Blog News/Me News

 I don't usually share my travels, but now I'm making an exception, although I don't know why...maybe to step out of my comfort zone a bit or try a new format or just follow spirit "nudges". 

I'm used to the fact that when I travel with someone, we usually get lost once or twice, but we always discover something new for us. This trip was like that. If I had to give it a title, it would be Wrong Directions, or follow the sign but don't trust it and take the map instead. 

I love Austrian mountains and mountain lakes, and here I feel as if my mind and soul are in common ground, both in peace, quiet and in the present moment. One of my dreams in this life is to own a mountain log cabin (hütte) surrounded by mountains and with a panoramic view of a crystal clear lake and to exist in this peace and tranquillity every day. 

About 1 month ago, when we booked the hotel, I didn't even realize that we were traveling during the 8/8 Lion's Gate. The energies were already strong before, so I had time to get used to it, but unfortunately the weather was also quite cold and rainy. Such is nature, we adapt to it and try to get the best out of the holiday. 

Already in the first hour of our journey, he forgot to turn off at a junction on the highway. I was not surprised by this, because every time we go there, we travel an extra km about it. The traffic was good, apart from approx. 10 truck races, half of them uphill, but the highway there is 3 lanes, so it didn't bother us. As we got closer and closer to the mountains, we passed through many tunnels and the view became more and more beautiful.

The next wrong direction was caused by a small bridge, which we drove onto, because the road below also leads to the same place... yes, but there was a road turning right in front of it, which we did not notice. We drove in the wrong direction for more than half an hour. My partner started to get nervous that we couldn't find the place we were looking for anywhere, so we stopped at a gas station to ask for directions, because we travel in such an old-school way (no GPS), but I remembered that there was at least one Austrian road map in the car, but as it turned out, there wasn't even one. I swear I will buy for him a new Austrian road map till the next holiday. 

So we turned around and drove back for half an hour until we found that junction with a traffic roundabout and finally went in the right direction. The positive side of this mistake is that I saw the other side of the mountain. Since we got the right direction and get closer to the destination, somehow I got very tired. I don't know if it was the mountain air or some energy hit me hard or both, but as soon as we arrived at our hotel and check in, I needed to take a coma nap for 1-2 hours. Since it was already 4pm in the afternoon and late for go up to the mountain, we went to explore the city - Bad Mitterndorf -, and hunt for food. Most restaurants here usually have the same dishes - schnitzel, Gordon bleu, Italian pasta, expensive fish and expensive dishes, but I didn't want any of them. 

My spirit guides know me pretty well, they know my preferences, and I think they knew what kind of food I wanted long before I knew what kind of food I wanted. As soon as we reached the main square, a Turkish kebab-pizza restaurant appeared in front of us, with the option of sitting outside right next to a small, gurgling stream. The kebab was very tasty and large portion and very friendly price. The cute thing, however, is that inside the restaurant, funny videos of cats and dogs were playing on the large wall-mounted TV. The weather was very good, sunny and almost no clouds. 

While randomly walking around the city, we found the local little park where we saw and learned something new. The pine branches suspended in the small pavilion were continuously sprayed with salt water. It is an open-air inhalation place where people can get relief from asthma and respiratory problems, refresh and improve their health. The salt water dissolves the essential oils in the pine, so there was a very pleasant smell of pine in the pavilion and salty air. It really helps me to relax and it also took away my slight headache.

The real adventure began the next day. Unfortunately, it started to rain lightly in the morning, but as we used to say - we are not made of sugar - and unfortunately it is not the first time that we have a rainy time on vacation. So I can say that we have practice for hiking/trekking in such weather. The mountain road is tolled (14 euro for a car), it has 7 sharp turns, and you never know what is waiting around the corner - either an oncoming car or...cows. 

This was the big surprise for us, as we drove uphill, after a curve, cows appeared to block the road. They were pretty chill cattle as they sauntered across the road and grazed along the road. Unfortunately I didn't have my phone handy, so I don't have a picture of it. They managed to surprise us once more on the road, I think we stood there for a few minutes before they slowly crawled to the side of the road and we were able to get between them. 

Parking is free up on the mountain, despite the bad weather, there were many people at the starting point. It was very strange to me that I heard Hungarian words very often. The timing was so great that we blend in with a large group of Hungarian hikers who somehow chose the difficult path even with GPS navigation. Memory of the school trips are back, as the end of the line warning those in front of it "car- car" and pass it on to the front of the line so that the line stretches to the side of the road and giving way to the car. 

As we climbed up at my nice slow pace, the Hungarian team left us behind, or we chose a different or difficult path...again. Before noon the weather was still kind, the rain fell only lightly and there were periods when it stopped. But the stones were slippery even with good trekking shoes and we sank into the mud in quite a few places. In some places the path was difficult for me and I had to be helped because there was no other handhold than the plants or nothing at all so I needed a helping hand. On this hike, the motto became very true: United we stand, divided we fall...but if you don't stand steady we both fall.

A lot of cows roamed the hills, sometimes they blocked the road, and by the time we started the evasive manoeuvre, they were gone. Sometimes when you thought you were alone on the road, one suddenly appeared from behind the bushes or trees. I have a habit of greeting the animals and saying a few good words to them, this was also the case with the cows. One of them must have really liked it, because he came over and started tasting me with his tongue. It was a strange feeling that the "hamburger" was tasting me and not the other way around. When the veil realized that the affection was only one-sided, he turned away. Sometimes we saw them slide down the hill in the mud and use the small pines as scratching posts. I liked that they can roam freely here, drink from a fresh mountain stream and graze on fresh, beautiful green grass. 

The panorama was beautiful, the mountain air was clean and fresh and the temperature below 10 degrees. In the afternoon, the rain began to fall more heavily, and the cold wind also sprang up. We met many hikers except for one route. We followed the signs, there was a blue dot next to it, which means the easy route. As we were going up, we stopped in one place and I said that "I can't do this even with help". It was full of rock on the high ground, striates, but one wrong move and I could have slid off the mountain. There were no banisters, no handholds, and I was suddenly overwhelmed by fear of heights, even so the clouds almost obscured the view. So we turned back, and down we met with two hikers, who told us that that particular road is very difficult and long, much uphill and it was not worth going there. On their route, we have to wade through a part of the lake and it's very muddy and slippery, so they don't recommend go there either. But we got a tip which road we should go. But firstly we wanted to rest, get dry and eat something somewhere. Unfortunately, one of the nearby huts was full, so due to the lack of free space, we marched for half an hour before we found an another place. Unfortunately, the downhill routes and the very rocky short cuts routes bring back my knee pain, and the rain fell heavily, so we couldn't continue the trekking. The walk to the car parking was long and painful for me. But we saw five of the six lakes and explored four. I think it was a pretty good performance from me. And the scenery, the silence and the peace were worth the effort and the pain.

In the evening I rewarded myself with Falafel and Baklava while watching cute animal videos in the Turkish restaurant. A waterfall and a ravine were planned for the next day, but since we had strong muscle fever, we decided to leave it for another day..for another holiday. Since then, we have been walking around like two 100-year-old granny but my knee is better. 

I definitely recommend taking a trip to Tauplitz in the summer, if you like hiking, and in the winter if you are into skiing as well. We chose the most popular 6 lakes hiking route ( 6-Seen-Wanderung) and I would like to go back to see and discover the parts I missed.