Day Six

DAY SIX

As a supplemental note to the laundry episode, Kurt asked me to get the wet clothing on the dry – needless to say (not having much laundry experience) I put very wet washing into the dyer (the washing machine had run out of coins before finishing the spin cycle) – and the machine stopped working… it also filled the laundry room with the smell of burnt wiring and set the fire alarm off which was quite inconvenient. The end of the sory is that we had to re-dry our clothing in the other dryers and the cost for one load of washing came to around R160..

ANYWAY we woke up to a bright and glorious day with rays of rarely seen sunlight. The temperature was also surprisingly high at around 3 degrees. Both Kurt and I have adapted quite quickly to the low temperatures – I’ve actually been amazed at how adaptive the human body is.. normally temperatures off 22 deg would cause me to put a jacket on, but at the moment I’m feeling quite comfortable indoors with temps of 16-18 degrees.

We drove out of Bodensee camp by 8:30am heading south east in the direction of Austria. We had planned to taken in Switzerland on our route primarily so that I could visit a friend working there, but after much discussion Kurt and I realized that a detour through to Interlaken would make reaching for Poland through Slavenia and Slovakia impossible given the costs and distances.

Our route today took us along side the Bodensee lake towards the famous Neuschwanstien castle which inspired Walt Disney all those years ago for his Disney logo. Given that Switzerland lay on the other side of the lake I had in my mind a deep dark lake bordered by snow capped Alps.. as it turned the lake was rather ordinary in comparison to the incredible scenery we’d seen in the mountains of the black forest, and it lacked any mountains to boot. Much to our surprise though, just when Kurt and I thought we’d have a pretty ordinary drive to the castle, vine covered plains gave way abruptly to a forested pass that lifted us up over a 1000m back into an alpine snow zone. More incredible yet was my first sighting of the Austrian Alps – of all people I’m used to mountain scenery, but the Alps are so different to anything I’m use to. They seem to erupt out of the ground at random, torn granite and basalt reaching up in jagged, snow covered splendor. Given the time I would love to hike them but that’ll have to be on another trip.

Our camp site for the night was alongside a lake nearby Neuschwanstien castle. Having arrived early enough and with perfect weather conditions, we decided to take in the castle today rather than tomorrow morning as planned. Neuschwanstien has a near perfect location nestled between to massive peaks and overlooking three lakes. Built by the eccentric King Ludwig in the late nineteen century, it is the epitome of opulence. Built in romanesce style, no expense was spared in the lavish internal decoration – it had running water and plumbed toilets, a telephone and internal heating, all revolutionary for the time. Most impressive to me was the fake grotto and glass conservancy he had built next to his bedroom. Both Kurt and I were impressed with the castle and its incredible views. Writing about it cant do it any justice. As an added bonus to our outing we had a horse drawn cart ride up and down from the castle. This gave us the opportunity to meet an American war vet currently serving in Germany. He had commanded an Apache squadron in Iraq, and as it turns out lead a flight over Bagdad, the events of which got aired on the history channel. Kurt seems to think I got under the guys skin asking so many questions, but I really enjoyed plying him for an inside view of the war and military life.

Both Kurt and I had hoped for a quiet evening since every day so far has had one major drama or another that we’ve had to deal with. But alas our heating system packed up and we were off to by an electric heater for back-up. Fortunately and mysteriously it started working again by the time we were back. By now though we’re getting used to things not working quiet as planned, but a day without any problems would be nice.

Editors Note – what Glenn failed to mention to our avid followers was that when he got to the laundry and surveyed the contents of the washing machine and prepared to make use of the tumble drier, he noticed that the machine was somewhat full of water. Taking little notice of this he proceeded to open the door and flood the laundry before putting the soaking wet washing in the drier – I mean it was after-all meant to “dry” the washing. Well the rest is kind of history but if only it had been filmed on video. We could have made a fortune on a funniest home movie show.

Editors Note No 2 – well the inevitable has happened. Glenn has found an internet café that opens at 8.00am tomorrow morning. He for those of you who may not know is a lifetime member of Internet Aholics Anonymous and therefore with great glee he is going on facebook tomorrow. I have to say though the manner in which he approached the “general – me that is” to “ask” or “suggest” or “Scheme” as it finally turned out – could we perhaps leave at 9.00am and not the original 8.00am as was planned has to be the funniest thing I have experienced this entire trip. He clearly is in need of desperate help and I pray someone or something is out there to assist him with this disastrous disease.