Austria. A Stay In Schladming.

The view from the room.

Where to next, for me the fun part because we are heading to the mountains. To Austria, an Alpine town called Schladming, at the foot of the Hoher Dachstein mountains. The trip across Germany turned into a bit of a disaster with a three-hour traffic jam outside Munich, planned road works apparently, pity they didn’t plan what to do with all the traffic. We still arrived in good time though, to see the sun go down over the mountain and get a cold beer before bed.

Once we were back on track, we stopped for a coffee and a driver swap, Jane took over as we headed for the hills, it’s safer that way, I can’t stop looking around at everything.

Motorway views.

Castles flashing by.

The road weaves through tunnels and passes, below castles and through wooded hills striped by waterfalls, all while we get closer to the hotel we shall be staying in for the week. We left the main roads to follow the river Enns to Schladming where it joins the Talbach. Hills rising on both sides of the valley, snow hanging in the high clefts, cloud rolling across the tops, I had the chance to take a couple of pictures before the light was lost.

Blue sky of a different sort.

Night.

Morning, and a first day without a drive ahead of us, time for a look around, to see where we have landed. A day to explore, to see the town and get our bearings. A day made for planning, for checking the weather for the week ahead and to see if we could find some way of watching Wimbledon. The town was quiet, normal I suppose for a Sunday in the early summer of a ski town. The cloud was low and rain forecast for the day. But standing again on the balcony, the panorama spread out around us made it all OK.

Looking out over Schladming and the Hoher Dachstein mountains.

Schladming detail.

Doorhandle.

RC Church. Town centre.

Rooftop views.

Coffee stop views.

Looking towards our hotel from the church.

It’s always fascinating, to walk in a completely new place. Where even the language is something to be discovered. I had visited Germany when I was in my early teens, but very little of the language has stayed with me. We tried our best and the locals were friendly and not at all put out by our ignorance, we could at least say please and thank you.

Rushing water.

More water rushing.

As is normal, towns in the area are all constrained by the mountains around them and the rivers cutting through them. The two photos are of the Talbach, falling from its high mountain start. Unfortunately rain came, and we scuttled away to look about in the car, and finding some trails local to the hotel to see what could be done.

Waypost in the rain, the loneliest post.

Drifting on a Sunday afternoon.

Looking down the valley.

Private something??

The next few posts will be about the walking around Schladming, sad to say, we didn’t visit the town much. The call of hills and lazy evenings in a comfortable room won out. We went in for food, for shopping and for information, all of which was provided admirably. The hotel was great, nice big room, and everything we needed to be relaxed, and friendly staff always willing to help and answer questions. I think we shall be going back, it was too good to do in one go, you need to visit a place twice I think to get the best from it. Lots of pictures in this post, hope they do the place justice with my random eye.

Happy trails everyone, enjoy every journey, even the unexpected diversions. It was interesting when stuck in a German traffic jam to see everyone having picnics, walking the dogs and children or strolling ahead to the services for refreshments. A good way to use the time, stretch your legs and get some fresh air, it’s about how you use your time isn’t it.

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A Weekend Walk and Sunshine.

Soon the National Poetry Writing Month Starts, Tuesday to be exact. So the month will be given to writing poetry, this time I am going to try to stay within the theme of navigation,trails, and footsteps. I hope you will join me as I travel through the month using words and the track and trails I follow on my travels.

NaPoWriMo

For the last post of the month a few shots of the Mendips, a walk we did on Saturday following some of the old ways around here and part of the West Mendip Way. Views across Crook Peak, Bleadon Hill and parts of the levels. Thankfully getting back to some sort of normal after the recent floods. The weather this weekend was a first bright light and windless day. Wonderful walking weather and a great day out.

Tracks and Trails

Footpaths crossing.

Climbing into summer.

Four of us, heading along part familiar, part unknown roads and footpaths. I like the idea we can still find new places to have lunch in corners of Somerset we haven’t yet traveled. We forget how many trails there are, how many hidden corners so close to our home we haven’t yet cast our eyes upon. Taking a day to explore, catch up with nature preparing for summer. Lots of birds and butterflies and the leaves budding, flowers showing their colours to the world for the first time this year. With the ground so soft, there were many marks to be seen on the quieter trails, I like to see them using our clearways. A happy byproduct of us living so close together in this kind of countryside.

Footprints.

Catkins

Unfurling Ferns

Sunny green at the side of the bridleway.

Each time we walk, we see different aspects of our surroundings, close by we see the boundaries, crossed by the tracks and bridleways, other man-made marks, signs and countryside management. The woodlands, the farmlands, animal enclosures. It’s easy to forget how long man has worked this land to his own purpose, throughout history and into our modern world. By necessity we crossed the M5 motorway twice. A river of tarmac and traffic spilling down the valley between Loxton Hill and Crook Peak. We talk of nature, yet all about we leave our mark on the places we live and work.

Clear water.

Tarmac ribbon.

This way.

This way, cutlery as waymarker.

A meeting of ways.

Capturing the wind.

We walked the high ground of the Mendips, we walked the low ground of the levels. We stood at the top of Crook peak, and sneaked through the woodlands that survives on the hills. We walked by the rhynes and rivers of the levels and we came home again. A meal with friends to end the day, laughter and family, it was a good day.

Wide levels view.

Wavering Down.

The Northern view.

A pause for reflection on Crook Peak.

Close in we see nature, showing us about renewal, about recovery. We make our mark and nature continues if not oblivious, then with a disregard for our timescales. We all recently lost a friend, who would normally be walking with us on days like these, and the knowledge of renewal in everything, in family and our friends, how we touch those around us is something I think is part of the way of the world. We continue in those we knew, those we help and meet, our own immortality.

Mike Stewart

Take the time to look about, enjoy everything you see about you, and everyone you meet along the way.

Take your time.

The English Countryside. A walk near Bath.

When I plan to go somewhere for a walk, especially in the mountains, checking the weather gets to be a bit of an obsession. There are a few sites I use, the Met Office or the Mountain Weather Information Service. The problem, and joy of the weather in Britain is its wild variety, and so after the long-range forecast let me down for a North Wales dash, I headed instead towards Bath and the rolling hills South of the city.

Wide spaces to see the world.

I was expecting to get wet today, showers were in the air, but I had my lunch, coffee and plenty of time to enjoy the changing face of this stroll out through open farmland to then turn homewards following some of England’s industrial history in the form a canals and train lines no longer used. We are lucky in this country to have a network of by-ways, bridleways and footpaths that remain open and available to everyone. Linking villages, old work sites and woods or farms. Most have been in use for hundreds of years, and exploring them gives you the chance to see the country from an older and slower perspective.

Bridleway form Combe Hay.

Choices can lead you to places of green silence. Only the wind to listen to.

I strolled, took pictures, listened to the sounds of the Buzzards calling to each other. I pondered the missing parts of bridges and the strange empty canal, with its towpath intact, meandering through fields and woodland. It slid quietly past villages, and on towards Bath, leaving behind the legacy of a flight of locks, empty, leading uphill still, though now towards nowhere. I wonder how the boatmen and their families felt as more rail lines were laid around the country, and more of their business traveled on the fast and noisy trains that where flinging themselves across the country. On one of the locks you can see the wear of hundreds of feet by the gate housing, where the men and women would push open and closed the wooden gates of the lock.

Old travel in the countryside.

Bridges over empty waterways.

Arches over arches and all cloaked in green.

These locks were built somewhere in the late 1700’s and they are now being repaired, becoming part of the Limestone link walk. The work has survived though nature is also a hard worker, slow but sure if left to her own devices.

An un-repaired lock.

Stonework detail. Is it me or can you see a face here?

There is so much detail, each stone cut to size, faced when it is placed. Skilled and hard work, with knowledge of what the material could be made to do. How it could be made to last, a pleasant thought in the modern life we lead of throw it away and get new. Things aren’t built to be repaired anymore, shame really, I do enjoy taking things to pieces to see how they work.

Small stone arch.

It was a better than expected day, the sun shone, I stayed dry, had lunch sat by an old canal while listening to the nearby river, the birds singing and a breeze to cool the day. One thing I have tried is a new software set-up for my camera, a Canon Powershot. It seems some bright software developers have created a new firmware set. This has allowed me to try out bracketing for the first time since my old film camera. I want to try some HDR shots, so I’ll let you know how that all works out. First I need to get some new software, PShop 7 seems hopelessly outdated for this kind of thing, I will try to get an upgrade for it.

After that note I’ll leave you with some views from around the walk,

Byways and highways, just follow the signs.

Plant life drifting towards Autumn.

Landscape.

Landscape II.

Sunshine on a late summer day.

While we talk about our small island, about how the world is pressing in, it is pleasing to find that within ten miles of Bath city centre there are still quiet old roads to travel. Views to be found over open fields and woody lanes to explore. We should never forget what is closest to us, the world nearby is as fascinating as the wider spaces we so often travel to. Enjoy your roads where-ever they lead.

The Iron Mountain Trail.

I’ve given you hints, teased you with some pictures, so now I feel I need to say some more about the Iron Mountain Trail. Starting in Blaenavon, South Wales, The Iron Mountain Trail leads you through a brief history of man in the valleys of Wales. Going from the scraping of ore at the surface, all the way to the deep pits and coal seams, you get a crash course in landscaping on a grand scale.

The Iron Mountain Trail.

Looking at the land around you, recognising how history has changed it. Made it into what it is today is a part of walking that many forget. We look at maps, compare to what we see, and follow our route, but the history around us has defined the landscape and the wildlife, even the nature of human habitation. I love to see things being put back in place by nature, not erasing our mark, just recycling what we have done. At Blaenavon you get to walk through this process in action.

Bog Cotton near the slag-heaps.

Engine house chimney.

You walk through the slag-heaps, along the tramways and around the remains of the mine workings. You pass old smelting yards, villages that supplied the labour for years of exploitation, all this under a hot summer sky. We looked out across the canals, to the crossroads in the valley bottoms, all the while enjoying the smells of nature as we walked through the heather and gorse that has reclaimed the hillsides, along with swathes of Foxgloves offering colour to the world. There was not much wildlife here, it is a popular place to walk with lots of access parking all around the circular route, but you do see the Buzzards circling on thermals from The Blorenge.

Flowers and Ferns.

The Punchbowl, nature reserve.

This was not the walk I had planned today, I was going to head to Mount Snowdon, but the walkers for that trip cancelled at the last. My good fortune, a little reorganisation and I had two friends and a trip to Blaenavon sorted out, we looked out at The Blorenge from Sugar Loaf earlier this year, and had made a mental note to visit. A good forecast and easy drive got us here, though the heat did make it harder than it might have been. Steve and Mike put on a good pace, faster perhaps than I would like but OK for a day that started later than expected due to a cycle race stopping traffic while we looked for our preferred parking spot.

In the woods.

Looking towards Blorenge. Old ponds in the foreground.

Views East.

All the while you get views up and down the valley, across to Waun Fach, Sugar Loaf and the Brecon Beacons. It was later on the news we heard of the group of British servicemen who had difficulties on the Brecons with the heat, the countryside can find so many ways to cause trouble. It is a reminder that even on sunny days we need to take care on the hills. These were professionals, my condolences go to all the families of these men.

The Blorenge itself is misleading, once you reach the summit it becomes a big flat moor, crisscrossed by tracks and the summit trig sits above this wide space by a few metres, surrounded by a pile of rocks. A fine place to sit and look around.

The Blorenge.

Two erstwhile companions, looking for a seat.

Getting away, don’t stop for a picture or you are lost.

Crossing the moor you head back towards the town and the start, lean in to the lumpy pathways and head home. Crossing scours, where water has been used to expose iron ore, circuitous tracks around the old works of the original mines. Where nature is as everywhere around, doing her thing and reclaiming what has been taken.

Head back, to the beginning.

Views from here.

What is hidden by new grass?

Out towards Sugarloaf.

It’s a walk of very different flavours, man and nature each vying for their place. At times still, dreamy and almost like a lost world. Then you pass a place where families and pets are roaming, calling and using the space to be free from the closeness of industry. I can see why the area is a World Heritage Site, although I think some more homage should be paid to natures part in the whole scheme. If you get the chance pay the place a visit, it’s worth a few hours of anyone’s time in my opinion.

What’s not to like about this view?

For now though, enjoy every trip you make, long or short. They are all part of the trail you are following through your life.

Mount Teide, Heading Down.

The final part of this series now, descending down lava flows across pumice to reach Pico Viejo and finally the Rocks des Garcia. A long hot wander around moon cliffs and rubble tracks, the tourist trail and expensive water.

A View of Pico Viejo, from the Teide lava flows.

Leaving the relative comfort of the summit plateau and heading back into the shadow of the mountain you hit the lava trail, and soon get to see what to most looks the part of a real volcano. A quick photo opportunity then the steady clamber and picking paths through the broken rocks of Teide’s last eruption in 1760. The paths are jagged, the hand holds scratchy and the visions around are wild, tangled, lumps of rock.

The French, Getting ahead.

Don’t look back, the path vanishes.

As the sun rises and the shadow leaves the landscape, glimpses of the West of the island become clearer, the haze burns away and the coastline is revealed.

The West coast.

The going gets easier once you reach the pumice slopes of Pico Viejo, a gentle crumbling crunching sound and feeling akin the hoary snow. The only problem is the rising temperature as the sun rises higher in the sky. The dark lava flow ends abruptly with a few broken shards and you are out into quiet a gentle landscape. Rock chunks litter the floor, but there is greenery once more.

Pico Viejo and the pumice track.

The edge.

A short hop across the yellow land and you climb back up the edge of the crater. The wind at this point was still fairly fierce, so excursions to the very edge were not the best idea, no matter how tempting it was or curious you are. I climbed the rim of the crater to the summit and looked in. It had everything you would want from a big hole in the ground. Steep sides, rubble, and a long way down. The guides say you cannot get into the crater, though what reason you might want to I don’t know. All I can say is, I went up, I had a discreet peek over the edge, took some pictures and headed back to the main track. Job done and well worth the time.

First look into the crater.

Pico Veijo.

The Crater.

Summit photo, windswept and hanging on.

The cliffs are the remains of the lava plug, which at some point collapsed to leave the big hole you can stare into. It’s best not to think about the idea of what may be going on underneath what is just a big firework powered by the molten core of the Earth. I moved on, wondering how fast you could get to sea level and find a boat. Probably not that fast.

The real descent starts when you turn off the main track and start the downward slide to the Canadas del Teide below. Rocks, greenery, and lots of rocks. Hard on the feet, dusty and thirsty work. Sliding and clambering over and around the detritus of the mountain. Fascinating on the eyes, aching feet and the ever-present chance of a turned ankle on all the loose fist sized rocks making up the trail.

Rocky road.

More rocks.

See the big rock,

That’s me stood next to it.

Green.

Sometimes like this above, sometimes like this, below.

Rock.

And that’s how it goes, for the next two hours, Nothing seems to get closer below. Just a bit more detailed.

Rocks des Garcia.

The shapes in the rock formations continue to become ever more unbelievable, but it goes on descending, clambering into the green aisles between the lava flows, clambering back out again, searching for the track or one of the intermittent markers ahead to get some clue as to the best route down. All the while the sun climbs, the heat rises and you drink more water, it is an unforgiving place.

Rocks, the return.

A rocky vent.

Even on level ground the pea gravel abounds and confounds the feet, making it a slow careful process coming down to the Parador and the Rock below.

Pillows of rock.

After a while, you do arrive on the flat, level ground. And as you make your way around the rocks des Garcia, you encounter clean, tidy, sweet-smelling tourists who look at you with a mixture of sympathy for your dusty and tired demeanor, yet are horrified at the sweaty, smelly object looking at the same piece of geology they are perusing. The guide moves them on quickly, just in case I try to sneak into his group. I had other ideas, the cafe at the Parador. The hotel for tourists just a mile away now. I had run out of water earlier and while not about to collapse with exhaustion or dehydration, it wasn’t the best time of day to be wandering a dusty track with nothing to drink. I’d left the refuge a five am. with a bit over two and a half litres in my bag. The refuge sold water from a machine at 2.95 for a half litre. I was to discover it was much the same at the Parador cafe, all the prices are terrible. Which is unfortunate because they get lots of visitors. Who, after looking at the prices, leave. Very much a wasted opportunity, There is no shade for visitors, just a few outside tables, you pay for the toilet, or buy food to get one go in the toilet with your receipt. And the food is not that good. Luckily I did have my own food, and I found some shade by the old chapel to sit and eat, and savour the most expensive water on the island. Enough moaning, it is though the worst cafe in Spain.

The lizards do love a picnic, they come out to look and are quite willing to step up and eat with you, fighting amongst themselves to get anything you put down. It was only the bigger males that eat the peanuts.

Picnic partner.

Big Lizard.

Leaning rocks.

Look how far away the tourist stayed.

Big Rocks.

After lunch I walked around the Rocks des Garcia, Very impressive again as you can see from the pictures. But rocks do get a bit samey after a while don’t they. So I’ll throw in the towel now and let you come down from your heights of joy over this collection of words and images. I had hoped to climb another hill, but with only half a litre of water it was not practical, I returned to my shady spot and waited for the bus. Two memorable days on Mount Teide, It was a challenging descent, and don’t let my humour fool you. I enjoyed every moment in amongst the rubble.

Next time I’ll head out for the lower summits of the Roque del Conde and the Roque Imoque. Yes there will be some rocks, but views as well as some social history.

Have fun and enjoy the weather. Whatever it brings let it bring a smile too.