Using trains and a bus I travelled to this outskirt of Austria to continue where I left it behind last month. The campingsite in Gmünd is situated approx. 100 meters from my finishing point of the last trip.

At 5.45am I have put all my lugage in my backpack and I am on the Trail again. Just north of Gmünd the path crosses a National Parc named Blockheide. At this indecently early hour on a Sunday morning there is no one around and I climb the watch tower without paying (I am Dutch after all). The path continous northbound. When I cross at 10.00am the village of Amaliendorf, I hear the sounds of a local event, the so called Schnitzel-Frühshoppen (no joke!). The next town I come along with is Heidenreichenstein (including the airline restaurant; a redesigned old Boeing 737). The weather has changed during the morning hours from grey and foggy to exuberant sunny. The morning kilometers took me mainly though forests, and the afternoon section of the path shows me mostly fields and open land. It is very hot and there is not a breath of wind. At the end of today’s stage, as I enter the village of Waidhofen, I come along the river Thaya. The E8 will follow the stream of this river in the next approx. 80 km., as it did in previous sections the rivers Linge, Rein, Main, Tauber, Altmühl and Ilz.

The local camping is situated directly next to the river.