Synchronised strimming

 To continue the theme established yesterday, we did tomorrow, today. Putting it another way, we switched today and tomorrow. 

We had planned to go up somewhere high today and walk round a bit. The factor which caused us to rethink was, as ever, the weather. I understand that there is some very hot weather happening in the UK at the moment? Here, the very hot weather is predicted for tomorrow and the following day. It seemed sensible, therefore, to ride the tandem today and go up high on the hot days, when we should be able to enjoy some cooler temperatures. 

The thing is, we'll both find any excuse to cycle. I can't quite believe I'm saying that of Kate as well as myself. Nor can she...

Once again, a chance remark to Gertrude at breakfast saved us a lot of bother. Never mind 'ask Jeeves', ask Gertrude! I told her we intended to take the train to Crimml, and cycle back. She told us the train currently only went as far as Mittersill. That sort of scotched that idea but we formed a cunning plan. We would cycle to Mittersill and then continue, before turning round and taking the train back here from Mittersill. 

We have actually already done the ride as far as Mittersill but neither of us were bothered by that. "After all", counselled Kate, "we've been to Boroughbridge more than once". Happy with that perspective, we set off on the ride, wowed all over again by the majesty of the scenery. 

The wild flowers growing in the fields are enough of a feature in themselves.

We have spotted, corn flowers, scabious, salvias, sweet williams, geraniums, margarites, calendula, irises, campanula, several alpines (not surprisingly) as well as speedwell and stitchwort. No edelweiss, but apparently it's too early in the year, so we're safe from Christopher Plummer (I did need help with some of the flower names...) In other words, quite a lot of flowers that we try to cultivate in our gardens.

At frequent intervals throughout the ride, there were people with strimmers. I'm not talking about little electric ones. These were the full on petrol engine ones. Everywhere you looked, someone was strimming. There seemed to be a determination to strim as much of Austria as it's possible to strim. Some people were way up high on the mountainside, strimming away. That was particularly surprising. And hard work!

We reached Mittersill for coffee and then pushed on up the valley. I was happy to see the plants bending in the opposite direction to us as we cycled. Good. I thought, there will be a nice headwind for our return journey. And we seem to be zipping along effortlessly already. When will I learn? If you're zipping along easily, you have a tail wind. We turned round when we'd had enough and took on a strong headwind. I was glad we had persued that direction no further. We still knocked up 50 miles anyway. (Don't accuse me of exaggeration, Strava users, I forgot to switch the computer on for a while.)

The ride beyond Mittersill followed a fast flowing river of clear water of transparent green. I guess it's ice melt that gives it that hue, but I'm happy to be corrected. 

From Mittersill, it was a case of find the railway station and wait. A wait of half an hour in the shade, out of the hot sun is never a problem. Not at our age, anyway. 

The train is a little narrow gauge spur running from Zell am See to Mittersill (and usually to Crimml) It consists of one seating carriage and a goods van solely for putting bikes in. That's it. I very much doubt the speed of the train ever exceeded 30 mph. In fact, one had a job to overtake us on the way out! This train must surely also win the prize for the shortest ever journey between stations. Between the first and second station must have been a distance of about 200 yards. Anyone wanting to get on the train at another station had to stand on the platform and stick their hand out. If you wanted to get off the train, you pushed a buzzer. You were asked to give the driver plenty of warning so that he could screech to a halt from 30mph.

The journey was a joy. We completed the journey back to the bnb, showered, changed and went foraging for food.

Kate went for Sushi. I confess, head held low, that I did too. It was excellent. I sit here in the reletive cool of the evening, looking out over the lake. Small boats of every description are at play. Light aircraft occasionally fly overhead. There are still cyclists circumnavigating the lake.

We might circumnavigate the lake in the next day or two. A sort of victory lap to finish our Austrian cycle rides. 

But tomorrow (whatever that means) we are almost definately going up the Schmitten Hohe on a cable car, to wander around its lofty heights. I suppose I should take my wooly hat...

                             Ice melt water?

          Approaching a village in the valley


      The narrow gauge railway goods van



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Into the clouds

Image
 We could have been disappointed by the weather today if it were not for the Internet, which insisted that the weather will be great from tomorrow on. Actually, when we looked out of the window at our dramatic view, it wasn't raining, but the weather app. assured us that it was raining and who would argue with that?  We descended a floor for breakfast. It was as expected. Rolls, cheese, ham, spam, jam and plenty of coffee. Some breakfasts have also offered cereal but it is pretty clear that this is only provided by places that are willing to pander to the taste of those parts of the world where cereal is a breakfast staple. As we sat down, Gertrude, our host walked in and proudly placed freshly boiled eggs in front of us. Kate ate hers. Suffice it to say that my body would not thank me for furnishing it with an egg. We are staying here for a week and the thoughts that Gertrude was going to present me with an egg every morning, emboldened me to take action. I explained that I d...
Read more

How do they do it?

Image
 We were running on adrenaline when we got up this morning. The alarm wasn't needed as suspected and we sat drinking tea at 6:45 contemplating the myriad of scenarios that lay ahead of us today.  We were packed quickly and efficiently with a skill born from growing experience of living out of a couple of panniers. All our worldly needs clipped into a couple of panniers and a bar bag. Kate is now so skillful that she can include three dresses and some mini hair straighteners. The sat nav chirruped away happily as we set off through early Saturday morning streets that were so quiet we could listen to the birdsong as we followed an intricate but beautiful route through the city to the Westbanhof train station.  We were so early we could have just caught the previous train - if we wanted to pay €120 instead of €46. So we waited an hour, watching nervously as more and more cyclists appeared wanting to catch the same train. At last the time came to board the train. I made for...
Read more

On track and off it.

Image
 I should tell you more about the castle we stayed in last night, first.  Don't get me wrong, it was very romantic. A fairy tale sort of a castle with turrets and huge rooms and vaulted ceilings. This was reflected in the cost. But Prince Charming or Rapunzel were nowhere to be found. (As you will read in a moment...) There was no breakfast and no food or drink available at any point. Not even a little chocolate on your pillow, which is a challenge when it's so remote. It was also cold. In the evening, we sat in all our clothes, under the duvet. The shower gel had not been refilled which is an issue when travelling light and we never saw a soul from beginning to end of our stay. Just an envelope at Reception with our name on it. I suppose none of that should matter, but when it's a four star hotel...? There was no chance of us drying our clothes even though we used the hair dryer on them until it had probably had enough. This morning, we ate our yoghurt and an emergency fl...
Read more