Before I started my potentially never-ending journey, I had been thinking about taking three bicycles with me. One trials bike, one gravel bike, and one mountain bike/ enduro. In the end, I started my journey only with the mountain bike and used it for the last time in Croatia in February. From then on, I had been carrying it along.

Back in Germany, before I started my journey, Enduro biking and downhill were my favorite hobbies! I think I did it something like three or five days a week. This sport got me deeply and I loved it. I had so many wonderful moments while doing it. With wonderful friends and in solitude.

There had been the option to spend this year’s summer in the alps going from bike park to bike park. But as I was traveling, I quickly realized that downhill was not the thing I was after anymore. I wanted to explore freely and not restrict myself to places with nice biking trails.

Quickly I realized that the places I prefer visiting and living at are no good match for biking. Actually, I barely did see any nice biking trails during my journey at all. Maybe that’s because I did not search for them or just was not after them anymore. The small tracks in nature I’m finding are much better or even only possible on foot. Biking would mostly happen on tarmac roads in the traffic and gravel roads and I don’t feel like going for that. What is more, I absolutely learned to love walking and running. To explore the areas I’m visiting, be in nature, relax, everything. It’s so calm, natural, and pure.

So I finally was thinking about selling my Enduro in Bulgaria. Because of some special repair, the bike had needed back in Germany, I did not feel good about selling it to someone else and so I decided to send it back to Germany where a very good friend stored it. With this, I completely let go of it and the hobby I had been so much into. Again. Like I did before with: playing computer games, watching tv series and movies, partying, trial biking, gravel biking, riding a racing motorcycle, etc. I’m curios which ones will come back…

While preparing the bike for shipping, I was thinking of what else I could get rid of. So I put all my clothes on a blanket and had a look at it. I had: 19 t-shirts, 18 long sleeves, 11 long trousers, 6 short trousers, 4 long underpants, 17 underpants, 30 pairs of socks, 5 pullovers, and 4 jackets. To much. I examined every piece and sorted the ones out I wanted to get rid of.

Being in the mood of sorting, cleaning, organizing, and letting go, I examined everything I had with me. All the tools, spare parts, and equipment. All the stuff. And after that, I thought that it was crazy and interesting to go through everything I owned. Compared to my life in a flat, I had so much less. But still, I had so much. And I guess about one-quarter of it, I’m not using it regularly. But these things are mostly repair equipment and spare parts.

I thought about how it would be to travel with a very small car or only with a mule. I would have even less. And I could have even less the way I’m traveling. But I decided it was enough for that day.

And I felt very good and kind of liberated. Now that I’m writing this post, I’m thinking that getting rid of stuff is without a doubt one of the healthiest things I ever did. This and starting a spiritual process or whatever you may call it. Having less and less and less. Every time getting rid of stuff feels like a weight gets lifted from my shoulders. And this is interesting: I’m absolutely sure that one could live with much stuff as free and liberated as with less stuff. But doing so is just more difficult. But think about it. If you would not attach to anything, it would not make a difference how much weight you are carrying, right?

After shipping the bike, I faced something that had been bothering me: lifting the cabin from the pickup. I had been thinking about what I would do if I would need to lift it. Normally you would do that with a special cart/ “stand with tires” but I did not buy that one and it’s way too heavy and bulky to take it along while traveling. I imagined different approaches to how one could do it and this is still my favorite one: Taking the winch rope, putting it up over a big branch of a tree, attaching it to two big recovery straps I’ve with me, and then lifting the cabin with the winch. In the end, it was much easier and maybe a little more reliable and very simple.

After I saw Mount Dirfi from the top of the mountain I’ve hiked before, I really wanted to go to its top in the beginning of June 2022.

I left my super awesome spot in the mountains to get to the bottom of Dirfi. Still not used to how camping is done in Greece, I was a little worried if it would be possible to camp on the foot of the highest mountain on Evia. When I reached the spot I had chosen, there were already two tents and of course, it was no problem to camp there.

I planned my hiking route and decided to just go straight to the top of Dirfi. I always prefer to do a round trip, but the only one that stuck to the path is about 50 km long and I didn’t feel like wanting to do that one. So I started my way to the top. Most of the path did go along the ridge you see in the photo behind Rosinante. It was a nice path that included some easy climbing of big boulders. When I reached the top at 1743 m, I had a great view and met another hiker.

He didn’t have the time to do the round trip but I didn’t want to return the same way and so I decided to do the round trip. I figured out, that I could be able to shorten the distance to about 25 km if I cut the paths at two points. But if that wouldn’t work out, I would have to do about 60 km. I’ve never done 50 or 60 km on that point.

I started my descent and although it was super windy, I enjoyed the view and got all into finding my way down. At first, it became quite difficult because I tried to stick to the path and there had been barely any markings. Once I stopped searching for the official path and just started choosing my own, it got a lot easier and more fun as well. Eventually, after some detours, I made it and reached the foot of Dirfi on the opposite side of where I started my hike. From here on, it was easy to stick to the path and when I met a guided hiking group, the guide was pretty surprised that I wanted to go the walk around because it’s very long.

Next, I met a beekeeper. When I asked him about the shortcuts I would like to take to cut the distance to 25 km, he didn’t really understand and finally told me to turn around. For a moment, I thought about if I should ask him to take me with him on his scooter, but then I decided, that I wanted to try the shortcuts.

After continuing my way for an hour, I finally arrived at the first assumed shortcut. I entered the undergrowth, searched around, crouched through bushes, and found a small and low goat track. I followed it and after half an hour, I made it. The first shortcut worked out pretty well.

I hiked for another hour and finally got to the next potential shortcut. This one got a bit more difficult than the first one: this time no luck in finding a goat path and more climbing. But in the end, it worked out and from that point, I just had to hike along the official path back to Rosinante.

After seven hours I got back to Rosinante and felt like always after hiking: satisfied, vitalized and free.