Onwards. East to Slovakia!

1/ Crossing the border into Slovakia

It was with great relunctance that we packed up our kit this morning and headed out again on the autoroute. We are excited to be visiting an unfamiliar country and seeing Dana & Tibor again, but we just wish we didn't have to drive all day to get there! Today we have to make it half-way across Austria and then all the way to the north eastern border of Slovakia.

The weather is suitably heinous. But fortunately, unlike the highways to the Austrian ski resorts, the road is empty. It is snowing, sleeting and raining in equal measure. Visibility is limited and we feel that we are only seeing a tiny glimpse of the terrain around us.

Poor old Pepi Peugeot is covered in snow, salt and grime. Our skis on the roof racks are getting hammered. The edges are covered in rust! I can't even begin to imagine what the salt is doing to Pepi's metal underbelly!

2/ A very grimy Pepi!

3/ How to wreck your skis without using them!!

I am going to refrain from making any comments or impressions about Slovakia at this stage. It is too early to tell. Certainly the grim weather is not making the uninspired soviet architecture of the buildings look any better. But looks can be deceiving and our opinions are also coloured by the monotony of driving. Best wait until we've spent some real time here.

4/ Hmmm. Soviet style housing blocks!

Well it wouldn't be a proper road trip without us getting lost! It was dark, snowing, Penny was completely lost! She had no maps for the area we were travelling through. By sheer dumb luck rather than any good navigation on my part, we managed to find Stola - Dana & Tibor's town. After a quick phone call to Dana, she was able to direct us to their beautiful log cabin.

Of course, Dana and Tibor look exactly the same. But of course their children, Michaela (Mischa) & Tomi have grown substantially in the two years since we have seen them. Mischa is now 12 (going on 22!!) and Tomi is 8. I will confess that Graeme and I were totally wrung out by the hard drive today and we were probably not very good company. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be rested and ready to catch up with all the news since Dana & Tibor were in NZ two years ago.

Salzberg and 7 Degrees of Separation

What an inspired idea to stop a day in Salzberg! We've had a great time.

If Salzberg was human, she'd be a beautiful aristocratic and well travelled woman. Classically beautiful, cultured and clever, but also possessing a warm charm. In understanding the importance of retaining its history, Salzberg has created an enduring income stream from tourism. Now, there's an idea?!

1/The incredibly beautiful Salzberg

2/ Interesting patterns in the snow!

We'd decided to take a walking tour of Salzberg and duly met up with our guide at the local tourism office. It was a freezing day but at least the snow had stopped and the sun was making an attempt to shine. Unfortunately, our guide had the personality of Attila the Hun. I can only suspect that he was annoyed at having to translate everything into English as we were the only non German speakers on the tour. He spoke so rapidly that we were often left pondering what he had just said. Questions were not encouraged and he scowled and scolded if anyone dared to speak while he was holding court. It was a shame, because I'm sure that if we had been less intimidated we could have learnt a lot more.

3/ A tour of Salzberg with the world's grumpiest guide!!

But as the tour wore on, we learned that the German speakers were also having a hard time understanding the guide! He was speaking in German (with a thick Austrian accent) just as rapidly as he spoke to us in English. In the rare moments of silence as we walked between the various sights, we struck up a conversation with a lovely young couple from northern Germany (Hans & Lina) and also a young Austrian teacher, Angelica who was taking her pupils to Salzberg in the coming week.

We were all relieved when the torturous tour ended and we could head to a warm cafe for a coffee and cake. Hans, Lina and Angelica joined us and we whiled away and hour or two getting to know each other. Would you believe it? Angelica had lived in Christchurch for 2 years and knew Wanaka well. She had also spent 3 months on Stewart Island and we knew many of the same people. Aaah..the rule about 7 degrees of separation must be true!

Angelica needed to head home, but we joined Hans and Lina for a walk to the Castle and around the town, talking and taking pictures along the way. Hans and Lina have a cropping farm in the north of Germany. They speak perfect English, shaming us with their ability to speak more than one language.

4/ Hans & Lina. May we meet again someday.

Hans & Lina gave us a fascinating insight into their way of life and the farming issues in Europe. We learnt a lot about growing sugar beet! But they are well travelled and interested to know more about NZ and Australia. A keen hunter, Hans was very interested to hear about the hunting opportunities in NZ.

Afternoon stretched into evening and we were enjoying each others company so much, we headed out to dinner together. We were still reluctant to finish our conversation when the restaurant dimmed its lights and began locking up for the night.

We have swapped email addresses and hope that we will meet again some day.

Antipodeans Know Nothing About Traffic!!

1/It's bucketing snow! Let's just slow to 100km/hr!! Great !@##!! Idea!!

WE WERE WARNED!! Hubert constantly warned us against travelling on a Saturday (especially in the school holidays). Now...we know why!!

I vow and declare that I will never, ever, complain about heavy traffic again. Not word of complaint will escape my lips if I am stuck in traffic from Auckland Airport, not a moan or groan about Melbourne footy traffic nor will I curse if I am stuck on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Australians and New Zealanders know nothing about heavy traffic!

2/ That's four lanes at a standstill!!

Today, we, along with the entire Dutch population decided to drive east through Europe. Leaving on Friday morning from Araches, it’s taken us 2 days and 16 hours of driving to travel less than 600km! Our route has taken us through Switzerland, Lichtenstein (can’t remember this part), Austria, Germany and back again into Austria. To top it off, it has been snowing heavily for almost all the journey. Yesterday was the start of the French (Paris), British and obviously, given the predominance of NL Number Plates on the road, - Dutch school holidays. The Autobahn from Munich, east to the Innsbruk turn off was at a standstill for most of the day. At its worst, it took us over an hour to travel 5 kilometres. That’s walking pace! Even when we decided to pull off the road for lunch at a petrol station, it took us over half an hour to negotiate the carpark!! It was chaos.

But you just gotta love those pragmatic dutchies! We met a nice man in the lunch stop who was travelling with his sons to a rented house in southern Austria. He had left Holland at 1:30am that morning. When we met him he had been travelling for 12 hours. He was laughing and cheerful and thoroughly delightful. We suspect he may have also been high on copious quantities of caffeine. But he certainly made us feel a bit humbled and shy about mentioning our stiff necks and sore backs.

3/ Andy's usual expression while a passenger!

Long distance car travel is not for me. I am not a good passenger at the best of times. When it is snowing heavily, you are doing 120km/hr just to stay with the flow of the traffic and there are still cars roaring past you at 150- 180km/hr – I am transformed by fear into a blithering mess. Poor Graeme. He is a very good driver and he has to suffer me slamming on the imaginary brake in the passenger seat. I also combine this with full body twitching routines, regular gasping and eye covering movements as we hurtle around bends or through long tunnels. Any time we have to slow for a stoppage, I reach for the hazard light button – conveniently located in the centre of the dashboard. After 8 hours of this, we are both wrung out physically and emotionally!!

4/ I've worn the triangle symbol off this button due to overuse!!

By 3 o’clock, our plans to reach Vienna were abandoned. Instead we opted for Salzberg. It’s been over 17 years since I last visited Salzberg and Graeme 30 years. We have forgotten the city's breathtaking beauty. The consummate European tourist town, Salzberg has every thing. Incredible history, scenery, groovy bars and restaurants and of course loads of interesting shops to tempt the Euros from your wallet. Of course being the lowest of low season, we found accommodation easy to find and good value. 72 Euro for a good double room with ensuite and breakfast. The hotel Weisse Taube (White Dove) where we are staying, is over 600 years old and has been run by the same family for 5 generations. We are enjoying our re-visit so much, I think that we'll stay another night. My nervous system needs another 24 hours to recover!! We’ll drive all the way through to Slovakia tomorrow and leave the exploration of Vienna until our return home.

On the Road to Slovakia! Where are we???

1/ A: "Haven't we been in this tunnel before???" G: "Don't think so?" P (the GPS): "At the first available opportunity do "U-Turn"! "

Phew!! We’ve made it to Bregenz, Austria today after a later start than expected. At least, I think we are in Austria, but we could also be in Germany, Switzerland or Lichtenstein! Let’s face it! Graeme and I are both fairly directionally challenged at the best of times. Thank goodness for Penelope the unflappable GPS system! While we are obviously on the shores of Lake Constantine, there was no small amount of confusion getting here. We could have come here directly from Switzerland, but somehow we managed to cross into Austria, Germany and then back again into Austria. We suddenly found ourselves in a big long tunnel and then – hey presto – Deutschland! Only people with our special talent for getting lost could have done this. But as I look outside my hotel window, I have just noticed the red and white flags flying outside our hotel. I guess that means that we are, in fact, in Austria.

The town is really funky and we’re staying tonight in a quirky 3 star place called Hotel Bodensee. We had to secretly smile to ourselves when a lovely young Austrian girl showed us a couple of rooms all of which had defective lighting. We were transported back to a former life when we would do the great “room-sell” only to find that something was wrong when we opened the door to show the room. The worst was always when we'd already sold the room before and we burst in on our poor unsuspecting guests Fawlty style! Always fun! Not sure that the Austrian’s quite see the funny side of things. Certainly, our girl wasn’t cracking the same jokes as we would do in the same situation. After showing us a second room that also had no lighting, our hostess was getting quite upset. We were tired, hungry and really not sure where all this was heading, so we put her out of her misery and just took the room. While dark, it was clean (as far as we could tell in the dim light), spacious and not over the top in terms of price.

2/ More snow! Poor car - it's should be starting to sprout sleds!

A quick dinner at an Italian restaurant nearby, a quick sneak into a modern art gallery on the way home, then I will confess that it was home in bed early for us. With the snow coming down it will be another long and fairly taxing drive to Vienna tomorrow.

Please..Send No More Tongs!!

Help! The tongs are breeding!!

Help the tongs are breeding!! No, seriously, thanks to all our friends and relatives who have kindly sent us tongs. We now have one for the meat, one for the fish and the other to chase the beans around the pot.

But please, don't send any more tongs! Graeme is finding new uses for them, which I would rather not encourage!

It was a shocker today. Officially, bad weather!! It's warmed up and all that lovely powder snow is being washed away by a deluge of rain. Accompanying the rain is some fairly strong wind. The locals here are calling it a gale - vent forte!! Little do they know about wind!! Now a good Canterbury Plains Nor'wester or a Southerly Buster on Bass Strait - now that's a vent forte!!

I will confess to having a lazy day. We had been invited to Gavin & Sue's for dinner last night and as usual it was a late one. Also another amazingly delicious dinner. I know these guys cook for a living, but it was just lovely. Blini's with tzatziki & tarasamalata, thai chicken curry and tropical pavlova for dessert. Yum! They were also intrigued about the controversy in Australia and NZ over which country can lay claim to inventing the delicious dessert.

I explained that unfortunately, as a nation settled originally by convicts, Australia has a bad-habit of "stealing" the limelight and claiming inventions and famous people, in particular, as "Aussies" when in fact they are from NZ. The most typical examples being the famous race horse - "Pharlap", the band "Crowded House" and the actor "Russell Crowe". There, have of course, been some other unfortunate events throughout history, like the infamous Chappell underarm bowling incident in cricket, which has rightly added fuel to the Kiwi's argument that Australia is always out to "steal their thunder". Despite all this, I'm not ready to concede that NZ invented the pavlova. Some internet research since the dinner party seems to support my view that Australia did indeed invent the pavlova. See for yourself - The Pavlova Debate.

It was a long walk home during the storm last night which will, of course account for my general lethargy this morning. Fortunately it was not raining when we left Gav & Sue, the only hazard while walking home were the slick footpaths and the great piles of wet snow dropping like bombs from the trees all around us. For some unknown reason (?) I remember feeling very concerned about the hedges. Apparantly I was worried that all the hedges in Araches were going to collapse under their heavy load of snow! Sensible comments from Graeme like "The hedges have been there for a while, dear! And every year they get covered in snow. Looks to me like they still survive!" and a little while later, "Please come away from the hedge, Andy!" and a bit later still.... "Seriously now, will you leave the hedge alone"...... "ANDY, WOULD YOU PUT DOWN YOUR POLE AND MOVE AWAY FROM THE HEDGE, NOW!!" I think the film he secretly captured says it all.

Yum, Yum more Pow!! The French don't do racks!

More powder skiing! Graeme whoops it up!!

Look I'm really sorry, but it just keeps snowing here!! It snowed all day yesterday and overnight. Another 30cm of light dry powder. Elbowed the septogenerian out of the way this morning and got first telecabine!!

We mentioned previously that our Grand Massif is like Cardrona. No-one skis off-piste and so we pretty much ski freshies all day. We have found a particularly good section which is accessed off a cat track connecting two ski areas. Terrific fall line where you can lay about 30-40 turns top to bottom. This morning we just put in set after set just going wider along the slope each time. And even better, no lift queue. In fact, for the first week of the french school holidays it is surprisingly quiet. If you are interested - here's today's footage.

French Observation

Ski Racks

It appears to us that the french don't do ski racks. Time and time again we see skis just thrown into the back of cars. When the cars are full, 4 pairs of skis & a snowboard are sitting on peoples shoulders and resting on the dashboard. You can tell that the car is full, their faces are pressed up against the glass!! Some of the "neater people" bring a brush and dust off their equipment before putting it in their car, but most don't. They just chuck it in snow and all.

Very strange I must say!

Bizarre Ski Equipment

Check out the upholstery on the ski-do's! Leopard skin print....nice!! I bet someone got a bargain with these puppies. Probably, Grand Massif resort bought them second-hand from an African dictator who ordered them but didn't realise you need snow to run them. Either that, or someone has appalling taste!! And there's not just one of them.....there's about 20 ski-do's parked at Samoens...all with styley leopard ski seats! Hmmmm!

Whump vs Thwack!! A Crash Analysis

A perfect french snowflake!!

"Did we mention the words "Pea Soup?"

It's snowing again!! In contrast to the last snow dump, it's deep, light and fluffy! But unfortunately, it's Sunday and the first day of the French School Holidays. We have been warned - a dire combination!

The french stagger the winter school holidays throughout a month long period. At the moment, kids from the Lyon region (which includes our area) are on holidays for the next 2 weeks. Next week, they are overlapped with the Parisians and British school holidays. Rick and Liz continually tell us that they don't even bother putting their skis on during this period as it is totally crazy. So rather than stay and observe the madness, Graeme and I will be departing for Slovakia at the end of the week.

But this morning, we arose at "crack-o-dawn", dug out the car, (there'd been about 30cm of fresh overnight) put the chains on and were waiting for the telecabine to open. We got the second telecabine. A septogenerian "powder hound" pushed past us to snatch the last spot in the first cabin! Hmmm, next time ....!!

While the snow was amazing the visibility was less so. Good thing that both of us have trained at the Skiing for the Visially Impaired Academy (aka as Mt Buller on a good day and/ or the TC Saddle Basin -Winter 2008)! We have really started to know our way around our little ski area, and heading to all our favourite haunts we whooped it up in the knee deep powder! (Cold crotch syndrome again I'm ashamed to report!!).

And then..... we thought we'd be a little clever and head off down a new beckoning patch of untracked field. The result a nasty crash for Andy!

A word about Crashes - the "Whump" vs the "Thwack!!

I am always surprised when I fall. I am generally very relaxed, humming along to the music playing softly on my headphones. I'm not thinking about what I am doing at all. Thanks to my intrepid father, I was brought up skiing off the "beaten track". I seem to remember most of my early skiing days were spent rolling down ungroomed slopes or dodging trees in tight gullies. Dad himself would often provide spectacular demonstrations of how to crash in deep and heavy snow without hurting yourself. My father always treated any fall as an occasion for great hilarity. As a result there are very few times even now that I don't start giggling while I'm flying through the air and I know that a "Whump" into the deep snow is imminent.

The only exception to this relaxed demeanour is when I am skiing on -piste or the snow is really icy off-piste. Then I'm tense. I don't want to fall. I ski tentatively and try to ensure that I am not going to hit or be hit by someone or that I will end up doing a "slide for life" on some icy off-piste. On the rare occasion that that I have crashed on-piste - it's a Thwack! And it hurts!

As capturing crashes on film is hard to do, you will forgive me for me using some old footage to demonstrate the distinction between "Whump" & "Thwack" crashes!!

The happy "Whump Fall" Note: soft snow and smile on face!!

Brother-in-law, Cam, demonstrating the aftermath of a "Thwacker".

Note: hard snow and blood!!

So today was a bit of a shock to the system. I anticipated a Whump when instead I received a Thwack. As I hurtled down the new off-piste field in the poor visibility I did not see that a groomed trail had been cut across the slope. The drop was about a metre onto a flat and hard packed snow road. I had been quite relaxed, after all I was skiing powder what could happen? So even when I ejected from both skis I was anticipating a graceful flop into a snow feather bed. To my surprise I ploughed head first into the hard road, driving my goggles onto the bridge of my nose. Ooowww! I saw stars! Thank goodness I was wearing a helmut! It took the full brunt of the impact.

The good news is that of course I was completely OK. After a quick check of the all the fingers and toes, I retired from slopes for a restorative hot chocolate and was able to continue skiing for the rest of the day! It is afterall a powder day and more snow is predicted overnight!