Planaihof Schladming

After 2 days of biking mayhem, hiking down the Planai mountain watching practice and qualifying, it was finals day. Unfortunately we broke our camera trying to take a timed picture on top of the mountain. We rested it on a rail, i pressed the button and ran to where Clare was standing only to find when turning round the camera was not there anymore.... It had fell off and broke ...

... 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!!!!

... buses at the top of the mountain when we finally got there.<br><br>Mom was already freaked out from the hairpin turns alongside steep drop off cliffs, so she decided to skip the mines. Instead she got to relax in the beautiful sunshine beside the glistening water of the large lake. We, on the other hand, managed to get on the funicular to the mines just in time to catch the last tour.<br><br ...

... a church and through some trails in the woods. We spent a lot of time along the river - beautiful, totally clear water coming straight from the mountains. We enjoyed a couple of beers in the park and tried to go see this afternoon concert that kept being advertising. It was supposed to be free but it was inside a really fancy restaurant and I'm sure you had to buy something - I mean 5 Euros for a bite of chocolate! So we passed on that and spent more time on our awesome balcony.

... at a place I had seen with a great lakeside view. I got a "grilled sausage", but it tasted like a hot dog to me. When I was finished I had just enough time to catch the boat across the lake to the train station. It was definitely the smallest train station I&#8217;ve seen. It was just one little building and one track going by.<br><br>On the train ride I just looked at the scenery again while we were still in the mountains. But after I ...

... The train to Vienna had just arrived and I didn&#8217;t think there was time for my train to arrive at the same platform. So I went back to check the departure board, and it did indeed show a track number change for my train. <br><br>I remember reading in Rick Steves guidebook about watching out for track number changes, and just watching if people all of a sudden ran to another platform. But I was pretty much able to figure it out on my own, so I was very ...

... black striped socks up to my knees<br>to protect me...oh and my handbag! Yes, I know I'm so cool..... It was<br>a nice walk tho and we even got to build some cairns (rock<br>formations)... with 100s ofothers in the river. We spent the afternoon<br>sunbaking - again. And ate Pasta for dinner, again.... at this rate im<br>going to get fat.

... were all in the water in a matter of seconds, jumping off the stone wall&#8217;s diving board (literally, a board, no spring at all) into the lake. First experience with others dressing and undressing in the middle of the park (going "full Euro," as we call it). The water is glorious. Walked to town for dinner, then did the after dinner tour. Saw an oompah band in the square, had the mandatory eis, and called it a day with the stroll back to the camping.

... was true. I had overshot my turnoff by 50 kms. This was the first problem in a what would turn out to be a very long 20 hours or so. Once I got back onto the right road I started getting into smaller and smaller villages. These were really cool as they looked like pictures from postcards. The road also started getting harder to follow as these towns, like Vienna were not built for cars. At one point I missed my turn several times before ...

... with The Mvula in South Africa: - two conferences visited and reported to all Mvula offices - Mvula Library analysis, tests and 30 entries done - two discussion meetings held between WIN-SA, Mvula Trust and IRC - WIN web content overview provided to Ndala - assisted in finalising Mvula's school sanitation advocacy package - 10 stories from the field written and handed over - some 150 electronic pictures from the field transferred to ...