Friday was a flat day. We spent most of our time hanging around in Eileen while the weather just couldn’t make its mind up. Rodney went for a short walk in between showers, while I caught up on some emails, then after lunch we took our books and beach towels over to the campsite’s beautiful, heated, indoor pool for a bit of a swim and some rest and relaxation.
For dinner Rodney cooked up a chunk of steak and veggies and then, to burn it off, we went for a lovely evening stroll outside the campsite. We took the path beside the glacial river and found ourselves in a little bit of a paradise. There were abundant wildflowers of numerous varieties on both sides of the pathway, a fisherman was casting his line out as he walked down stream in his waders and only the cows broke the silence with their bells clanging as they munched on the damp grass. Back at the campsite we had a quick drink at the bar before bed; tomorrow we will move closer to Innsbruck and spend a day in the city on Sunday.
We left our super-duper, five-star campsite early on Saturday and then everything seemed to go pear shaped. A diversion in the next village, that gave no directions or sign posting, had us a bit lost for a while. We had to double back in Seefeld to find a supermarket; realising that shops would be probably be closed on Saturday afternoon and all day on Sunday. The girls in the tourist office at Seefeld directed me to the post office when we couldn’t find any sign of it and then it turned out to be shut on Saturday morning, despite them telling me it would be open, humph.
We were trying to get to Camping Natterer See at Natters and the GPS got us to the previous village of Götzens, only 2.4 kms away from the campsite. However we came to a complete standstill in that village when a very slowly moving religious procession had the village roads closed to traffic. The police finally opened up a road leading west, but we needed to head east, we drove through a couple more villages that we didn’t want to go to, but there were no roads around that would lead us to Natters. We turned around and tried to get through Götzens again, but just got directed back to where we had come from. In fact we ended up on the road to Innsbruck and then got a bit lost in the city too. Sign posting for any direction was abysmal and the GPS just wanted us to head back to Götzens. We decided to try heading slightly south out of Innsbuck; we had now increased our distance to 13kms from the campsite and we managed to approach Natters from the opposite side. An hour and a quarter later we finally arrived and although the campsite looked very nice, it seemed to be miles from anywhere and we doubted that any bus service would run in to Innsbruck from there on a Sunday.
Because of all the difficulties and frustrations of the whole morning and feeling like we’d already seen a lot of Innsbruck, we both felt that we had lost all interest in the area. The weather was closing in again as we drove back out to the main road and we continued east to Zell am Ziller. We drove past Camping Hell; with the day we were having we didn’t want to chance that one, but when we pulled in to Campingdorf Hofer, they were closed for lunch. We should have expected that one. So we drove further up the valley through Mayrhofen to Finkenberg. We parked in the carpark for the Finkenberg Gondola and ate our lunch with fantastic views back down the Zillertal valley.
Back down at Mayrhofen we had a bit of a wander around, picked up some maps of walks in the area and when the rain started again, we stopped for drinks and cake in the Pavilion Café. When the rain got even heavier, we dashed back to Eileen and drove to Camping Mayrhofen which turned out to be very nice and we settled in while the rain continued to fall most of the evening and through the night.
On Sunday morning I dashed to the shower block in my raincoat, but when I returned to Eileen the sun had come out and the sky was blue. So at 10am with rucksacks packed with food and layers of warm and wet-weather gear, we strode down to the Penkenbahn Gondola in the centre of Mayhofen. By 10:45am we were standing on a high ridge looking down on the beautiful Zillertal valley and enjoying the view of snow-capped mountains all around us.
After a good two and a half hours walking, we sat down for typical Austrian meals in the Penkentenne Bergrestaurant at 2,095 metres above sea level. Rodney polished off his big wiener schnitzel, but I couldn’t eat all of my huge plate of beef goulash and dumplings….. even after all the hiking.
On the way back, we passed yet more clanging cows and it made me wonder if any Tyrolean cow has ever worked out that if she stood very still, the ringing in the ears would stop? And, if they all stood very still together, they might get a bit of peace and quiet. Come to think of it, what happens at night? Do they all go to sleep at the same time, or is there always one annoying cow who keeps all the others awake with a little late-night clanging?
- Riding the gondola back down to Mayrhofen
It took us another hour to walk downhill to the gondola top station and catch a ride back down to Mayrhofen for ice creams and the walk back to the campsite. It was a lovely day up in the mountains and although most of the day turned out to be rather cloudy, no rain fell and the temperatures seem to be rising a bit. Fingers crossed, when we move further east tomorrow the weather might continue to improve……. please?
