The Saga continue.
The ride to Innsbruck was about as good as it gets with scenery, I was hitting the make a waypoint button on my satnav to mark the most beautiful
spots over and over again. It went a bit tits up when I got to the Longs & Lat position that a certain person said meet here. Now It wouldn’t be nice to
put that person’s name on here, but there was nothing there.
Being a veteran of a few rallies BBR,BBL & 1 Iceni my bonus locating skills helped.
First: Call in to a local petrol station and ask if they know where the toboggan run is. They didn’t even understand what I was saying??
Second: I load a page from the inter web thingy showing a picture of the toboggan run, still none the wiser.
Third: Buy a bottle of cold water and enjoy a cool refreshing drink, I didn’t even want to have a go at this anyway. But it would have been nice seeing the other idiots having a go.
Whilst drinking my bottle of water I notice a huge poster advertising the said toboggan run on the side wall of aforementioned petrol station.
Fourth: Go up to counter and point to the huge advertising poster for toboggan run with a very hopeful face.
Drive to the end of the end of village mate and it’s on the left, you can’t miss it (In Austrian of course). Strange thing is I knew what he was saying, it was probably the hand signals.
You see bonus locating skills will always get you there in the end. Mind you the rally masters usually get you within a few millimetres with their long & Lats.
You’re not planning to become a Rally Master are you Bob?(opps sorry)
Any way I found the others about 2 kilometres up the road. They also confirmed that the position was wrong. That made me feel a little better as I begining to think, I may have entered them into my satnav incorrectly.
Any that’s enough of that.
The intrepid ones the boarded the cable car to be taken to the top of the hill to get ready for the decent. (When I say hill, that doesn’t really do it justice. I was a very large and very steep hill. the sort of thing that if you slipped a parachute might be handy you get the picture).
With instructions from Michiel after giving me his Mobil phone to make sure I get some good pictures of them coming down. He said that he would probably be the first down. But there were loads of people doing the ride and I had no idea how long it would take for them to get to the bottom.
So he was given instruction to wave both hands when he saw me and to scream like a girl. Well he waved one hand and I needn’t have told him to scream like a girl. (only joking Michiel).
When thy came down it was in very rapid succession, I hope I got some OK pictures I just kept hitting the button.
After the toboggan run we were led out on a very nice ride by Hannes our host from the hotel. I actually managed to see my first Glacier in real life not on TV, which was nice. On the way back to the hotel in convoy. I suddenly realised that my spot tracker was not on my arm, now did I take it off when I was at the toboggan thingy and put it in my top box or have I dropped it there?
I had to stop and check as we were fairly close and I could nip back and see if it was still there. Panic over it was in the top box.( It’s terrible when you get older and your short term memory starts to go). But I had now lost the rest of the group.Luckily enough it was in my top box.
Well it was not long till 4pm when we all had to be at the castle for the group photo, so I decided to go straight back to the hotel to see if they were there, they weren’t. So I booked myself in any way to save time when they all arrive. Now to make my way to the castle which is only .3 of a mile from the hotel. Now those of you that know me, know that I don’t do walking. So jump on the bike, spark up the satnav to go to Ambras Castle. It takes me down the road around a couple of bends, then tells me to ride up a foot path. I decide to ignore these instructions. After zooming out on the satnav map I notice that if I just continue on the road that I am on. It seems to take a very large loop to the other side of the castle, and I was pretty sure it would reroute me to a better entrance. Well I think it did, but I rode past it carrying on for about another 4 miles to the foot path again.
Bugger it back to the hotel it cannot be too far to walk.
It wasn’t but why do they have to put Castles on the top of bloody great hills. And in Austria the are as mentions large and steep. After what seemed like an eternity and several possible heart attacks later, I made it there.
AND NO ONE WAS THERE.
Well apart from Gerhart and Thomas + Katarina. (I do not want to miss out on the photo after climbing up that sodding great steep hill) So I start making panicking phone calls only to get answer phones. (I didn’t know you were still out riding). They all eventual turned up and the photo was taken. Now the walk back, I wasn’t quite as hard as going up but is tough on the calf muscles going down and I started getting cramp in on leg, probably from being so dehydrated from the climb up. Next time I will ride up the bloody footpath.
Well it was back to Hotel Bierwirt for a shower to freshen up, a bit of chat in the bar about all sorts of sensible thing to do with motorcycle riding. (I don’t think the wife reads this but you never know). We were the requested to go into a special dining room that Hannes had set up for us and a great meal was had. To finish the evening Hannes produced two bottles of Snaps/Liquors I am not sure what you would call it. One was apple and the other was peach. They certainly took the fur off your tongue. Then it was time for bed. This realy dosent explane what a great evening it was or what a gerat host Hannes was. But I have got to wind this for up for now as it is time to eat.
PS Hannes hotel
http://www.bierwirt.com/ is a great place to stay and he really looked after us well.
Thanks Hannes.
The saga continues!!