafen, which has only limited opening times, we went to the 'i' bureau in Stade yesterday to check if it was opening today."Yes it is" they said, "between 17:00 and 19:00," so we planned for an early departure from Stade. We left at 8:10am so as to reach the 'tilting bridge' (Sperrwerk) before 17:00.

The way out of Stade was on a very minor road, much nicer than the route in, with scenery typical of rural England. It was still cool and  as we headed north to the coast, but on reaching the Elbe the sun came out and the day was much hotter.

We walked by the Elbe for a few km. before the road headed more inland. For a while there were flat flood planes between the stop bank (Deich), on which we we walking, and the Elbe.

The path then returned to the Elbe and remained there. We stopped for liquid refreshment at a camping area called Krautsand on the way north. It was very hot and the sandy beaches on the Elbe were attracting lots of holidaymakers.

We finally reached the Sperrwerk at about 15:30.

However we were confonted by this sign.

We had seen a similar sign about 3 km earlier but believed it was an old one that had not been removed. After all only the previous day, in the tourist office in Stade, we had been told the bridge woud be open between 17:00 and 19:00. 

Note the sign is not dated, nor is there a phone number given where one can get information. The same sign was up this morning when we went past the northern side of the bridge. We did wonder if it has been there all summer.

By this time we were basically at the limit of our comfortable walking  range but we had to turn around and start walking back to the nearest bridge crossing to the main road.main road. This was at Dornbusch 8km to the south west.

We arrived at Dornbusch about 5pm and were fortunate in that a bus service was still running from  Stsde to Wischafen. It arrived on time at 17:46. We were booked into our hotel by 6pm with s view of the northern side of the open Sperrwerk bridge.