Beth and Mark's Gap Year 2014: The Hills are Alive. 6 Sept to 19 Sept

Our final night in Paris is spent aboard the boat and after breakfast we say our farewells to our sailing buddies. Our mooring point in Paris is the Port D'Arsenal, which has free WiFii so long as you are less than about 50 m from the administration office. Needless to say our boat is about 100m away. Because we have been WiFi deprived during this trip, after leaving the boat we sit on the steps of the harbour master's office and slake our WiFi thirst. This of course means that we get to say goodbye to everybody again as they drift past, as well as say hello to the incoming passengers who are heading to the Fenix for a trip into the Loire valley. Despite the harbourmaster's occasional "move along street urchins" stare, we tarry until we have drunk our fill, then make our way over to the Gare de L'Est for our appointment with the TGV (very fast train - 320kmph in places!!!) to Stuttgart, which of course is matched with some very slow trains taking us the rest of the way to Salzburg. End result is that we do not arrive in Salzburg until after 9:00pm, where we are thrilled to be greeted at the station by our friend Cathy and her daughter Sophie who are joining us for this leg of our travels. We had intended spending 2 nights in Salzburg, but somehow we miscalculated the nights on the boat, so we had to squeeze it down to one, which means of course not much time to look around. Luckily Cathy and Sophie (who had not made any miscalculations) had already reconnoitred the place and were able to recommend a four hour whistle stop tour of Salzburg. Beth was very excited when she heard that one channel on the hotel TV played The Sound of Music non stop 24x7. I was much more excited by the little chocolate and nougat delight called a Mozartkugeln, which had been left on my pillow. Happily for me, my excitement was well justified (yummy little ball of joy), whereas Beth's wasn't (something was broken, and so there was no Sound of Music at 11:00pm - how sad).

An early start was necessary if we were to do any justice at all to this city and still be able to catch our 2:00pm train to Bad Goisern to commence our Alpine walking tour. The early start didn't quite happen, and then when we did get moving it was quite slowly, and then of course there was coffee and cake to be had, by which time most of the morning was gone and our four hour itinerary was reduced to closer to three. It is not possible to do justice to a city like Salzburg in three hours, but we gave it a very good shot walking most of the city streets and squares and notable places (including Mozart's birthplace), loitering in the Mirabella gardens, visiting the old Petersfriedhof cemetery and catacombs (not quite catacombs by my definition, but interesting nonetheless), hiking up to the Salzburg castle, wandering through the Mönchsberg Gardens to take in the views, and even checking out the wonderful Austrian clothing shops (I need one of those hats with a feather, but Beth doesn't think I do, she is more interested in dirndls and jackets). Most of these places we visit feature in The Sound of Music in some way, and I guess we will have to watch it again some time so that we can say to each other a dozen times "we've been there, remember that?". Very rushed but very enjoyable.

Our Austrian walking tour is through the Dachstein Alps and commences in the small town of Bad Goisern. To get here from Salzburg is only about 50km as the crow flies, but is a 2 hour train trip. Given our rushed itinerary which did not include lunch, a quick visit to the Bäckerei and Supermarket at the station are necessary to provision ourselves for lunch on the train. So equipped with bread, cheese, fruit and Mozartkugelns (Beth glared as these passed through the checkout) we set out for the Dachstein Alps.

Our first business in Bad Goisern is to locate our hotel (which will be home for two nights). A relatively simple task you would think in a small town, particularly given that there is a sign just outside of the station the way. Somehow though we managed to make this difficult. I wanted to go the signposted way, but Beth chose a more obscure path which she proceeded rapidly down. Knowing that she was wrong and I was right, I stood my ground and waited at the signpost for her inevitable embarrassed return once she found herself lost. She did return, but only to tell me she had dropped her case at the hotel and to ask what was I waiting for. Turns out that the signposted route was for cars, and the obscure path was much more direct. Curses!!!

After working our way with the hotel staff through some confusion regarding sleeping arrangements (it seems that there may have been some language difficulties when things were booked), we checked into our rooms and decided to take a walk around town before dinner. Bad Goisern (the Bad bit by the way is pronounced Bard and in German means Bath) is a spa town which is painted by Wikipedia as quite unremarkable, with its main claim to fame being the development of the "Goiserer Schuh", a good wearable mountain-shoe. Although our voyage of discovery covered only the central town area we found a lot more which could have been added to Wikipedia. Some lovely streets scapes, old buildings, charming lanes, a pretty church and all those other things you expect to find in an old Austrian town, but the thing which impressed us most was a violin festival which happened to coincide with our visit. The whole main street was bedecked with trestle tables laden with food and beer and surrounded by violin players of all sorts, groups and individuals all engaged in producing a delightful and merry cacophony. It seems that this was something of a freestyle festival where musicians just came and played as and when and with whom they desired. There was a mixture of orchestrated pieces and improvised pieces all happening at once. A unique but marvellous sound.

Our first day of walking involves catching a train back to the sightly larger town of Bad Ischl (another spa town), just so that we can walk back to Bad Goisern, but don't be fooled, the walk doesn't take the nice grade of the railway line, it goes straight up (almost 1000m) over the hill that the train skirted around and back down again to Bad Goisern. Bad Ischl is quite a pretty little town probably most famous for its being a favourite place of the Emporor Franz Josef, who owned property here. It was here in Bad Ischl in 1914 that Franz Josef signed the declaration of war with Serbia triggering WW1. We lingered here a little buying provisions for our walk (bread, cheese, nuts and fruit) and generally looking about the place.

Nobody objects to Beth taking navigational responsibilities, I suspect our new colleagues are not as geographically challenged as I am, but they probably sense that Beth would be very uncomfortable without a map and very nicely allow her to keep her security blanket. In typical fashion our walking notes are open to interpretation, but Beth does a good job of getting us out of town and onto the mountain roads taking us up the hill. Our notes promised us a salt mine en route, which turned out to be little more than a collection of ramshackle buildings and a couple of railway trolleys. Interesting, but not something to hold our attention for too long. This point however marked our transition from roads to rougher mountain trails, which certainly did warrant our undivided attention. Cathy and Sophie were probably starting to think this alpine walking caper was quite Ho-hum until now. Although we had only experienced a little rain, there had clearly been quite a bit recently because the tracks in places were quite gooey, and gooey and steep can make for quite interesting times. After an hour or so of trudging we arrived at the base of a big cliff. This was Predigsthuhl, atop which after an hour or so of relentless uphill and some cable assisted climbing, our notes promised we would be standing. C&S certainly earned their stripes ascending the summit, they also earned lunch which we duly took whilst also drinking in beautiful views (from our 1278m perch) of Bad Goisern below and the Hallstattersee and Dachstein alps beyond.

Now that we had ascended the mountain, there was the small matter of getting down the other side, which was in fact much steeper than the ascent, with longer stretches of cable for the more vertiginous sections and a long steep zig zag descent through forest back into town. Again our intrepid crew were up to the challenge, but just to make sure that we were properly tested, someone arranged for some heavy and persistent rain to accompany us the last 5 Km into town. A proper alpine walk, we had 20 odd Kms of climbs, mud, scrambles over rocks, views, sun, fog, knee jarring and toe crushing descents, and to top it all off, rain. The only thing missing was a little bit of snow. The perfect reward for a walk like this of course is a good hearty Austrian feed (lots of meat, dumplings and potatoes) and a good sleep.

Day 2 of walking is classed as challenging and involves 1100m of climbing to the Goiserer hut followed by a similar descent down into Gosau. Our trusty notes suggest that this walk not be attempted in bad weather, and as the forecast is not brilliant we confer on our course of action. After about 15 second of debating pros and cons we decide unanimously on a full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes strategy. We did after all survive yesterday's moderate to challenging walk despite foul weather, why should this one bother us.

Again Beth deciphers the notes and safely gets us out of town and on to the track. The sky is a bit grey looking, but it is not raining so we feel quite good. Even after a rather heavy but brief rainstorm our spirits are still high as we climb a well defined and very pleasant mountain trail. We bump into an Austrian couple from Linz, who are happy to chat, and it turns out that they too are on their way to the Goiserer hut. We ask their thoughts on the weather, and there forecast is not positive. It seems that cloud ascending the mountainsides is a sure sign of rain, whilst cloud descending generally means improvement. You can probably guess where the cloud was heading. The Austrian couple were moving a little slower than us, so we fared them well and moved on. Soon enough of course their weather predictions were proved right and the heavens opened. Our maps showed a road head and cable car station at the 1000m altitude point which was only about half an hour away, so we decided to carry on, take shelter at that point and consider our options. Upon reaching the cable station, still in the rain we saw one option evaporate immediately. Any thoughts of taking the cable car the rest of the way to the Goiserer hut were dashed. There was indeed a cable car here, but it was a very antique looking timber crate on a cable type of arrangement suitable only it seems for transporting liquor supplies to the Goiserer hut, and certainly not for human use. Not only were we denied the use of the cable car, but the hut which was its domicile was locked and barred, and it's eaves were very shallow, so any thoughts of substantial shelter were also put to bed.

We had put a lot of hard work into getting this far, so the option of turning back was not a popular one. Instead we decided to take what little shelter we could find at the cable station, then carry on once (if!!!) the rain subsided. Sure enough our Austrian couple ambled along looking considerably less dishevelled than us, and again stopped for a chat. They seemed less disturbed by the rain than us so moved on ahead. Again we wished them well and joked that we would see them soon. The rain did abate a little later and we moved on and soon caught the Austrians. More chatting and some shared joy at the descending clouds ensued. The Austrians again told us that they were slow and we should go ahead, but this was sounding a little like the tortoise and the hare. Farewell again, but this time we determined that we would push on through blizzards if we had to, but we were not going to be overtaken by these lovely folk again. So push on we did. Thankfully no blizzards, just relentless slope. The rewards however were in the views which were magnificent and improving as we ascended, despite there still being a bit of cloud in the valleys. When we arrived at the Goiserer hut it was cold but reasonably clear. Wet clothes were taken off (to the extent that we decently could) and hung out to dry, and we ventured into the hut to seek out a warming hot chocolate. About this time the Austrians also arrived, and of course more chatting took place. The Austrians were much more daring in their disrobing than us, but only momentarily, because they had spare clothes in their backpacks.

The hut was jam packed with hikers (sadly they were generally an older vintage than ourselves), who must also (we thought) have climbed the hill and encountered harsh weather, but we looked like drowned rats, and they looked fresh as a daisy and impeccable. How do they do that??? Our request for hot chocolate was met with a bemused look from the waiter, who had little English, but was able to convey the message to us that it was summer, and you don't drink chocolate in summer, you drink beer. Somehow we were able to convince him that coming from Australia, this did not seem like summer, so hot chocolate was indeed called for. He relented. We were also introduced at the Goiserer hut to a delightful concoction called Kaiserschmarren, which is a shredded eggy pancake accompanied by sweet applesauce and dusted with sugar. Kaiserschmarren loosely translates to Emporers mess, and the story goes that the Emperor's chef badly messed up a pancake which fell apart as he was turning it. In his haste to hide his mistake and make amends he covered the dodgy pancake with a cloche, which of course was accidentally served to the Emperor, who loved it. I am with the Emperor on this, and combined with the begrudgingly provided hot chocolate, we were well warmed up for the next part of our journey. So outside we ventured and ate our packed lunch to supplement the Kaiserschmarren and headed down the long descent to Gosau. There was an option today to climb another nearby peak, but we decided against.

A little way down the hill we happened upon a little road and some cow pastures. Although I have nothing to substantiate my claims, I believe all those immaculate Austrians at the Goiserer hut were impostors who actually drove their cars up here and pretended to be hikers just to make us look bad. The walk down to Gosau again was a mix of rock, mud, forest and pasture, and again was steep and murder on the knees and toes. Despite this it was an enjoyable walk, and the weather almost held out for us. Our hotel was on the other side of town, and we were on the other side of town when the thunderstorm struck, but not quite far enough. We took shelter under the eaves of someone's shed snd waited for the rain to stop. Eventually it slowed and we decided to push on to the hotel as it was getting late. We stepped out from our place of shelter and set out only to find that our hotel was actually next door. Hmmmm... The proprietress of the hotel was relieved to see us. She had been worrying and was about to head out in her car in search of us. I am not sure how she thought she was going to either find us or recognise us, but the sentiment was nice. It was good to be in a dry warm place. Again a mixed bag weather wise, but a satisfying walk nonetheless.

Day 3 we catch a bus out to the Gosausee from whence we walk to the higher and smaller lake the Hinterer Gosausee. A lovely restful walk of about 12 Km. Just right after yesterday's tough walk. These little lakes are quite beautiful nestled in underneath the mountains. The weather is also pretty good to us today, just a couple of small sprinkles. Maybe our luck is changing and tomorrow we will have sunshine.

Day 4 is our last day of mountain walking and our luck has not changed. The weather outlook still looks bleak although it is not raining when we set out. Today we are walking to Hallstatt via the old salt mines above the town. And this of course involves a climb up the hill and a hobble down the other side (about 1000m each). We get out of town and onto the mountain trails quite quickly today, and as well as being steep they are quite boggy and slippery. Today I think that I may have set a world record for slipping and landing on my backside. At least five times I needed to pick myself out of the mud patch I had fallen in. Balance and poise are clearly not my strong suits. I was a little disappointed in my buddies for not even falling down once in support of a comrade. After one of my spills I thought to myself, "at least it is not raining". Which was quite silly, because no sooner had the thought settled than the rain started, which made the walking somewhat arduous and only created more slip opportunities, which I was quick to seize. I think the only thing that kept my spirits up during this walk was the bush tucker. Wild blackberries, raspberries and blueberries aplenty helped to take my mind off my misery.

At the top of our climb we had to negotiate several high meadows inhabited by cows. The most memorable of these was at a place called Plankenstein. For once in her life Beth got a bit bamboozled by inconsistencies between signposts, maps and notes. It seemed that we were being sent across a paddock that the cows had been dancing in. Eventually, although we did not want it to be true, we decided the path did in fact traverse this minefield of cow dung and sinkholes, so very carefully we tiptoed over little islands of grass, hoping desperately that these islands did not submerge and take us with them. Thankfully we survived the crossing under the watchful gaze of farmer Plankenstein who had taken up a vantage point near his barn 100m away to watch the entertainment. I think that hiker watching is a strong spectator sport in these parts and I suspect that bets had been placed on how we would end up. As we were approaching the end of the paddock, farmer Plankenstein waved and shouted and pointed. Some of our more generous spirited folk believed that he was pointing out the way for us. I think that he was cursing his bad fortune at betting against our survival, and was imparting a gesture to send us on our way.

More slippery stuff as we descend means a few more times on my backside until we hit some decent gravel pathways, whereupon the slipperiness stopped, but was replaced with teeming rain. A real highlight of this walk was that it passed the Salt Mines above Hallstatt and therefore provided the opportunity for a visit. The only problem was by the time we reached the saltworks we were well and truly soaked, but still determined to take the 2 hour tour. The attendants didn't seem thrilled at us dripping all over their floor, but they did sell us tickets. I am sure they would also have frowned at my use of the hand dryer in the toilet as a clothes dryer had they caught me at it, so I made it snappy. The salt mine tour required us for some reason to put on overalls, which was a real bonus. A new layer of dry clothing to soak up some of our sogginess. The tour takes us through some of the old (and no longer worked) tunnels from which salt has been extracted for thousands of years. Evidently there was a bit of money to be made from salt back in the day and this was a pretty important place. There is an interesting polished timber slide which the miners use to move from one level of tunnels to another, and part of the tour is to use these slides, which is a lot of fun. Finally there is a little train ride out of the tunnel which is also fun. By this time we are getting a little cold, so we are happy to hand back our soggy overalls, and pick up our still dripping backpacks and raincoats from the cloak room. I don't think that we will be invited back here anytime soon.

Despite our waterlogged state, the final descent down into Hallstatt is very pleasant. The rain has stopped, the path is solid and well defined, and the views of the town nestled between lake and mountain are sensational. Nevertheless we are very happy to arrive at our hotel where we can shower, change and put our weary feet up. This has been a very big day.

Hallstatt is a picture postcard little village whose beauty has not been greatly polluted by modern architecture and it is a delight to wander the cobbled streets and laneways and to climb the steps and alleys taking you from one level of the town to the next. Hallstatt's wealth has historically come from its salt mines, but these days it comes from tourists. It is immensely popular with Asians, and it is amazing how different the tourist demographic is here to other places we have visited in Austria. The Chinese are so enamoured of this place that they built a replica of Hallstatt in China a couple of years back.

We have a rest day in Hallstatt, which gives us an opportunity to relax a little before catching a bus (disguised as a taxi) to the Dachstein Krippensteinbahn cable car which whisks us up above town to a couple of caves, one permanently adorned with ice floes, the other provides the entrance to quite a complex cave system. Evidently there are a large number of caves here and this is a very popular place for speleologists (a strange form of human life with an avid interest in climbing into small holes in the hope of finding bigger ones). Unfortunately cloud is low today, so views are not so magnificent here, but we take the next stage of the cable car anyway to the highest point at 2100m and have a bit of a wander in the chilly fog. A pleasant and restful day despite the average weather.

Day 6 is our final day of walking, which starts off with a ferry ride across the beautiful Hallstattersee to the railway station followed by a lakeside walk back to our starting point of Bad Goisern. Because this is only a relatively short walk, we take the opportunity to spend a little more time exploring Hallstatt before setting off. Flat land in Hallstatt is a scarce commodity, and the cemetery is necessarily quite small, so there has been a practise over the years of removing bones from graves 12 years after interment and placing them in an ossuary to make room for others who are dying to take up the cemetery space. A visit to the Charnel House of St Michael's church to see the 1200+ painted skulls stored there seems a morbid thing to do, but it is a gloomy day, and it certainly is fascinating, so it is placed on our discovery itinerary, as is the church and cemetery. We also make sure we have coffee and cake before donning our raincoats and heading off.

Sadly the weather remains pretty miserable for much of the walk, but the company was good and by now we are used to the rain so we don't let it get us down. It was still a lovely lakeside walk. We arrive back at Bad Goisern a sodden mess of course and find that they are again confused by our numbers and sleeping arrangements. It seems they were expecting only two, not four. Just how they arrived at that expectation is beyond me. Thankfully we were dripping on their foyer floor, so they quickly revised their expectations and conjured up another room. We had completed our walk through the Dachstein Alps despite the foul weather, slippery surfaces, and other obstacles placed in our way, and given that this walk was classified as challenging, I think it confirms our status as expert walkers.

As a reward for our efforts we are all four of us going to spend a few days relaxing just over the border in Berchtesgaden, Germany, so after breakfast we farewell Bad Goisern and take the complex train journey to Berchtesgaden via Salzburg. The trip back to Salzburg is just retracing our steps, but then we have choices to make. We are encouraged by station attendants to take a bus which goes directly to Berchtesgaden and is about 40 minutes quicker than the train, but after 30 minutes of trying to find this bus we abandon the idea and revert to the train, which is reasonably straightforward even if it is slow. Near the end of the line we understand why we were encouraged to take the bus in preference to the train. Rail works were taking place and we were marched about 500m to the rail replacement bus which eventually delivered us into Berchtesgaden.

Berchtesgaden is a beautiful little town with a rather dark recent history. Hitler loved this place, and did much of his horrible business of war from Obersalzburg which is just above the village. He had a house here and he also installed his deputies in houses nearby. There is an incredible bunker system still largely in place interconnecting important buildings in the complex. Further up over Berchtesgaden there is a tea house perched atop a mountain which was built as a gift for Hitler's 50th birthday. Hitler though suffered from vertigo and so didn't spend much time here, instead it became a handy place to hide his secret mistress Eva Braun. The associations with this horrible man and his horrible regime are history which cannot be undone, and the Germans I think have done a good job of not trying to hide or deny this history but also not glorifying it. These associations did not detract (for me) from my enjoyment of this place.

We arrived in Berchtesgaden fairly late, but still managed to take a walk through and above town to get our bearings and to take in the views of Berchtesgaden and the mountains beyond, and strangely, although there was not a lot of sun about, there also wasn't any rain, so for the first time in a little while we returned to our hotel dry. Quite a strange sensation. The next day we take a bus trip out to the Konigssee to cruise the lake from one end to the other and then to take a walk to the Obersee which is the next lake up. The cruise boat is a quaint little wooden vessel which has an electric motor so it glides slowly over the lake with almost no noise. Very relaxing. There are lots of little things to see (monuments, buildings and mountains) along the shore as we glide by, but the commentary is in German so we only get the gist if we are lucky. Beth and Sophie were sitting close to the driver, who I think took a fancy to one of them and they managed to get a personalised guide in fractured English. I am not sure that the local commentary made a lot of sense, but Beth certainly heard (perhaps because that was what she wanted to hear) that there are lots of splendid walking trails in the mountains and it is not far to the Austrian border. No time for that sort of walk in the couple of days we have here, but Beth has stored this information for future reference. The walk to the Obersee is pretty and we are rewarded with stunning views across the lake to the mountains. We break our journey on the return leg to visit the beautiful St Bartholomä church and to take a walk in the woods below the Watzmann mountains, evidently a favourite hunting place for the Wittelsbach kings of Bavaria. We are just starting to see the golden gown of autumn being slowly pulled on by the forest, and the tracks are liberally strewn with leaves. Another couple of weeks and the forests will be full of rich autumn colours.

For our last day in Berchtesgaden we decide to take the trip up to the Kehlsteinhaus, better known as the Eagles Nest or Hitler's tea house and to spend a little time in the Obersalzberg Dokumetum, which is a museum essentially of the rise, fall and impacts of the third reich, but particularly of its local connections. The road up to the Kehlsteinhaus is extremely steep and requires specially constructed buses to make the journey, which is quite spectacular. We are deposited at the entrance to a tunnel which takes us to an elevator for the final 150m or so to the Kehlsteinhaus. The tunnel and elevator are all part of the original construction. The Kehlsteinhaus itself is nothing too spectacular, and it's place in history is not so amazing (no key decisions were made here, that all happened below at Obersalzberg), but you can see why Martin Borrman thought that this would make a good 50th birthday gift. The location is idyllic and the views sensational. Amazingly, this is two days of half decent weather in a row, so we can actually enjoy the views. There are also a whole series of walking tracks making their way up the mountain to this place, and Beth has made a mental note of all of them. I can see that this place has earned an entry in our must return book.

We make our way back down the mountainside (by bus not walking track) leaving what we thought was plenty of time to work our way through the Obersalzberg Dokumentum and bunker complex, but it turns out that this place was jam packed full of information we felt compelled to absorb, so before we knew it, it was almost closing time and was had only been halfway through the exhibition and not seen the bunkers at all. We rushed through the rest of the museum and quickly zipped through the amazing bunker complex, which is all that remains of the Obersalzberg compound which was Hitler's headquarters.

Our short holiday in Berchtesgaden is polished off nicely with a visit to the town square in the evening to watch the local brass band perform some good rousing German tunes. It was quite a sight to see the band and a large number of the audience all decked out in traditional dress. The band seemed to have a uniform, but we think that the bandmaster who looked about 70, may have received his shorts in the Warwick Capper era. They were short and tight, and between songs he seemed to think that it was important that he show off his dexterity by bending down very low for long periods to select music for the next song. Being in direct line of fire to a 70 year old bum in shorts ready to burst at the seams is not a comfortable place to be. But thankfully the shorts and I both survived the performance. As soon as the band finished up we heard smaller bands fire up at the various outdoor eateries, so we had a bit if a wander amongst these. All very pleasant.

We had a lovely relaxing time at Berchtesgaden and thoroughly enjoyed the company of our friends, so it was sad to say goodbye as they headed off into their next adventure and us into ours, which is a walk along the King Ludwig Way from Starnberg to Füssen in Bavaria.