Hotel Vitaler Landauerhof 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!!!!

Our original Austrian itinerary included a day in Graz, but we are really running out of precious time so we decided to skip it so we could see the salt mine in Hallstatt. And having missed Graz only gives me a very good excuse to come back!<br><br>We spent a lot of time on the road today trying to get to Graz. The GPS got confused once we were off the main highway. The steep and winding roads ...

... radiators, hung them in the bathroom, behind the door, in the closet, everywhere. Brian said it was like an Easter egg hunt. What was she doing in our room again and with my underwear? Best part was I couldn't find one of my socks. The next morning after breakfast I asked her where it might be (in broken German and using my hands) and she left, and came back 15 minutes later with it. Still don't know where exactly she got it from.<br><br>For breakfast I decided to ...

... steep mountain behind it, which meant they didn&#8217;t have much room to bury their dead. So people were only buried for 12 years. Then their bones were dug up, cleaned, and placed in the bone chapel. So it was a room full of decorated skulls and stacks of bones. Supposedly, it&#8217;s the only place like it in the world. It was a little creepy.<br><br>I also decided to ride the funicular up to a viewpoint above town. This was a very ...

... in the same vein as the Twilight books). I actually had to transfer trains for the first time, and I was a little worried because there was only 12 minutes between connections. The train I took from Vienna went directly west towards Salzburg, but I had to get off in Attnang-Puchhein to catch a train south to Hallstatt.<br><br>When I got to Attnang-Puchhein it was a very small station. I went to check the departure board to see what track my connecting train ...

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 ...

... turned out to be an Audi A3 hatchback. I wasn't sure it this would work, but the car only looks small. It ate up my luggage like an afternoon snack and I still had tons of room to make myself comfortable. Vienna was built in a time when new transportation developments consisted of better horseshoes. Needless to say, adapting the city to cars was not a simple project. Getting out consisted of driving around crazy one way roads and ...

... s boss Martin, presents (a T shirt, two books a nice card, Jabu's CD-Rom with South African music and Champaign. Martin shared with the staff how useful my debriefing with him had been. It is nice to experience that Mvula staff appreciated my contributions and enthusiasm. On my last day I had a final hand over meeting with Kerry and Jabu, in which I handed over all my documents. I am very pleased with the lists of achievement of my 11 weeks ...