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Thursday, 30 July 2009
Alps Trip 2009 (3. Austria)
This is post 3 of 3 in a series on my Alps Trip. See Posts 1 (South France) and 2 (l'Alpe d'Huez).
That night was our last night with the group as Miles and I were headed North-East to Austria while the others headed home after a couple more days of biking. We went for a nice meal at the resort, which we decided to splash out on. Miles and I opted for a two-person minimum set meal which turned out to be a plate full of raw meat (chicken, duck and beef steak) which we hat to cook for ourselves on a stove they provided us with. It came with a bowl of mashed potato and a load of veg and went down well ... once we’d cooked it. The following morning, Miles and I bid farewell and headed to Austria. We drove through Italy (Torino & Milano), witnessed the crazy drivers and paid the expensive tolls and we finally made it to our destination: a campsite in Prutz, near Landeck in Austria. The campsite was full of kayakers and we were greeted by one who was on his own looking for people to go boating with. His name was Andy, he was from London and he took us down three local rivers the next day which was brilliant! It was more independent learning as we were paddling as peers, no-one in charge, just the three of us taking it one bend at a time, instead of the way we’d been doing it so far where someone was leading and we were following – I actually had to consciously look after myself now which is the best way to learn. We soon realised that the Austrian rivers were massively high volume – big wide rivers with huge waves, which we’re not used to in the UK as most rivers are either big and wide but flat with no waves, or thin, steep and creeky. We met up with some other UK guys for the third river that day and all went ok.
A couple of days later we headed to the Ötz valley to met up with a Bavarian kayaker by the name of Bijon he met in New Zealand. Bijon was working for German rafting company in Austria over the summer, taking groups of German people rafting in Austria and Switzerland. We joined them at the rafting base for their BBQ and chatted with the Germans. Our tactic: Don’t mention the war. Miles mentioned it once but I think he got away with it. Seriously though, we enjoyed their company and they seemed to enjoy ours, buying us drinks and talking to us about all sorts. Obviously we don’t speak German but they all speak English, so that’s the way it was. After the Germans went off we head upstairs for a little rafting guides’ party – had a great chat with a German guy called Norman. Then we had to sleep on the floor in the drying room full of wetsuits and things, in the room with me was a New Zealander who we were told snores really badly – I thought I’d risk it and be alright but by the early hours I couldn’t believe the amount of horrendous noise he was snorting – it was nothing like I’d ever witnessed before. I had to move, and even when I did I couldn’t sleep because I’d been woken up. The next morning I saw the guy I’d been chatting to at the party, Norman. He saw I was wearing my trademark Blogger t-shirt and asked if I was a blogger. “Yes I am” I said, beaming with pride. This reminded me of how I like to be thought of as a “Blogger”. We talked about blogs for a while and later on got on the office computer and showed each other our respective blogs. Norman-slow-motion.
We drove to Switzerland the next day to tag along on two of their rafting journeys – Miles as the safety kayaker, while I joined five of the Germans in the raft with Bijon yelling instructions at us in German. This proved somewhat difficult as I didn’t understand what he was saying unless I heard the words for left, right, forwards and stop which were easy to remember once he told me – the more complicated instructions (more urgent ones such as “Everyone get down in the raft and hold on tight”) were tricky so whenever everyone else would dive somewhere I would just copy their actions which meant I was slightly delayed – this was rather problematic as these instructions carried a matter of urgency and failure to comply often meant the risk of tipping the raft! I asked Bijon what those instructions were in German so I would remember to do so when he shouted them, which helped a lot – I managed to follow these orders without delay. I had a great time rafting, as it was a whole new experience to be on the water in such a big inflatable craft with other people rather than single man kayak where you are completely in control and responsible for yourself. The water was much harder, higher and potentially problematic than I could probably deal with, so it was a good option to go rafting instead that day.
That evening we attended a party at Bijon’s house – not a cool rafting party full of drunk European student girls, but a family party for his housemate’s Dad’s something’s birthday party – a middle-aged woman’s birthday party. We ate their food and chatted with their family a bit (at this point every Auntie and Uncle, Grandma and Grandpa, Niece and Nephew had turned up) before heading off to a cool rafting party full of drunk European student girls. We chatted away and got speaking to a range of different people from the local rafting companies and ended up in someone’s halls-of-residence-esque summer rafting guide accommodation where they proceeded to smoke lots of weed while we tried not to look too out of place, although we certainly were. I was really tired at this point from the lack of sleep the previous night and all the rafting of the day so being laid on a bed in a room full of weed smoke, I was dozing off. We soon left and slept at Bijon’s house.
The next morning we were awarded with Bijon’s famous pancakes. This was something I’d been looking forward to – the only thing I knew about Bijon was that, according to Miles, if you were on a night out with Bijon, you could end up in the remotest field or desert and Bijon would somehow locate the ingredients and make pancakes. I’d spent two or three days with Bijon and still no sign. The first thing I saw of him that morning, Bijon was on the phone to one of his pancake contacts arranging for the delivery of flour. Flour arrived shortly in the arms of another stoner. Here they were at last! Bijon’s pancakes! And they were fantastic. This day was our last day before heading back so we decided to hook up with Norman and the flour guy to go kayaking. They took us for a run of the Oetz, which was the scariest kayaking experience I’ve ever had. I was seriously terrified as it was massive pushy water with hidden holes and all sorts – all immediately upon putting on to the river. I’ve never been forced to use support strokes quite so frequently and urgently. I was having to work my very hardest every second just to keep the boat upright! So many times I nearly went over. I got through the worst of it to find there was a harder and more unpredictable section coming up. That’s pretty much how it was for the next three hours: me thinking “Phew, I’m glad I got out of that bit alive” and then slowly discovering there was more around the next bend. We got to a rapid that the guys we were with said was called the ‘Constructa’, named after a German washing machine brand – because that’s what it would feel like if you got stuck in it! We got out to portage a deathly weir and were at the end before long. A huge sigh of relief. I’d wanted to do one last river before we left, something that would push my limits. That was what I was looking for and I’m glad we did it. We bid farewell to Norman and the Flour guy and headed to France!
We decided to stop at Fontainebleau on the way back through France. Font is an amazing place – a vast forest full of bouldering opportunities, it’s just South of Paris. We drove there from Austria, passing through Switzerland and Liechtenstein. We arrived at Font at about 4am, no idea where exactly we needed to be for the bouldering, so we ended up sleeping in the McDonald’s car park beside the van, with the intention of using the free Wifi when it opened. We woke up at about 8, then realising that McDonald’s didn’t open till 10 we stayed in the van and read our books for two hours. At 10 they opened up and we hopped straight inside, checked online to see where the spots were and shortly after that we headed off to find somewhere to climb. We stayed there a while, had a bit of a climb and I jumped around the rocks a bit and then we headed off in plenty of time to catch our ferry. We ended up arriving at Dunkirque (after popping into Belgium to look for war graves) seven hours early so it was worth us paying a little extra to get on an earlier ferry. I finished my book on the ferry (America Unchained by Dave Gorman – a fantastic story about a coast-to-coast road trip across America, avoiding the chain stores and only buying from independent gas stations, shops and hotels) and started my next one. We were home (as in Sheffield) an hour before we were supposed to leave France, which was an achievement. What was even more of an achievement was that I returned alive with all my kit in tact, albeit a little more second-hand-looking.
Labels: Alps, Alps Trip 2009, Featured, Kayaking, Travels
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 18:17 
