Gday Gday,

I hope everyone is well and can figure out how to work this site easier than the last one. Its actually a lot more user friendly than the last one so I think I'll stick to it. The following are my scribblings from my trip to Austria and Slovenia between Friday 24th October and Saturday 1st November. The pictures are already up in the last album I posted. This will somewhat update my travels to this date. J Please write on the message board coz i can't see who's reading these. Maybe no-one?

So it all started rushing from school on Friday to Stansted to attempt to make my flight. In the end I made it easily and was on my way. Was speaking with some Australian girls on the flight who, were to spend just the weekend in Salzburg. I had no plan as to where I would stay so I tagged along with them to their hostel. We arrived there late at around 10.30pm and the girls checked in to their booked room and I said Id meet them at the bar or I'd go up to their room. I went down to my room, which was on the Fritzel level, yes the basement. I thought my joke was quite funny, not sure if anyone else could rise to such putrid humour. The hostel was lovely, set back in a quiet little part of town only about 10 minutes walk to the main strip down by the river.

So I got set in the basement and headed up for a beer. I spoke with a guy from the States and an Indian guy, who were both studying in Stockholm. After a few beers we decided its time to go out. The Indian guy bailed early in the night around 1 or 2 and the other guy not long after. In true first night fashion I had to keep on keeping on. So I was dragged around by a few pretty Austrian girls to a few different bars and ended up dragging my ass back to the hostel about 5.30am after a quick call to Russell, who I believe was working his ass off at the time at the Races? :S True to my good record of missing breakfasts I did so again and checked out late.

The main concern for myself on this morning was the stench of my jacket. Everyone is smoking in the bars. It is still legal, I'm really not sure why Austria is behind on this one. I tried not to complain too much but I do hate the smell. My eyes were also stinging from the smoke. I had a look around Salzburg that morning. A nice quiet city from what I saw. I visited the castle briefly and walked through the markets. Countryside reminds me of Switzerland out here. They wont like me saying that though. Cheese and ham rolls were on the menu for the train ride to Innsbruck!

That night I arrived in Innsbruck in good time and managed to find Kathi 1 and Kathi 2's flat fairly easily. These girls are my couchsurfing friends who stayed with me in London a month or 2 earlier. I went down to the shops to buy some groceries to cook dinner then went out for a walk in town and down by the river. I managed to walk myself down right along the river and then realized the only way back up was to walk the 15 minutes back or climb the 4 or so meter wall. Thought I'd get some practice in and climbed the wall, much to the amusement of some locals who just watched me as a threw myself over the wall back onto the path. So I made it back to the girls and cooked dinner, we watched a movie, chatted for a while and finally it was off to bed. I was keen to head out but the girls weren't feeling to well so I thought it was a good opportunity to catch up on sleep anyway.

Sunday morning I was fresh as a daisy and ready for an adventure. I followed directions to get up to a place called Seegrube, which was a hotel/restaurant that sat on a ridge at 1905m. Innsbruck lies at around 570m. I walked from the girl's house across the river and followed signs. Eventually I thought I was on the open trail. Instead of following contours, I got impatient and started scrambling straight upwards. It was going great guns for the first 20 minutes until I reached a band of houses that stretched across a small ridge. I tried to walk around them but on one side was just more houses and on the other was a sheer cliff face. I heard some noises down near the cliff and curiosity won me over, so I went to check it out. 2 or 3 deers were springing around up the side of the mountain as if it was flat ground. Shortly after they disappeared an Austrian guy came down shouting at me. I asked him where the path was. He replied, "There is no path here," and waved me to come up and join him at the front of his property. He continued with, "You're in good shape!" I replied intrigued with, "Thanks, but what do you mean?" The man answered, "well you see, we have bees on one side and a cliff on the other." So apparently the only way was back down and around. He told me how he asked his boy to look at the deers from the window and he noticed one was not a deer, it was me! So he walked me through his yard and showed me on the right way up to Seegrube.

I enjoyed the hike up to Seegrube, but was absolutely stuffed in reaching the top. Paths are nice, but not challenging enough so I walked directly underneath the cable car, aiming straight for the top. At Seegrube I just had to hit up this restaurant for some food. Unfortunately I didn't realize that the shops are all closed on Sundays so I hadn't eaten anything that day until 3.00pm when I reached Seegrube. Suppose I did alright considering I had no bloody food. So after my massive bowl of spaghetti and a bounty chocolate it was about 3.45 and the sun was hinting and sharply turning away behind the mountains. I was interested at what was up on the next ridge though so I quickly scampered up there about another 80 meters higher to a little memorial of some sort. The views of the valley from up here are just breathtaking! Well worth the gruelling hike!

So it was now past 4 as I started my descent. I looked at a sign which read - Hungerberg : 2hr 15 mins. A little voice told me it would be dark by not long after 5 as daylight savings had just kicked in. With my newfound energy from glorious food I began to run down the trails in an attempt to get as far down as I could before it got cold and dark. Most of the lazy b*****s by the looks had hiked up and were taking the cable car back down. So I slipped and slid down the rocks as quickly as possible and at one stage stopped to empty the rocks out of my shoe, fumbled it in my cold hands and watched it go, bouncing away down the rocks and shrubs until it finally came to a halt. I had to laugh. So I slid down on my ass for 20 or so meters to put my shoe back on in order to continue down. I more than cut the signs estimate time in half, making it back down to Hungerberg just as it was getting dark at about 5.10pm. The last few hundred meters down to Innsbruck were on gravel paths so darkness wasn't an issue. I eventually arrived back at the girls flat around 7pm or so absolutely shattered. The girls made a lovely dinner for me, which was well appreciated! Watched a movie again and fell asleep early.

Monday I woke up without a clue what was ahead for me. My feet were sore and my muscles had pulled up much better than I had expected. I planned to walk around the town for the day and just generally wander. After about 30 minutes I was bored, nothing against Innsbruck. I just wasn't in the mood to wander around a town. The mountains I stared at in the distance appealed to my senses and I felt a need to go and visit them again. A snap decision was made and I went to the tourist shop, bought a map and heaps of supplies and just hit it. Organised my small pack and off I went. The plan was to hit a summit. I had little idea about the weather for the day and how long it could take to make it to a summit. After finally making it past the row of houses that surround the lower part of the mountains I found a trail and located it on my map. The first part of my hike was simple, up a wide trail that wasn't too steep and mostly followed a contour around the side of the mountain before it turned right and I started ascending through thick forest. The trail got more difficult and steeper as I loaded myself up on OJ and chocolate bars. I followed some rough signage and climbed up through a really steep thick area of forest before coming to a trail that I couldn't find on the map. Lost I was, walking around at about 1300 meters I came to a steep cliff, which would have been foolish to tackle I turned and decided to try hike the other side of the mountain. I eventually located myself on my map, which was 1:35000 and didn't include some of the trails on it. Map reading skills from high school had payed off. I was then heading up a real b**** of a trail, steep, slippery and rocky. This track popped out on a ridge upon a clear field that lead up to a small hut at about 1650m. I walked toward the hut and exclaimed, "People!" I spotted 2 girls sitting outside the hut eating and drinking Schnapps. I hadn't seen a person for about 3 or so hours. We spoke briefly and had a drink together. I asked if they would go higher. They replied with, "We will follow you, if you're going."

Anne and Lisa, both medical students from Innsbruck knew the quick way to the summit, straight up. Follow me they didn't, I was dragging at their heals as they walked up. Lisa described me as, "In 4 wheel drive," scampering up on hands and feet in attempt to lower my centre of gravity and not roll back down the mountain. Lisa set a decent pace and we were soon up past the tree line and over 2000m. My heart rate was absolutely going through the roof. At one point I stopped for a pulse check and got a reading of 190bpm. The last part of the hike we were on the side of a ridge that to the right dropped off almost vertical a few hundred meters. At about 3.30pm we reached the summit and sat to enjoy the view. We climbed the last 600 or 700m in about 1 hour 30 minutes. At the top arriving shortly after the girls I was informed of what happens when you hit a summit and greeted with a great hug from both of the girls. Holding the cross was a satisfying experience and the smile wasn't to be wiped of my face. We took a few quick snaps, wrote a message in the book in the box on the cross, had some more of Lisa's Schnapps, ate a chocolate bar each as we sat a top of the 2268m peak and gazed upon the valley below and the mountains in the distance. They pointed out the uni they attend and described the classes they had skipped for the day to go hiking. So far my best hiking moment was this. I thanked the girls for leading me up the final part of the mountain. I wouldn't have made it without them I don't think. Not such a high peak but I walked all the way from the centre of Innsbruck all the way to the top with sore body parts from the previous day. After 15 or 20 minutes a sudden wind started to blow across the summit. We needed to start making a move anyway. My phone began to ring at the top as well. Baffled as to who was calling me I answered but didn't get any response. Who was it that called?

The descent had to be rapid, as we knew it would be getting dark by 5pm. We made it down past the tree line within half an hour, which provided some shelter from the wind that was now blowing stronger. We saw some Gemsels (mountain goats) climbing the mountains in the distance as we were descending. By 5pm darkness was creeping upon the mountains and we still had a long way to go. The descent was easy for me compared to ascending and we were making good time down the mountain, however the darkness was well set in and we were still at 1300 meters or so. I got out my headlamp eventually and there we were clambering down the mountain in the dark. It was such a cool adventure though and it was nice to be SHARING this experience with others rather than by myself. At one point Lisa decided we were slightly lost but got us back on track quickly. I only fell over once in the darkness, which was on a big bed of leaves and was quite funny. We had a witch following us at one point as well and saw a set of eyes gleaming in the darkness. It was a Gemsel I think but the photo looks creepy. We eventually reached Lisa's car at about 700m and she drove us to a restaurant where we had a huge feast. Pork knuckle time!! Lisa's bf came to the restaurant as well for a few drinks and we chatted about the day that was. After dinner and exchange of emails, I departed to walk back the 45 odd minutes to central Innsbruck down the steep streets and made it back by 10pm.

The following day I woke up and went walking around town and looking in a few shops and eating lots. I met up with Lisa that evening at a bar in town. Her and her friends were just out for some drinks. I was speaking to Max, one of Lisa's friends for a few hours, seems like a pretty extreme guy, doing lots of high altitude extreme sports. Went to the moustache bar then to this massive Irish pub with like 3 levels and then to some small club. Was fairly drunk by the end and eventually Lisa left me at about 3.30am. She was fantastic though, showed me such a good time. So Wednesday morning I missed my early train and had to sit around for a few hours. I was on my way from Innsbruck hopefully to Bled in Slovenia. I had no idea if I could make it, but thought I'd give it a crack. I shall write about the Slovenian days in the next diary.

Seeya!