A beautiful Hike

This Thursday was Fathers Day here in Germany. As it is usual in my Family, we went on a little Family Walk.

This Time around, it was just me and my Mom, but it was still great.

We had decided to go and find the Sandhöhlen, or Sand Caves, near Blankenburg in the Ostharz.

Obviously, it would be very crowdy there since it was a National Holiday. So we ere not really surprised when that turned out to be true.

We were also very lucky and got a nice Parking Space right next to the Trailhead. So that was really nice.

The Trail itself was also awesome, although it felt more like a Baltic Sea Trail then a Trail in the Harz, according to my Mom.

From that Trailhead, we then headed along the very sandy Track down towards the Sandhöhlen.

Along the Way, the Forest around us slowly started to change from a more mixed Woodland to a pretty much all Pine Forest.

I really do love Pine Trees. They are kinda my favourite Trees.

After just a little bit, we then arrived at our even more crowded Destination. I guess not everyone got there by Car that Day.

All it was was a great Sand Put in the Forest, dotted with some Sandstone Rocks, Cliffs and those beautiful Caves.

They are not really that large, but they are definitely very impressive.

There is also a lot of History in that Place that I will not get into right now because I do not full understand it yet.

After spending a little Time there, we then headed towards our secondary Destination, a Castle in the Woods.

We would never truly reach that Place though.

To get there, we had to climb a very steep hill. That bit was really really hard on us, but also on another Group that we encountered.

The worst Part about it that there was a fenced off Military Area with a Staircase right next to all of the steeped bits of the Climb.

Our original Plan was to head through a little Gate and into the Castle after that Climb.

Sadly, that very Gate was locked and we had to go another Way though.

That was also kinda steep and very annoying because it went downhill and also was very slippery because all of the Sand that was everywhere across all the Tracks we used.

When we finally reached the Road from the Castle to the Parking Lot, we then goofed it.

We thought it was already late and decided to skip the Castle. Only that we were off by one entire Hour!

In the End, we still had a great Day though. It was not an easy Hike, but the Area was stunning, and we had a great deal of Fun after all.

On the Way back Home, we then also stopped for Ice Cream, and that was it.