Down In Time For Tea And Thunder

Wednesday 16 August 2000. The trip back down the mountain was again one that left some of the passengers unable to look outside at the steep drop!

The water that flows out from under the glacier at first takes on a muddy appearance as it is full of bits of rock and frozen detritus that the glacier has scraped away over the centuries. It collects in a lake which overflows here and which in turn fills a lower lake where the rubbish sinks to the bottom leaving the water to purify a bit.

Here you can see the difference in height between the two bodies of water and the difference in colour of the water.

At the bottom end of this lower lake are two enormous dams, built to withstand ice as well as water. The brighter patch above the lake in the top right corner is a glimpse of white water cascading from the lake at the lower edge of the glacier whilst at the left of the picture large patches of ice can be seen even in August.

The road winds down the pass in a snaking series of hairpin bends. Some people refused to look. Others kept up a less-than-soothing running commentary.

As it happened there was no need to make up horror stories - at one bend we passed a few cars stopped next to a motorbike that had run off the road. The biker looked in a bad way, flat on his back with someone pumping his chest...

We came through a short tunnel and to a patch of snow. Chris stopped the coach and the younger passengers shot out to play for 2 minutes.

12 year old Sarah was most indignant because Chris told her to wipe her pants clean before getting on the coach - she had fallen on her behind!

After our meal at the hotel that night, we set out to walk to Zell for an Austrian beer festival. We got half a mile and the heavens opened. Thunder and lightning flashed around us and we sheltered under the eaves of a small shed between the local and main railway lines.

"It'll slacken off in a minute," said Miss Franny confidently. The storm moved from the mountains to directly overhead. The rain got harder and harder and it went dark.

The shed was no shelter now. We got to the road running alongside the railway and sheltered under the porch of someone's house. They must have heard us talking because the door opened and an elderly couple, after realising we didn't speak German, motioned us to step inside. We were soaked and dripping by now so I declined - we would have wet their carpets and their porch was keeping the worst off us. We thanked them and, bless them, they went back in and then came back with an umbrella for us.

An hour later we were still there. It had now gone fully dark as night approached... The rain was so hard that the train signals shone red beams across the sky.

I took a photo using flash. The flashgun lit the drops of rain up and on the screen of the digital camera we saw just how many drops were in the air in whatever very small fraction of a second the flash fired for (somwhere between 1/200 and 1/1,000th of a second).

This photo became the cause of much hilarity amongst the other passengers for the rest of the holiday! Every time rain splashed the coach windows or we passed a puddle there came cries of "Quick! Are you going to photograph it???"

Eventually we gave up, knocked on the door to give the umbrella back and thank the owners and then we just ran for it back to the hotel. One good thing came out of it though - the lightning hit and stopped the church clock opposite our bedroom window. We had a blissful bell-free morning! Oh... and the beer festival was called off due to the storm.

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At the Grossglockner Glacier

Wednesday 16 August 2000. We have reached the highest point that our coach can get in the High Alpine Pass. It's minus four degrees centigrade, but strangely it doesn't feel all that cold. We went out in T-shirts and were comfortable enough without having to put on the jackets that we carried just in case.

We had hoped to catch a glimpse of edelweiss, but it was too early in the season. Up we climbed, past the final and highest car park and, leaning over the railings, we saw the glacier below us.

There was even a funicular that you could ride to take you down to the glacier surface. We opted to stay up on the road though, we weren't wearing suitable footwear for prancing about on ice.

Glaciers flow like water. Just very, very slowly. And whilst they are doing that, over the years they break off and pick up lots of tiny bits of rock and end up looking more muddy than ice. Just the very top of the glacier was approaching white.

It looked like tunnels had been bored into the side of the glacier so that you could go inside it to get a feel for the chill of the place...

I had brought a telephoto lens for the camera These were the days where I was experimenting with digital which was only in its infancy and today was important enough for me to have my SLR film camera with me. I could see that down in the cracks in the glacier the ice shone with that wonderful turquoise colour.

Having gone down the funicular, people are now climbing up a series of around 30 steps to reach the edge of the glacier. One or two from our party made it down.

We carried on walking up the road until it petered out in a cluster of buildings, bars, shops and restaurants.

We found a souvenir shop! Yodelling teddy bear anyone? Miss Franny? She turns quickly with a guilty look. Have you been sniffing the Schnapps bottles again Miss Franny?

I simply can't make up my mind which of these Tyrolean hats suit me the best... We are 7,500 feet above the level of our home. It is minus four degrees centigrade. We are dressed in T-shirts with bare arms. We buy ice cream...

Outside a helicopter is buzzing to and fro across the mountainside, the crew scanning the larger crevices on the off chance someone might have fallen down one. Actually that would be extremely scary - some of those crevices are very deep! It's time to return to the coach before a crevice comes for me...

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The High Alpine Road to Grossglockner

Wednesday 19 August 2003. We are on a coach, heading for the Grossglockner glacier.

This is the morning coffee stop, already high up in the mountains, but without a great deal of snow...

Mum has recovered from her bit of sunstroke and is carrying a cardigan today, though she says it's too hot to put on.

The view opposite the roadside cafe. Tumbling waterfalls. The locals say all the snow has melted, leaving only the permafrost ice on the high peaks.

Fran and I have been to the glacier before and we are shocked when we see it. It seems a lot smaller than it was in 2000.

Grossglockner peaks at 3,798 metres (12,461 ft) above sea level - this being measured against the level of the Adriatic Sea. It's the highest mountain in Austria and the highest in the Alps east of the Brenner Pass. From it's peak you can see for 140 miles or 150 miles if you count atmospheric refraction. Personally I've made it a habit not to count atmospheric refraction... Anyway it's high up. The views to north, south, east and west reach as far as places I've never heard of in my life... It is the second largest mountain in the Alps (to Mont Blanc) when measured from peak to the foot of the mountain.

So... having come up, we'd better go down again. The covered road on the left of the photo is a protection against avalanches. The meltwater from the glacier is trapped in a dam on the far side of the lake, from where it runs down a gully that remained hidden from the road into the reservoir.

Back down the hairpin bends we go, swaying merrily from side to side, looking at times down long vertical drops!

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Essence of Norway - Stryn to Geiranger

Wednesday 7 August 2013. We left Stryn behind in the previous entry and now we start to climb up into the mountains. The first photo stop comes a few minutes later.

We had been following a glacial river and the coach pulled to a stop by a bridge crossing the river just above some white water rapids. However, a few seconds ago we passed the rapids tumbling over a small fall and I thought that would make a much better photo. So John from Poulton and I rushed downstream and ended up on a small T-shaped platform of wood, totally unrailed and over the rapids!

We got the photos but if you look carefully you can see that the bridge is empty of tourists and so we were the last back to the coach!

We stop for lunch at the Jostedalsbreen National Park Centre in Oppstryn, about 14 miles from Stryn. Jostedalsbreen is also the name of the glacier that we can see above us, which is the largest glacier on mainland Europe. The centre is another of those grass-roofed buildings and in dire need of a goat...

Our dinner, meanwhile is served in a large conservatory, the gables of which can be seen to the right of the photo. We were four coaches on the tour and it fit us all. The tables were large enough to take four couples each. The benches were covered with reindeer skins. We sat with John and Sue, facing two other couples. The table was generously loaded with bottles of beer, Pepsi, and other drinks. We were against the window so Sue got the honour of being table monitor and passing the dishes out. Soup was followed by freshly poached salmon in a white sauce and rice - yummy! Tea and coffee followed.

After that we went outside to look at the lake and the collection of huge rocks. You can see these on the photo of the centre - each rock had a one foot square on its surface polished to show what it would look like as a floor, worktop or whatever. We admired the lake scenery for a bit then looked round the centre itself which sold reindeer skins and trolls and had record-breaking queues at the toilets... Even the Gents had a queue - which the ladies seemed to find quite gratifying for some reason.

We got back on the coach and started to climb. Lots of hairpin bends and we were on a very narrow road. A few cars were passed going the opposite way. This entailed slowing right down to a crawl and judging the right spot to allow the vehicles to pass.
"Do coaches only go one way along this road?" asked one passenger nervously.
"No... answered the driver. "But don't worry - I'm hoping to get my license next week..."

The guide tells us of an incident from World War II. A British plane and a German bomber had an aerial fight over the mountains one winter which resulted in both of them crashing. On the snow covered mountain survivors from both aircraft met in the same mountain cabin and had to live together to survive, becoming friends. The German bomber was still on the mountainside.

In fact, not long afterwards... But no - this turned out to be a replica. The story of the airmen was made into a film in 2012 called Into the White. Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter films) plays one of the British crew. This is a prop from the making of that film. However, the real bomber still exists somewhere in the mountains, whilst the British plane was recovered from a nearby lake and is now on display at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovil, Somerset.

There are lakes a-plenty in the region. We had a photo stop at the side of this one next to a cafe and hotel with the rather quaint name Dupvasshytta. Don't knock it - 5-star reviews and all. Now we start to climb in earnest. No, not the coach's name...

This little (but 2-way) toll road is taking us to the viewpoint on the top of Dalsnibba mountain, from where we should be able to look down on Geiranger, the town at the end of Geirangerfjord, the fjord and the Thomson Spirit, the ship... The Jostedalsbreen glacier can be seen on the mountain tops and the road down can be seen... down...

We are 1500 meters above sea level - which is also fjord level seeing as we haven't gone through any locks or climbed any hills in the ship. The Thomson Spirit is there but partially hidden on the left of the fjord by an outcrop halfway down. Luckily we will stop again halfway down which will allow the following view of the ship which we last saw in Hellesylt first thing this morning.

We are late returning to the ship. It should have sailed half an hour before we got back to it and we were the first of the four coaches. One of the advantages to being on an official ship excursion is that it will wait for you to return. If you go off independently there is no such guarantee.

Fjordland Wonders Cruise Index Page

The High Alpine Road

After the entry on the Grossglockner Glacier someone said they wanted to see the road and its hairpin bends so here are a couple of shots showing just a taste of the spectacular scenery there is on the High Alpine Pass to Grossglockner.

We were on coach trips each time we've been to Austria and at times the coach was filled with the sound of "Ooooh!" sometimes in awe and sometimes in terror!

The glacier ends when the ice breaks up and melts, resulting in a river of glacial water that feeds a high dammed reservoir of cool turquoise water. The colour of glacial water has to be seen to be believed, it is the most beautiful of colours.

Water from the reservoir and other meltwaters cascade down the mountainside in streams, cascades and sometimes giant falls of water, visible from far away.

The memories stirred by writing about that holiday made me want to go again as it's a few years since we were there and I'd enjoy a holiday in the Tirol again. We've stayed in Mariastein and Niederau, but my favourite was the first trip we took to Austria when we stayed in Schuttdorf, just 15 minutes walk from the lovely Zell-am-See.

Large Versions of the Photos: hairpin bends (a wider view), mountain scenery

Grossglockner Glacier

As we were talking about Austria a couple of posts ago and seeing as my web pages on our Austrian holidays have gone bye bye, I was nudged to follow the entry on Krimml Falls with a memory of Grossglockner Glacier.

We've visited it twice,on 16 August 2000 and again on 13 August 2003 when we thought it was somewhat diminished in size from our previous trip.

The High Alpine Road that you must take to reach the glacier is one of those spectacular car-advert type of roads with series of S-bend hairpins winding their way up the mountains, gorgeous scenery and views of distant waterfalls, cascading immense vertical distances. It's well worth a trip!

The Austrian Marmot is much in evidence at Grossglockner too. Larger than praire marmots, they have a liking for bread that we took advantage of on our first trip, though by the second there were notices asking visitors not to feed the marmots who were by now sitting around looking up at the roadway expectantly and muttering amongst themselves; "Are they not going to chuck us anything to eat? I'm dying for a good butty!"

You can climb down to stand on the glacier but we didn't. In fact there's a funicular railway to take you part of the way down. Fran decided that the souvenir shop was a better bet...

Larger Versions of the Photos: the glacier, marmots