Updates are still on the slow side, I have been out but after the bout of pneumonia, my lungs were not quite ready to cope with hiking around the hills in Waldenburg.
Due to the the renovation of the house in Waldenburg and the age of the house I've been looking into the history and trying to find out the age of the houses. I have found a few images, the earliest of which is from 1680. I also came across a few images by Emanuel Büchel which led me to his picture by David Herrliberger 'Die Neun Brunnen' which is an area close to Waldenburg. So the decision was made to head to this location in the morning before a meeting in the afternoon. For those that can not read or speak German neun brunnen translates as Nine Fountains.
Emanuel Büchel is known to ever so slightly change elements and perspectives in his pictures to be able to bring everything into the image. Churches my appear larger to give them more prominence, important buildings, distant villages and landmarks may be emphasised. Fountains may be shown closer together than they actually are and a gently slope with a stream slowly meandering along it, may not appear like a treacherously steep hill covered in slippery wet leaves and loose mud!
Admittedly, at another time of year there wouldn't have been so many leaves, and those leaves wouldn't have hid the path that I should have taken to the top and I wouldn't have had to clamber up a slippery slope, and nervously listen to the loose rocks tumble down the slope to the distant base of the hill while trying to get to The Nine Fountains.
It was just the end of what was a unusual hike. It should have been a short walk of about 30 minutes; it wasn't. I didn't take an image from the start of the hike, but here is one from the return along the same path. On that note, all of the images in this blog apart from the final one are taken with and directly from my mobile phone.
What you can see here, or maybe not see is the path! Two trees have fallen across it. I was obviously still able to get through, but with a large rucksack and a protruding tripod there were a lot of opportunities to get snagged!
After getting though the barricades and making my way through the rest of the path it opened up to show the layers of the landscape. There was also some damage evident from the recent storms and another couple of trees were lying on the meadow.
Further across the meadow was a welcome site, a sign showing that I only had another 10 minutes to go to get to Die Neun Brunnen.
It was wrong, or it might possibly be right, but only if you can find the path, and run!
Which leads me to this picture, because I lost the path. I must have taken a wrong turn as I ended up climbing up down and over these rocks for a while with no path in sight. I could barely tell where I'd come from never mind where I was going to.
After finally finding my way out of the labyrinth of rocks, I found the path again. Maybe you can see why I lost it in the first place in this picture. The amount of leaves in some spots, hid any sign of a path. I followed this one for a few minutes until,
it was gone again!
The only options were to return along the same route, or climb up or down.
I could see water falling and I could hear more from the top of the hill, so the only option for me was to climb up!
It looks a lot less intimidating in this image than it did while I was climbing up and sliding down it.
At the top was what I had expected. This is the first of the nine fountains.
With all of the rain from the past few days I could see 7 of the 9 fountains, there are two behind the rocks that have fallen down since Emanuel Büchels day. What I couldn't see, on this day at least, was a composition.
I had made it to where I wanted to be, but unfortunately after the detour and the climb, I'd ran out of time to be able to take my time and get a composition that I liked, as I had to get back for a meeting about electric cables.
The trip wasn't about an image, it was about getting outside after being stuck inside for so long with pneumonia and finding new places. By going off track, I did just that, I found a lot of new places, places that I wouldn't have found if I'd have been able to find the path.
I'll be back at this location soon to try to improve on this shot.
