Today’s challenge was to take the Achenseebahn Steam Cog Railway to Jenbach. Apparently it’s one of the ‘must-dos’ and free with our holiday card. We walked from our hotel and, an hour later, arrived at Seespitze terminal having completely misstimed our day. We didn’t have the patience to wait over an hour for the train and continued into Maurach for another ‘must-do’ – the Rofan Seilbahn.
Apparently, deeply rooted in Austrian culture, is the tradition of friends and neighbours secretly placing a decorated wooden stork in the front garden when a baby is born. We encountered this on our walk through Maurach and wondered how it was possible to do this secretly.
The Rofan Seilbahn cable car took us effortlessly up 2000m with spectacular views over Achensee and the Tirol mountains. Our legs were starting to complain after yesterday’s relentless downhill walk, Kim just about managed a short descent to Speicherteich, a small lake high in the mountains with beautiful crystal clear water. It prompted a discussion as to whether its colour classified it as glacial water, we had learnt the difference on a trip to Iceland but neither of us could remember.
Since we arrived, John has been hankering after an ‘adventure’ and Kim has been ignoring talk of motorboats, paddle boarding and hang gliding. Today he got his way and we did the Airrofan Skyglider, a 200m drop at 80km/h. Having been strapped to some wires, we were hoiked up a mountain before being released rapidly back down again. It seemed the easiest of all the options on offer.
After our seriously cold adrenaline rush, we warmed up with soup before taking the cable car back down. No scrambling down for us today, we’d already done 7 miles and sometimes you need to know when to stop walking and start using public transport.
Finally, the owner of this car trying to justify their purchase
braysabroad 