On Monday we woke up to the most brilliant, bright blue sky, so we were definitely going to go up another mountain. We left Camping Mayrhofen and drove up to Hintertux, at the end of the Tuxertal Valley. We filled a rucksack with all the warm clothes in our wardrobe, fleecies, scarves, gloves, hats, padded gilet, etc and walked over to the Gletscherbus 1, a gondola that takes you from 1,500m up to Sommerbergalm at 2,100 m. We then walked across to the next gondola which carried us up to the Tuxer Fernerhaus at 2,660m where we walked across the snow, carefully avoiding all the skiers, to the Gletscherbus 3. This gondola is considered the most spectacular cable car in the Alps, as well as the highest bi-cable cable car in the world and it whisks you up to the top of the Hintertux Glacier at 3,250m.
It was incredible to be standing on the top of a mountain on July 1st and be surrounded by skiers, but it’s one of the few places in the world offering skiing all year round. It’s so high that there are almost always good snow conditions, enabling almost all of the pistes and lifts to be kept open 365 days of the year. Unfortunately we didn’t have our gear with us, so we stood on the Panorama Terrace and enjoyed the most amazing 360° views across the Alps; we could even see Italy. It really felt like we were on the top of Europe and we couldn’t have had better weather in which to see it.
So instead of skiing, we took a guided tour through a crevasse called the Natural Ice Palace. Its entrance is just above the top station on the Gletscherbus 3 lift and you get to climb about 25 metres down into the ice using a combination of slippery steps and metal ladders. This was why we needed all the warm clothing! It turned out to be a frustrating tour, with way too many people (about 30) crammed in to the tiny area; we spent most of the 70 minutes stuck on icy ladders or in cramped tunnels, unable to hear any of the information being imparted to the front few folk. But it was quite amazing to realise you are actually inside a glacial crevasse with ice stalactites, sparkling ice crystals, frozen waterfalls and a pond and the view when you returned to the surface was just so beautiful; we had a lovely morning.
After a couple of good warming soups at a café on the Sommerbergalm level, we caught the Gletscherbus 1 gondola back to the base and wandered back to Eileen peeling off our clothes as the temperature was now over 20°C.
We drove back down the valley to Zell Am Ziller and then turned right up the Gerlostal Valley. We passed a lot of meadows being cut and in each field, groups of people would be raking the cuttings downhill; it looked like hard work in the now 24°C heat. It was a beautiful wooded valley and I gave up counting pine trees when we got to one million, and that wasn’t counting the ones already felled, piled up high beside the road. We also passed lots of small ski resorts along the way, but there were only a few gondolas running, purely for hikers, not skiers.
After an initially easy drive along the valley, the road started to zig-zag up and over the Gerlos Pass. On the way down the other side, the road actually turned back under itself at one point, and we pulled in to a lay-by when we glimpsed the impressive Krimmler Wasserfälle. The three levels of falls add up to 380 metres, making them the highest waterfall in Europe and apparently the fifth highest in the world. An annual average volume of 177 billion litres of water plummets over the falls in to the valley and in winter it is apparently partly cloaked in ice, which also must look quite spectacular.
We tootled along through the Salzach Valley, remarking on how much prettier Austria looks when the sun is shining and then we found a dreadful traffic jam. We crawled through Piesendorf, past Fürth and Zellermoos, turning the engine off most of the time, and trying to work out why we weren’t moving. It took us an hour and a half to travel about 5kms and by now the temperature was 25°C and our internal temperature gauges were struggling to work out if we should be shivering, or sweating, after spending a good part of the morning at 0°C…?! At least the views were lovely and the nice thing about being in a campervan is that you can always turn a traffic jam in to a snack stop, which we did.
So instead of turning up at Camping Bad Neunbrunnen am Waldsee at 5:30pm, we didn’t get there until after 7pm and the reception was closed. Fortunately they did accept us and we settled in to a late dinner and a late night in the sleepy silent campsite; again surrounded by beautiful snow-capped mountains.
We were woken at 5am by sunshine pouring in through the skylight, oops forgot to close it last night, but we were glad to see it was going to be another sunny day. After breakfast we gathered up two loads of washing and strung lines all around us to get everything dry, while we relaxed in the sunshine. After lunch we unstrapped the bicycles and cycled in to Maishofen, the nearest village, to find a post office and then as the cycle way seemed pretty flat, we continued on to the Zeller See.
It was a lovely ride and we decided to continue on round the lake to Zell Am See. We had expected to find a traditional Austrian village full of cuckoo clocks and outdoor clothing shops. I had skied there back in 1985 and was keen to see if I remembered the area. However we got quite a surprise when we discovered it is now very much a holiday resort with a Muslim influence and most of the women were wearing burqas and hijabs. We’re not sure if they ski there in the winter, but a few of the restaurants and shops were selling food and clothing to suit their needs. For a moment we thought we were already in Abu Dhabi and we’re not supposed to be there until October.
We cycled back to the campsite along the same route, rather than get lost in other villages and although planning to eat dinner outside, we were driven inside when a thunderstorm moved across, just as we were dishing up our meal.
Ah well, by the time we woke up in the morning, the sky was blue again and we managed to get another load of washing on our line. We spent the morning catching up on news, emails, banking, blogging and a bit of reading and I actually managed to get my rag-rugging out, to fill in a bit more; I’m not sure if I’ll ever finish our back-door mat before we sell Eileen. I stretched my legs with a stroll around the campsite lake and met some people in the forest who were smaller than me.
Rodney went for a cycle ride out around the local villages and got back just before a mild thunderstorm passed by. To save getting everything wet, we pulled in the awning, chairs, table and groundsheet; we’ll be leaving here tomorrow anyway, so that’s saved some time for tomorrow morning.
