Europaischer Hof Bad Gastein

Stayed at a beautiful spot in Austria (Saalbach) with Hilly, Stu's old friend and new Father..actually felt sorry for him, the poor sod was knee deep in relatives, in laws, newly purchased crib and nappies, etc.....we stayed for afew days and it was neatly timed with the arrival home of new born Frankie. Hilly's place is 3 feet from a field of horses so Lauren was easily kept busy with feeding duties.

Stu tried ...

Abfahrt von Poettelsdorf dann endlich gegen 1/2 7 abends. War ja nicht so einfach - alles einladen - dann noch diverse Besuche - zwecks Wohnmobilbesichtigung ;-)
Kurze Pause in Ilz - abendessen und gegen 1/2 12 dann Ankunft in Steinfeld - Frau Graf ist sogar noch wach ...

Yes, as you can tell by my last few entries, I'm not in a writing mood at the moment. However, it's neccessary so that you all know that I am alive. Just briefly, Zell Am See was great. I stayed in a hotel because the town doesn't have hostels. It was nice to have my own bathroom and a private room. It wasn't much more than a hostel would have cost me. They had ...

... did amazingly well and we made it to the entrance of the cave, at a lazy 1710m!

What was more disconcerting for Natalie is that three of the guides were leaning/sitting on a fence post at the entrance, and behind them nothing but a sheer cliff with gravel and scree to help them rapidly descend 800 metres!!!

We were greeted by our guide, who had the pleasure of telling us that there were another 720 stairs upwards in the cave itself... just what my ...

After my final day on the slopes, I have these things to report: Times fallen over: About the same as yesterday. Times gotten back up: Everytime, of course. Reasons for falling over (a new category.. ooooh): Pushing my limits Easy runs completed: Quite a few Intermediate runs completed: 4 Expert runs completed: 1 Injuries sustained: 0 Body parts that hurt: I have transcended pain, and the muscle aches and complaints I ...

... discriminating between does, and where doesn't hurt. Though occasionally I get a spike of my in my left buttcheek, just to remind me I'm still alive I guess. I should also point out that it's all good pain today, probably the result of this unfamiliar thing I've been doing called exercise... Things I don't like about the slopes here: - There are a number of ...

... of carving through fresh powder (and not falling over). I'm also completely buggered, so I'll sleep well the next couple of days. Hopefully the weather will clear up tomorrow - as awesome as it is to have fresh snow while you're boarding, the loss of visibility doesn't do me any favours. I've also been told that the average blue (easy) run here, is the equivalent of a intermediate run in Australia... Way to go through a tria by fire, James. Alright, that's it for now. Wish me luck.

... of beer by a shilling. The second was in 1995, when a yuppie prat complained hard enough to have the closing time of the beer halls to 9pm. On the topic of beer, I learned last night somewhere around my second maß that Germany has purity laws regulating the ingredients of beer... This is brilliant, and means the beer is good, and the headaches not quite so nasty the morning after. Why Australia doesn`t have laws like this is surprising, when you consider ...

... seeing a 70plus year old lady going up on a european town bike with basket on the front and back!!! She was almost at the snow line when we pasted her!! So 30 minutes waiting for the brakes to cool was spent watching the antics of brake and new unreleased car testers going backwards and forwards some even carrying double axle trailers at full speed. An amazing experience for us both and well worth the long drive to get back there.

... chick style, by just giving her a little time to recover and cool down, she was up for it and raring to go the next morning. Well, she was 80-90% better, so we decided to keep going, slowly, and see if she´d be OK. She ended up making the rest of the trip with no dramas.

The pass itself was so stunning, the van problem almost paled into insignificance, and probably rates as the best road journey we´ve ever done on our travels - a big call in itself.