Day 57 and 58 Austrian Alps - Wild camping at 7300 ft, building snow castles and total silence

Day 57 Austria - Glaciers, large rodents and muddy tracks

By 08:00 it was already hot but we were packed and gone by 09:00 and off towards Austria. I had read beforehand that the ‘Grossglockner Pass’ at 2530 m ( ~8000 Ft) was the highest road in Austria and following my crushing disappointment back in May in Romania in finding the Transflaggaren pass ( Voted No.1 Mountain pass road in Europe !) was not yet open this one was not going to be a must.

This was my first time in Austria and it does not disappoint. It is difficult to describe other than to say it just is immaculately presented.  Wherever you look the verges are neat, the fields tended to, not a jot of litter in site nor a pile of rubble ( Albania could learn from this !)

It’s a Mecca for bikers, both with an engine and without. We passed a group where one of the motorbikes had run into the back of a car on the approach to the pass – grim..although he wasn't that badly hurt.

The 8Km long glacier

one big Marmot ( over-size rat)  - one pensive boy

What was a small surprise was the 34 Euro toll and it wasn’t until we got to the ‘big’ visitors centre ( and there are many on the route) that I was to understand why.....The pass was the idea of some entrepreneur who built it solely as a ‘grand’ tourist attraction back in the 1930’s; 1.2 million people now visit it each year.

It’s pretty damn good as well – it is as my earlier comment on Austria, impeccably turned out and maintained, information boards, stop offs, visitor centres aplenty on all sorts of stuff  - and full of really interesting stuff on the glaciers, rocks, animals, the building of the pass itself....I love that sort of stuff.

We watch the cyclists as they toil up zig zag after zig zag, and we also witness the elation of a few as they get to the top;  I’d love to give it a go one day.

The glacier is as impressive as the road itself.  We are often down to 2^nd gear in the van and the radiator fan is on too much but it does cope  - Charlie cools it by chucking snow balls through the radiator and I fret because I think he will hole it with a hidden stone ! I am an old man indeed.

|Ibex spotting

The tunnel at the top

We look for somewhere to camp and it is not until we pass through the short tunnel at the very top of the pass and start to head down the side that we sight a rough, but fairly flat, track that heads off into a corrie. We are still above 7000 ft amongst the fast melting winter snow, we take the van down it and park up.

The pass is closed to traffic in the early evening and so the noise of motorbikes soon disappears and the mountains go very very quiet apart from the shrill shriek of the marmots( Huge rodents bigger than rabbits) which are all around.

Susan spots an Ibex ( large goat/deer ) on the ridge above us

We make tea, learn to ‘wash up’ using snow and sit outside as darkness falls; it is very peaceful and really nice to just be the only one there. We go to bed late, the rain starts at midnight and the pink lilo clamped over the hole in the roof thankfully does its job again.

Snow castles when there is no sand

Wild camping is the very best whether you are in a van, cycling or just walking in the hills – my best nights camping ever ( if you are allowed to say best ever ?) was kayaking around the isle of Jura up in Scotland where we wild camped 3 nights on the trot without seeing another soul. This was Susan’s first night ever and it was a more than successful dry run for Iceland......scepticism is now all gone

It is raining when we pack up in the morning and I am really pleased I spent a good 30 minutes or more the night before cutting drainage ditches across a particularly deep mud section of the track where we almost got stuck. The track is wetter than the night before and I approach it at speed with the can slewing all over the place and the back wheels spinning;  we get through but again only just ...not sure what you would do up here if you get stuck and I know I must change the balding rear off side tyre if we are to maximise our chances of not getting marooned when we get to Iceland.

We drop down and out of Austria, have breakfast in a cafe and the wifi tells us that tomorrow is going to be a perfect weather day in south Germany.

We have 1500km to do in the next 3 days to get up to the north end of Denmark to catch our ferry to Norway,  however both of us are not up for spending a day in the van in the predicted heat so we decide to postpone the start of the long drive by another day and stay south. A quick search on ‘best places to go in Bavaria’ and we soon find a lake just over the border ( Chiemsee Lake) with a  few campsites, a couple of hours later we are installed in an almost German only occupied campsite right on the lake. 

Evening on Lake Chiemsee shore

It has tiny camp pitches and it’s a bit of a bun fight to get a good one as the site is near full...toilet roll is provided, but not as convention would have in the place where you need it....the toilet. It is required to be requested from 'Reception' as the rolls are otherwise apparently stolen ( bizarre indeed) , showers are charged at an additional rate and the owner has a sign that states ‘ No Wifi here, instead, chat and get drunk’ .........the contrast from last night in the Alps is stark.

Day 57 Bled ( Slo) to Grossglockner Pass ( Aus)                                 220 km         Total 7624 km

Day 58 Grossglockner Pass ( Aus) to Prien (Chiemsee Lake) (D)     165 Km       Total 7781 km