Hotel Stadttor Schladming

... focusing lens :-( We took it to a shop later and they said it would cost more to fix it than to buy a new one. Oh well that camera has been through a lot and was due for retirement, and what better excuse to buy a new one!!<br><br>Anyway.... The finals were brilliant. We got the gondola to the top of the mountain and walked down the track watching the riders come down. First up ...

... room.... but it got the thumbs up as it was clean, tidy and modern. The view from the room was amazing, perfect view of the Planai mountain slope, so good we could have sat there and watched the biking from our room!! Dropped our bags and went for our first meal out since leaving home, chilli fahitas and chicken burgers went down a treat, god bless Papa Joes!!!!

... Maybe this was a good time to go alone but we stuck with our group and did pretty good, but the singles definitely kicked our butts in speed.<br><br>All together we spent about three hours in and around the mines before going back down the funicular to find mom and Lincoln. They enjoyed their relaxing time so in the end it was a nice day for everyone.<br><br>And now, back to the highway!

<br><br>We took a train back into Austria and headed for the Lakes District, another area we were told we must visit! We based ourselves in the town of Bad Ischl. Or as Brian says, Bad Ischl my N-ischl. There are 4 huge lakes completely surrounded by mountains. It really is beautiful!!! We arrived about 2:30pm and went to the information center where they tried to help us find a place to stay. Usually it doesn't take very long, but we had some major problems. We realized ...

... trains, the countryside got pretty boring again. So I actually wrote some blogs. <br><br>I arrived in Salzburg about 5 pm and caught a bus into the city center. I didn&#8217;t feel like doing anything, and besides, I figured I should rest up before Derek arrives tomorrow. He&#8217;s going to be very excited to be here and will probably want to see as much as possible in his one week in Europe. So I went straight to the hostel. It was a ...

... of myself.<br><br>The train ride down to Hallstatt became much more scenic. Prior to that, the countryside had been fairly flat and uninteresting. But as soon as we headed south, we crossed a couple of rivers and headed into some real mountains! We went along the side of a lake with some massive mountains jutting out of the other side and I was quite excited. This was the first time I&#8217;d seen real mountains since leaving home.<br><br>When we finally got to ...

We arrived in Hallstatt in the Austrian Alps on Monday. Its so<br>beautiful! Reminded me a lot of NZ in one way but also very different<br>at the same time. Its one of the top UNESCO world sites. We got there<br>in time for a sunbake and swim but by god the water was FREEZING!!!!!<br>Took your breath away! You could tell we were in the ...

8/19 Austria, Salzburg. This morning we drove to town and parked in a parking lot next to a Chrysler minivan of all things, who was driven by a guy from Utah and his large family. He is civil service of some sort, and wanted to know all about our most excellent luge experience, as that is high on his family's list as well. We walked the old town, toured the Hohensalzburg Fortress, marveled at the primitive decadence those in medieval power seemed to enjoy ...

... girls!) must be crazy! We had quite a few Oz boys to cheer for, including Sam Hill (Perth lad) who needed to win the downhill to take the 2008 World Crown. Unfortunately, he was just pipped by a young kiwi lad, and so had to settle for 2nd. We caught the gondola up to the start and nervously worked our way down the mountain side to watch from different sections of the course (although not as bad as Friday night, it was still raining). As I said before, I don't know ...

... that a miss too! Shame! We were also going to go to Halstaat (a really pretty village in a beautiful area called Salzkammergat), which was highly recommended to us by the Canadian boys we met in Munich (and again in Zermatt) but we had to "save days" in order to have enough left to get to Turkey/Greece ... that and of course the bus there and accommodation was too expensive (okay, now I'm just being silly, sorry)! Instead we do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do'd all ...