Fires, panoramas, angry bus driver

---

I made it to Bad Goisern, where I am to spend the next three nights. I was so happy to get back to the mountains and less tourists. I was a little worried about finding my place with out the directions on my phone. My phone has been off and on having charging issues, as I said before, luckily it had enough charge to give me some quick directions. It is a very small town, it is a 10 minute walk from the train station to my Pension. What a cute and very quaint village, there are many fruit trees growing up the walls and in the yards, pears, apples, and prunes is what I am seeing the most of. A Pension, is like a B & B, it was less expensive than a hostel and I get my own room. I have a small room in the back of the house with my own bathroom, it is down the embankment from the main road so there is a little street noise, but it died down was not that bad. Since I had my own bathroom, I could do some laundry, I took a shower with my clothes, it worked pretty well. Madame Sydler runs the Pension, I believe her family lives there as well. There are two houses situated on the property and she had something like 8 or 10 rooms, some for families and some for couples or singles. At night out my window, I think it was the family, sitting out in the back yard at a outdoor sitting area and hanging out laughing, talking and drinking. It made me feel a little lonely, there are no Americans here and nobody seems to want to be friendly, including Madame Sydler, she is not rude, she just has no interest in talking. Breakfast is included as it has been. It is the similar fare as previous, though not as varied; rolls, jelly, lunch meats (strange lucnch meet that has stuff in it), cucumber, red peppers, cheese, some strange liver spread that I was too chicken to try, yogurt and granola, there was however, no eggs or fruit. I am glad to have my own room, but I wonder if a hostel would be more lively and entertaining.

After breakfast on Tuesday, I walked through town to get to the tourist information (TI). As I walked I thought I smelled smoke, then I saw a chimney fire and I assumed that was it. When I got to the TI, they were busy, they told me it was due to a fire at Hallstat and everyone was calling in to find out what was going on. Oh no, I had a ticket to the Hallstat salt mines that day, she said it was closed due to the fire, she called the mines for me about my pre-paid ticket, while she was calling, they called me, to let me know they have to cancel due to the fire. It is so green here, I can't believe it is burning. So my plans for that day needed to change, I had planned to go to Obertron the following day, so I decided to do that instead. She recommended that I take the bus to get to the Mammoth and Ice caves directly and it left in a few minutes.

This area I headed to was called the Dachstein. It was again, a cable car up where you can then take tours of the Ice and Mammoth caves. I started with the Mammoth cave, unfortunately, no Mammoths, it is called that due to the immensity of the cave. ( I didn't really think there was no mammoths but the tour guide said it was asked frequently). To get to this cave, it was a nice gentle walk along the side of the mountain, flowers and trees galore with the view of the lake and valley below. This cave is still being explored by cavers, it has, I think, 75 km that have been explored, we covered one km. The Alps in this area are limestone, so these caves were created by the water dissolving the lime. It was very interesting and nicely cold, it was still hot outside, mid to high 80s, nice in the shade but hiking up the hills in the sun, whew! The temp inside the Mammoth cave is 3 degrees C all year round. Next was the ice caves, they were colder, 0 and 2 degrees C, I was glad for my down jacket. The start of this walk was higher up on the hill, 20 min walk basically straight up, it was quite a workout. Due to the elevation, in the winter, the cold air rushes in to the opening of the cave, and cools if off, in the summer the cool air rushes out of the cave preventing warm air from getting in, when water drips down into the cave it freezes causing ice sculptures and thick layers of ice, at one spot the ice was 70 m thick and about 500 years old, according to the guide. The views again, out of the caves were very nice. The next thing to do at this attraction was to take another cable car to the top of the mountain, there is a 3 hour hike there and other view points to look at. I took the car higher up to the top, 2000m, not quite as tall as Zugspitze. I really can't get over the sweeping vistas. I love the opportunity to go to the top of mountains using other transportation besides my legs. At the top I needed lunch, since I had rushed off to catch the bus this morning, I did not have a chance to go to the store as I had planned. There was a restaurant overlooking the Alps and glaciers, I ate there on the patio and had the largest burger I have ever seen! At this point it was 2 and I still needed to hike to the 5 fingers for the panoramic view of Hallstat at the top. I realized I would need to give up on the three hour hike around, so I had a beer. They really taste better with views of the mountains and after some hearty exercise, I know I have said it before, but it is true. It was a 15 minute walk to a strangely shaped spiral building at the top and then another 30 mins to the 5 fingers viewing area. This is a viewing platform that goes out over the mountain, you can see the lake below. Not as scary as the Highline, it doesn't move, but it was pretty high up. You could see them fighting the fire on the steep mountain side above Hallstat, there was 2 helicopters alternately picking up water at the lake and dropping it on the mountain, I could not see flames, just smoke. As I walked back, it started to cloud over and thunder. It was 4pm now, definitely too late to do the walk, I would miss the last cable car and the weather looked iffy. It started to rain on the way down. 2 cable cars later, I was back at the bottom, I caught the bus, it was crowed and there was a lot of traffic, our driver was clearly irritated. I knew I had to transfer to another bus at some point, but I could not remember where, I asked him if the stop we were at was the transfer point for Bad Goisern, he said "Ya, Ya' very irritated, so I got off. I quickly realized this was not the right spot, I was on the wrong side of Hallstat, it was so crowded and the helicopters were going over continuously. It's not looking good for me to go to the Saltmine tomorrow. I figured that I could walk to the transfer point, it couldn't be that far, the rain had stopped, or it never rained there, I could not tell, it was hot again. I wove through Hallstat, it was like Salzberg, touristy and crowded. It was definitely cute, but it was ruined a little with all the people. I was not there to visit though, I was on a mission to catch the bus and get back to Bad Goisern, it was 6pm at this point. I was so mad at the driver! I remembered that I had a map, I looked at how far I had walked and realized there was no way that I could make it to the transfer point, I looked at when the next bus would come to the previous spot, it would be there in a few minutes, and it was the last one of the day, oh no! I quickly ran back(dripping sweat along the way), I could see the last bus leaving as I was still a couple of minutes away. What was I going to do! I ended up paying a an over priced taxi, $25 euro for a 8km drive! I was fuming! A very frustrating end to my otherwise lovely day. I got back to Bad Goisern and jumped in the cool river that drained from the lake and cooled off my temper.

---

Photos

IMG_20180822_143708
Biggest burger ever!

IMG_20180822_143713
View from lunch

IMG_20180822_151925
Tiny chapel at the top with glacier behind

IMG_20180822_135048
I thought this was artwork, then I realized it is a 3D image of the explored caverns in mammoth cave.

IMG_20180822_152154
Spiral building, part of unesco heritage site

IMG_20180822_155201
5 Fingers panoramic view point

IMG_20180822_095605036
Fire with helicopter dropping water

IMG_20180822_124112890
They have found cave bear bones in the ice caves

IMG_20180822_112312460
Fake cavers, showing how they get around.

IMG_20180822_130024367
Famous ice structure from water dripping from ceiling