Treetops, tubes, and zoos

Friday 11th September 2020

Our second day in Waldkirch and it’s a smashing day. This good weather is to last until the start of next week. This weekend will be busy, it’s the last weekend of the summer holidays for the people of Baden-Wurttemberg and with the hot weather they will all be out in force, we have a place so we are staying put. Tomorrow might be a challenge, we shall see.

There is a small treetop walk near us, one of those things where they strap rope bridges across ravines between trees, etc. It’s a good 50-minute walk to the top but the way down is very novel. They have Europe’s longest tube slide. The idea is that once you do your treetop walk, you get a rug, jump in a steel tube, and at 40 – 50kph, and 20 seconds later you pop out at the bottom. We’ll see about that later.

A long breakfast today, we love those. On with the walking boots and off we go up the hill to “Baumkonenweg! (Tree Crown way?). 6 euros each later and we are tottering across rope bridges, planks of swinging wood, and so on.

It was a short event but good all the same made better by the fact that before we started we had an ice-cream!

To get down we opted for the slide, tube thing. Del goes first. Nervously and gingerly he edges himself into the tube waiting for gravity to take its turn and pull him down through the tube at 40 odd kilometres an hour starting with a 50-degree drop in the dark, to be spat out at the bottom. Fast? It was fast, very fast than about 10 meters from the end of a dead stop! So with some elbow and leg work, he had to ease his way out of the tube for the last 10 or so meters rather than the expected hi-speed ejection onto a coconut mat. With a watching crowed he pushes himself along on his arse to small applause. 2 minutes later Hayley appears performing the same task to get herself out of the last 5 or so meters. Good fun was had all the same.

Time for a coffee in the lakeside cafe. It’s a lovely day and there are plenty of people milling around enjoying the day, and why not.

Next up is a small zoo that they have here. Again a short walk and 6 euros each we are walking around Waldkirch Zoo. ( we are not sure what’s going on here but everything is six euros. Two beers six euros, museum, 6 euros, tree-walk, 6 euros. Everything is 6 euros.)

We enjoyed the zoo, it was rustic in parts but nice to walk around and you could feed and pet some of the animals.

All very nice and pleasant. All in all a nice day. There is everything here: treetops, tubes, and zoos. Oh and lovely weather.