28/08/17: Finchley Nurseries garden centre

We walked into Totteridge and found the secret boating lake. On the path around the water there were two older ladies struggling to cross a fallen tree. We started chatting and walked along with them. They were also trying to find their way to the Finchley Nurseries garden centre and were unsure of the route. 

After looping around the lake we found a path back towards Mill Hill (1) over the open fields, past a herd of cows, with the ladies still in tow. 

At the far side of the cow field we saw the famous "rat poison" sign. (2)

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"I like your hat!" joked an old lady at the gate at the edge of the field. It might be OK for a hipster teen to insult my (non-)fashion sense, but it seemed a bit extreme coming from an old lady! The hat must be really bad, I realised. To recap...

I had bought a straw hat in Austria to avoid sunburn and sunstroke. It lasted all the way back to London, until the very last leg of the journey. I was waiting on the northbound Northern Line tube platform when a sudden gust of wind from the tunnel tugged the hat off my head and saw it sail swiftly down to the trench beneath the rails. I later filled in a lost-property form – mainly for sentimental reasons (it had zero actual value) – but unsurprisingly there was no response to that (see below). I'm hoping that it made a decent nest for a family of mice. Anyway, I found myself without a hat. Yesterday, at the Brookmans Park boot sale. I found a stall selling vinyl albums for cheaper than anyone else (£1 a go). Not only that, but they were far better albums than those on the overpriced stalls. I started going through the whole lot but was burning badly. Seeing that he had a committed customer, the kindly stall holder gave me one of the inexpensive hats he was selling. It was ludicrous: a pistachio-green-coloured plastic item suitable for a small child. In fact, for a small girl. It didn't fit and it made me instantly hot and uncomfortable, but it protected my head long enough for me to be able to buy an excellent selection of records. It was this same daft hat that I was wearing today when the old lady commented on it... 

At the garden centre (3) we had tea and toasted sandwiches at the café. Two birds of prey were circling high above. I saw two dragonflies (mating). 

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In the main garden centre shop we met two of the several cats that live there. One was feasting on cat food and emitted a low growl when approached. (4) A member of staff warned that he was "naughty" and would scratch. The second cat was far friendlier and allowed himself to be stroked. (5)
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We walked home. There were plenty of walkers out by this point, many of them with large dogs. It was very, very hot. Luckily, I had my hat. (6)
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Miles walked: 3.82 

Cats spotted: 2

12/08/17: Erlebnis Sennerei dairy, near Mayrhofen, Austria

Walked about a mile from the Mayrhofen hotel, (1) past a campsite, houses with firewood stacked high against their walls (2) and a beautiful old barn, (3) to the Erlebnis Sennerei dairy (opened in 2001). (4) 

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We took the tour of the cheese-making facilities. It was surprisingly fascinating stuff, from whey-making processes to "brine baths" and "cheese worms". There were signs stating things such as "Look into the cheese tank", and heavy machinery moving and rotating huge slabs of cheese. (5–6)

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It was very "Willy Wonka". We saw a lot of cheese. There were also sampling stations, where we could try the just-made yoghurts of various flavours (strawberry and coffee were the most delicious). (7) What was impressive was the meeting of cutting-edge technology and ancient tradition. Their cheese-bots work tirelessly to pasteurise and homogenise. One room full of endless pipes was entirely robotic, with no humans allowed. The pipes apparently store 15 years' worth of data about their activities.
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We then walked around an animal farm, with goats you could stroke (8) and a few cows and chickens, before heading back to the Obermair to pack and check out.  
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Thus ended the Austrian walks.

Other highlights from the week in and around Mayrhofen included:

• swimming twice a day in Hotel Obermair’s small pool, which started out warm and got colder as the week progressed.

• watching the hotel rabbits out of the window and feeding them dandelion leaves.

• watching the family of semi-wild cats – Mum, Dad and two kittens – living under the hotel wood shed. One of the adults could be seen out hunting all day every day in the adjoining field. On the far edge of the same field were some unidentified brown animals – too large to be rabbits, so possibly deer.

• eating the lavish hotel breakfasts of eggs, breads, cheeses, cereals, coffee, hot chocolate, fruit, granola, “multivitamin” fruit juice and more. I didn't try the "Hunter's meat paste", though.

• meeting the super-friendly people: everyone was so kind and generous.

• seeing two folk concerts at Hotel Berghof: Die Finkenberger consisted of two men (guitar and accordion) playing sweet traditional tunes. Rita & Andreas, meanwhile, are apparently Austrian celebrities. He played accordion and sang. She played guitar and sang harmonies. The elderly people in the bar, some wearing the traditional dirndl, stood up and danced when they played certain old songs. But the singing couple brought a modern twist, too. They had their own tour bus and their own merchandise, including CDs, sunglasses, badges, mugs, scarves, T-shirts and a miniature Rita & Andreas tour bus.

• observing the chalet-style wooden architecture.

• walking up and down the main street, looking at the exotic shops and admiring the complete lack of mess and litter.

• playing table football in the shed outside the hotel.

• playing table tennis next to the hotel annexe.

• trying the hotel sauna and finding it just too hot to cope with for more than a few seconds. Not understanding the “rules” re: clothing (my swimming trunks stayed on) and possibly offending a naked woman.

• enduring the crazy weather – mist, sun, rain, more mist, more sun, more rain.

• repeatedly visiting "Ciao" restaurant, which served the best "cream of tomato soup" I've ever had in my life.

• bumping into David and Sylvia regularly and getting to know them a bit.

• visiting an interesting exhibition about the painter Klimt in the Hotel Neue Post, displaying numerous postcards he had written to his sweetheart.

• talking to the big ginger cat living in the haberdashery shop and the stuffed marmots in the chemist.

• living among the endless trees and the endless mountains.

• not missing anything about Totteridge except for the piano and the cat.

11/08/17: Brandberg to Mayrhofen, Austria

At 13:30, we took the 1400 bus from Mayrhofen train station to Brandberg. (We had tried to catch an earlier bus, at 09:40, but it never arrived.) It only took about 15 minutes, first travelling through a long, straight tunnel under the mountains and then taking the hair-pin bends up the side. The driver dropped us at Brandberg (at 1,032 metres) and planned to walk our way back, assured by the Thomson rep and the man at the Brandberg hotel that it was a one-hour walk back. We were literally up in the clouds, with no visibility. Walking along the road was daunting. (1) There was no pavement and we would have been hard to see for the drivers. 

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Eventually, a tiny path broke off and led up above the road. We took it and followed it as it slowly descended the valley. It was wet and narrow underfoot. One wrong step to the left and we would have plummeted. We moved slowly and carefully, very conscious of the danger. As the mist gave way to rain, we became progressively wetter. There were huge, exotic fungi everywhere we looked. (2) I spotted what looked like a thin, black squirrel running up a tree.
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We passed many religious shrines – a reminder, as if it were needed, that life here is precarious and not to be taken for granted. (3) 
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Another interesting find was part of a beehive that had fallen from a tree. (4)
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It was a relief to make it to the small chapel that had been pointed out to us, high on the hillside, from the Mayrhofen town tour – a sign that we were at least on the right path. (5–6)
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From the chapel, the trail zig-zagged down through the forestry to the bottom, with views of Mayrhofen and its cable cars. (7) What a relief not to stand next to a precipice! The woods offered a new path back to the town and we trudged back into Mayrhofen, exhausted but happy to be alive.
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Note: none of these pictures show how dangerous the walk was, because at the truly lethal spots I was more concerned with staying alive than with taking photographs.

Miles walked: no idea
Cats spotted: none

10/08/17: Krimml waterfalls, Austria

We boarded the coach at the Win Win casino/bar in Mayrhofen. While queuing there I had spotted a large bird of prey circling over the valley – probably an eagle. Thomson rep Charlotte offered a guided commentary in English and then German. The bus went up over the mountain pass – utterly terrifying! For someone with severe vertigo it was horrendous and I was convinced that we would topple off the cliff side and plunge into the ravine. (Although the rational brain says otherwise, the rest is absolutely certain that this is going to happen.) Not fun – especially as this torture went on for such a long time.

I tried to think of low things and flat things to make myself feel safer – pancakes, cowpats in English fields, lying on the concourse of Victoria Station playing draughts.

The road eventually levelled out at Gerlos, which the guide said is populated mostly by Dutch people. The coach stopped at the “Seeblick Panorama” parking point with a shop and a (locked) toilet above a reservoir for 15 minutes. This pointless-seeming intermission seemed suspiciously like a commercial tie-in – i.e., an arrangement between the bus company and the trinket shop to make gullible tourists buy expensive fridge magnets and marmot teddy bears. Stranger still, they sold novelty voodoo dolls. Views of the highest mountain in Austria, Grossglockner, were some consolation. The coach took off again, with more terrifying cliff-edge bends to the Wasserfallzentrum building at the base of the Krimml waterfalls, the highest in Austria, where the coach dropped us off. With strict instructions to be back for 4:15, we started walking to the falls. It was a steep, intense climb up the side of the mountain, surrounded by more than 300 different types of moss growing from the rocks.

I bumped into David and Sylvia, the friendly couple from Guildford who are staying at the same hotel and took the same flight from Gatwick. He is a former journalist, and yesterday – as a retirement gift from Sylvia – took a powergliding flight off the Mayrhofen cliffs.

On our walk up, there were several viewing points where we could see various sections of the tiered waterfalls. They were fairly spectacular, not least because of the mist and spray they created. There were more religious shrines, too.

We eventually made it to the cafe at 1,306 metres and sat in a kind of marquee for coffee. Shell the Thomson rep was there already. The waiter was a little grumpy: when I paid, he kept the change as a tip before I could even offer it.

The braver half of our party continued further upwards towards the highest waterfall, but I had had enough already. It was steep and the muscles in my legs were quaking from the intense exercise, so we sat by the river and rested. It rained a bit but was sunny at the same time – quite refreshing.

The walk down was quicker. We tried drinking some of the water that was running down the mossy rocks. It was deliciously fresh and clean. At the bottom, we could see another part of the falls. The spray here was especially impressive. People recklessly clambered over the rocks at the edge of the water, making me wonder at the fatality rate.

We got back on our big, white coach and began the dreaded return journey along the mountain passes – this time through driving rain and on slippery roads...

Miles walked: no idea – not many, as it was mostly vertical
Cats spotted: 1 (in a field, seen from the coach)

09/08/17: Schlegeis dam lake walk, Austria

We caught the 4192 bus from Mayrhofen train station to Schlegeis dam. The bus (a coach, really) went through what seemed an implausibly long tunnel under a mountain before climbing higher and higher towards the peaks. As we neared the end of the one-hour journey, we were navigating absurdly tight and steep hair-pin bends with a view into the ravine below and I was suffering severe vertigo. It was such a relief to arrive beside the Schlegeis lake and put my feet back on solid ground. Like everyone else, we took our pictures next to the photo-opportunity wooden character who also serves as the 1,790-metre-height marker point. (1) 

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The cafe next to the dam (brand-new and apparently still in the process of being built) had a super-friendly, slightly flirty waitress. I asked if she minded me asking a question. "Yes, I do mind," she joked, sweetly. After she'd offered walking advice (left fork for lake path, right fork for Italy!), we took off along the track beside the water. There were a few large anthills. (2) 
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The lake was a beautiful turquoise/green-ish colour, unspoiled by swimmers, boats or fishermen. (3–8) Along the way, there were several religious shrines. Why here in particular, it wasn't clear. We saw the path to Italy (only recommended for hikers with "the right equipment and experience", according to the tourist information leaflet), (9) and continued along the edge of the reservoir seeking a suitable lunch spot.
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There had been rock falls at several places, and some of the stones at the path's edge had walkers' cairns built on top of them. (10) At other points there were large metal "pins" holding up the rocks and water tumbling down the slopes. (11) 
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We eventually found a spot – almost impossibly scenic – to eat our cheese sandwiches and Austrian "bugle" crisps.

After walking back the same way to the edge of the dam, we returned to the cafe where the very nice lady we'd met earlier served coffee and a mouthful of sponge cake. I told her where we'd got to, and she said we'd walked 10–11 km on the return trip.

Vertigo allowed me a few steps only along the dam wall before I had to retreat. The view was daunting indeed. (12–13) Plus, there was the bus journey back down the ravine to contend with...
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Miles walked: 6-ish (according to cafe lady – there was no internet connection, so I couldn't map-app it)
Cats spotted: 0 (but there were some nice dogs)