Since we slept again in the van, my first task when I awoke was to check the battery conditions on the display panel. And I was surprised to find that the replacement battery that had started the van last night was now down to 8.7v, and unable to start the van! This triggered a whole new wave of thoughts going through my mind. Since the engine had not been running overnight it was clearly not the alternator that was causing the problem. It was not a problem of not putting enough energy into the starter battery, it was a problem related to something taking too much energy out of the starter battery. But what could that be?  Perhaps the thieves had changed the wiring attached to the starter battery in order to power something else, and this was draining the battery. The battery connections were much more complex than any I had encountered before (perhaps this is normal for campervans and the varied roles that the batteries perform), so I took a photo of the connections to the starter battery and emailed it to John Plunkett (who was now in Canada for a while) and asked him if he noticed anything different about the connections.

Given the state of the battery, it was now clear that we would have to extend our stay with Beatrice until at least Tuesday, which was the earliest that we could see an auto electrician. So I went back to bed and listened to the remainder of the AFL match between the Hawks and Tigers, but the news there was no better with Richmond thrashing the Hawks 128-67. That's the problem with a young developing team; sometimes they can play good footy, but they stuggle to consistently play good footy.

After the footy finished we went up to the house for breakfast with Beatrice and Kibo, and she was only too happy to learn we would be staying for a few days more. She was especially happy that she would have someone to join her on her walks for the next couple of days. So this morning she decided to take us up the mountain behind Schwandli, and explore another forest walk, with a difference.

After a 10 minute drive, Beatrice parked her car at a friend's house and then we walked straight into the forest from his side yard. The tracks in this area were all focussed around an old monastry/convent at Heiligkreuz, and many of the tracks are marked by religious stations and crosses at the side of the track. One can just imagine the religious in olden days walking along these tracks as they prayed to their God.

The walk started in relatively conventional manner, as we prepared to cross a stone bridge across a ravine, but the nature of the walk changed substantially when we encountered a wooden walkway leading to this set of stairs up a hillside.

From there on, the circular walk through the forest was confined to the walkway, to preserve the pristine nature of the forest through which we were walking. Nonetheless, some of the views from the walkway were spectacular.

Well-spaced information boards, in several languages, provided information about various aspects of the forest, including the fact that when trees fall (or are felled) they are often left in place to return nutrients to the soil, but only after the bark has been cut in the diamond pattern shown below. This hastens the shedding of the bark and prevents the ingress of bark beetles which are a major pest in European pine forests.

Everyone, including Kibo, seemed to be enjoying this walk in such an enchanted forest.

Finally, we arrived back at where we joined the wooden walkway, and then ventured out into other parts of the forest, including this marshland area. We refrained from walking too far into this delicate area, but the little that we did walk was very spongy underfoot - a weird sensation!

We finally returned to the stone bridge that we crossed at the start of the walk and walked back to the car, and then drove down the hill to home. I checked the battery in the van when we returned and it had risen to 11.4v after a day of solar charging in the sun, but it was still not enough to start the van. But at least it's heading in the right direction.

Beatrice had given us the downstairs office to use, as needed, so Rita took the opportunity in the late afternoon to do more work on her thesis literature review reading, while I caught up with emails, news etc. I was disturbed to read that the drop in water levels in Europe was not just affecting boaters, but also the electicity generation sector where several nuclear power stations were being forced to shut down because of a lack of sufficent cooling water for their nuclear reactors. This compounded the electricity supply shortages brought about by the Russion invasion of Ukraine. Not a good situation.

As the day moved on and night approached, I realised that good sunsets don't necessarily need to be bright and golden; sometimes, just the pattern of the clouds in the fading light can be impressive enough. But just imagine what this would  have looked like if the clouds had have been golden!!