Today our plan was to back track to the waterfall and go for a walk. We had a big sleep in after the early start yesterday and the long day we had. It was then a leisurely breakfast in the dining room before setting out.
We had been envisioning a rugged unpaved footpath crawling its way up the side of the waterfall but we were in for a huge shock. It was like the M25 around London – paved and at a standstill because of so many people. There were push chairs as well as a person in a gopher.
We both walked up about 350m to the top of the second waterfall.
Due to Di’s gammy knee it was decided that she would catch a taxi back to town whilst Fras went off for a walk in the Austrian Alps. We knew there were taxis that ran up and down so we walked out to the road and having stood there for about 20 minutes this guy turned up and got into his parked car. Prior to his arrival we thought we might ask whoever owned the car if Di could bum a ride back to the village as we didn’t think any taxis would come due to it starting to rain. Well, we both quickly changed our mind when we saw him with this enormous sickle. We could just imagine the gruesome headlines!!!
We only had to wait another five minutes and then a taxi arrived.
Fraser’s continued walking up the waterfall to the top which created some great photo opportunities.
These were taken from the very top of the falls.
He then continued up the Krimml valley for another hour following the course of the river that fed the falls. It was effectively a high alpine valley complete with cows, meadows and farmhouses some of which acted as restaurants for the many hikers.
Loved the way they built their fences.
At the end of the trail Fraser stopped and had a Raddler, a premade mixture of beer and lemon juice served as a summer drink for hikers and bikers. It is very nice.
On his way back down he got photos from a different angle.
We lost count as to how many switchbacks there were!
The village in the valley bottom was Krimml. It only had a population of 850 but 75% of the dwellings were hotels. The place survives on the tourism that the falls create.
As mentioned in last nights blog, we are staying in a charming family run hotel/restaurant and they have the kids and all the cousie bros helping out. They also have Snickers who is the Hotel dog and as cute as a button.
He knows he is not allowed into the main dining area so he sits at the door with just the edge of his tail in the “go zone”. He reminded us so much of Dazi our beagle who was only allowed inside if she sat on her mat and she considered she was on her mat if the end of her tail touched it. Makes for a nice atmosphere.
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