Had a truly fantastic day today. Woke up after about 10 hours of dead-to-the-world sleep & went upstairs with Liz to discover a wonderful breakfast buffet all laid out for us (& the other guests…but you know, it kinda felt like it was just for us :P). We had brekky sitting out on the balcony in the sunshine looking out of the mountains…pretty damn spectacular!

After packing up some food for lunch & managing to pinch a spare set of hiking boots, harness, & helmet for me, we set out for the day to do a hike around Barbara Mountain. The majority of the staff have Wednesdays off (their only day off in the week) so they all tend to head out & do their own thing, particularly if they want to do hikes or climbs or whatever that are going to take an entire day. So we picked up one of the other staff members, Will, & his girlfriend Charlie from one of the other chalets & drove for about an hour to the point where the hike starts.

It's the most incredible place to be hiking…there are mountains all around you, thick pine tree forests, beautiful, brightly-coloured wild flowers. Liz & I chatted away while we walked, except for the really steep uphill climbs :P After about an hour or so we arrived at the part where the via ferrata starts…via ferrata is a little bit like rock climbing, only you don't have someone holding onto you with ropes down below. Instead you are clipped onto fixed wires that run along the edge of a steep part of the mountain, either climbing up, down, or traversing across. I'm quite scared of heights but fortunately we starting with the easiest possible via ferrata so it wasn't too bad. Basically you walk along with your harness clipped to the wire & every 10 metres or so there's a bolt in the wall that separates the next part of the wire where you have to clip off & then on again. You only have one person on each part of the wire at a time, in case somebody falls to avoid you crashing into anyone else. It's perfectly safe although it'd be preferable not to slip & fall because even though the wire would catch you it would still be a pretty painful fall!

Fortunately I did not have to experience this & we made it down in one piece! Liz went ahead of me, guiding me where to put my feet if I got stuck, & in about half an hour we made it to the bottom of a beautiful gorge by a river which was fed by a waterfall about 50 metres away from us. Pretty amazing place to stop & have lunch. We sat by the river munching away & it soon got very chilly in the shade of the mountains, so we got moving & via ferrated (probably not actually a word…but you know what I mean!) back up the other side so we could walk around behind the waterfall. Amazing!!

After that it was all downhill walking back to van, with time to stop for a break by the river on our way back. After about 10 minutes in the car I was fast asleep against the window! Because we were all pretty knackered, Liz, Emily, & I decided to just go down to the local pizza place & order some fantastic Italian pizza for dinner. Those Italians sure know what they're doing with pizza. We relaxed, unwound, showered, & ate, & then I crashed into bed for yet another DEEP night's sleep :)