Thursday 7th July Hauenstein to Brugg

Big 33 kilometre walk today with about 800 metres of climb. Hot and sticky with a bit of thunder in the air, rained a bit this afternoon but nothing serious.

The big pain at the moment, apart from smelly shoes, is horse flies. They are savage and I'm currently carrying four huge bites on arms and legs. The bite is much worse than a mosquito (although they don't buzz around your ear at night) and if you see them on your arm or leg it's basically too late they've got you. My standard insect repellant doesn't stop them and although I've also got some heavy duty DEET stuff I'm a bit loath to use it as standard. Still, as they say if it doesn't kill you it can only make you stronger (absolute nonsense of course).

On nasty biting things I have also adopted a new approach to ticks. I'm wearing shorts which means I can keep checking my legs. I now know the conditions where your likely to get them and I'm extra diligent when these conditions apply. Saw a deer today and sure enough a tick jumped on my leg but I got it before it made itself comfortable. For some reason had my flash on the camera so the deer shows up with a touch of red eye.



Another nice walk but much too misty to see the Alps. The limestone ridge is definitely starting to fizzle out but what as left, today at least, was a series of outcrops which in themselves made for some nice scenery.







Nowhere to get a packed lunch so treated myself to sausage and chips at Staffelegg, a road side restaurant, very pleasant. Despite the length of the walk it was all very gentle and I was making great time.

3 comments:

  1. Don't get me started on insects that bite!

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  2. Where I live, there are no horse flies but on our recent visit to my home country, my wife was horrified to learn of another nasty biting insect.

    Patrick

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  3. Your wife is very lucky to have been innocent of horse flies for so long, they chew rather than bite

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