I haven’t written a blog for a while now. Mainly because I couldn’t be bothered and I type like a chicken pecking, it can take me a while. Between the last blog and this one we have done a lot of things and a picture tells a thousand words, so if you want to know what has happened. Take a look at the pics.
We have just returned from a climbing trip to Croatia. We went to an area in the Paklenica National Park, and is situated not far from the coast. It is about a 7 hour drive from Vienna and involves crossing Slovenia, avoiding Bosnia to get to Croatia. The trip down was pretty uneventful, other than the usual suicidal driving by the Austrians, Slovenians, Croatians, Germans and Australians. All pretty tame compared to driving with Italians. We found the entrance to the National Park and a campsite nearby, right on the coast. A really nice quiet spot. The campground was full of Germans and as I discovered when in Lago di Garda and the parts of the Spanish coast, you forget which country you are in. Going to the showers was all “morgen and guten tag” very friendly people though. The Croatians appeared to be very happy when mixing with other Croatians but very hesitant to speak with other people. We tried using a few words of Croatian when in shops and cafes etc. but it took a few days of going to same place before they warmed to us. It didn’t help that using English is not as preferred as German although most people can speak both languages. This was one of the few places were I wish that I had something with a kangaroo on it, so that they wouldn’t think I was an American. Australians are ok as there are a lot of Croatians in Australia and the World Cup thing would have helped. I can understand their position as we witnessed a lot of people just launching into German without even trying say hello goodbye and thanks in Croatian. We had much better success than Anna’s sister who, on a previous trip, couldn’t buy a can of drink as she was speaking English. This wasn’t our experience though.
The climbing in Paklenica is superb; it has everything from single pitch sport climbs to 300mtr long trad routes. We spent most of our time thrashing around on the sport stuff and managed to get spanked on a few of the classics. We had our share of success as well. The rock here is not as polished as some of the climbing around Vienna although the popular routes are getting harder due to the slickness of the key holds. One route in particular looked ok until you arrived at the crux only to find that all the available friction smears were now shining in the sun. After trying all the possible combinations and slipping off every time I had to bail out and let Anna have a go at it. I figured this was more her sort of climb as she seems to be able to stand on these slippy, slopey things a lot easier than I can. She had a good go at it and managed to get a key hold that I couldn’t get but splooged off anyway. We both slinked away to have some lunch and watch the next guy have a go at it. This guy had earlier been on another route next to me and had styled his way up. I thought that he would flash our splooge fest climb, however our disappointment turned to mild delight when he had trouble below the crux. When he arrived at the shiny slopers at the crux the look on his face was recognisable as it was the same look I had when looking at these slippy sloppy footers. Although we had failed on the route it did feel better to see someone else get spanked on it as well. I know that we shouldn’t delight in someone else’s failure but it did feel good to see him get shut down on this one.
The sport climbing area is situated on the way in the longer trad and aid routes so it was interesting to see the trad types walk through on there way to some 300mtr long grade 7 route. Climbers just look different when tradding and the differences are apparent when they wander through a sport area. Even more so when 6 (or more) hours later they cr

I have read my last blog entry again.
I can’t help but be disappointed by the news that came out of the Tour De France. Even more so when it was revealed that the rider that we saw win was the same rider who was disqualified for elevated testosterone levels. I suppose in a sense it was still a legendary tour day but not for the original reasons.
Since then it has been very hectic and the time has flown by until now. The first event was a surprise birthday party for Anna’s mother. Normally not so much of a big deal except that this involved 30+ Austrians flying to Sweden and meeting up with 15 Swedes in a café by the sea. Luckily the surprise was sprung at the airport so that we didn’t have to hide all over southern Sweden.
My Mum and Dad were out for a visit and we had to hide them for a few days. That was until Anna’s sister Resi spilled the beans and told her mother that they were here. Luckily it wasn’t me that had put my foot in it. For a change anyway!!
We were all flown to Denmark, onto a bus and then around some of the Copenhagen sights. After Copenhagen we travelled via the ferry for more road trip action in southern Sweden. Normally the idea of spending a weekend on a bus with a bunch of 60 year olds wouldn’t be to appealing, However Anna’s parents friends are all very friendly, so it wasn’t like we were counting the hours. There were other youngsters in attendance so it was a lot of fun. And besides the fun part, it was all free; gratis no charge as Anna’s Dad was paying for it. I was duty bound to attend anyway, but gobbing down free stuff was great and putting my “snout into the trough “comes quite naturally to me.
The lunch and party went off really well, the food was great and you didn’t have to eat the eel if you didn’t want to. You did have to listen to the chef sing traditional Swedish songs. They were apparently quite funny. To me they were funny because they sounded like the songs the Swedish chef from the Muppet show would sing. A good time was had by all.
The next big event and the one that would take up the most time was a visit by my parents. They were out for 3 weeks and we were going to go on a road trip around Austria and parts of Slovenia for a week. The trip didn’t exactly get off to a good start as my Dad had his wallet stolen on the first day. We then discovered that Austrian police lose their English speaking skills when it comes to filling out reports for tourists. We ended up going to 3 police stations and finally got Anna’s mother to come with us so we could report it. Very frustrating especially when we went to main police station in Vienna and were told that nobody could speak English and were then given directions to the next police station in English. To top it all off my Mum went base over apex getting out of the shower and hurt her back. Not the best start to a trip but things went well after that.
Our trip started in a town called Maria Zell. This is an old pilgrimage town with a pretty church that goes back a thousand years. Going back just as long were the gift shops that sit along side these tourist places. I have noticed that all tourist places have these gift shops however the religious places have the tackiest souvenirs. It is like embracing god means losing any sense of good taste. Although in saying that I didn’t find the oven mitts with Jesus on them that I was looking for.
From there we went to St Wolfgang on the Wolfgangsee. Then to Hallstat another town by a lake and famous for the wealth created by salt mining going back 4 thousand years.
We drove to Hallstat via Berchdesgarten. This is famous for the Eagles Nest or Hitler’s Teahouse. This is the place that you see on TV in war documentaries. In an old colour film of Hitler you see them all on the balcony of this house that is perched on the cliff edge at 1800mtrs and reached via an elevator inside the rock. It is a place I have wanted to see for years, although compare

One of the reasons we visited Jen and Gav in Les Gets (apart from seeing Jasmin for the first time) was to watch a stage of the Tour de France. I am not a roadie however I have watched the Tour over the past few years and especially last year when SBS in Australia telecast the race live. So when I was in Les Gets early in the year I found out that a stage of the tour was finishing in Morzine (the town next to Les Gets). Well, one thing led to another and here we were waiting for the Tour to arrive. One of the strange things about being in France was that although the tour was on tele every night, it was in French (of course) As a result I couldn’t understand who was leading or who was where. I could actually follow it better in Vienna on Eurosport (in English) or in Australia on SBS.
Jen and Gav had worked out where the Tour was going to pass through close to Les Gets. It was passing through Col de Joux-Plane just up the chairlift from their place. The plan was to catch the chair up on the day and stake out a spot. A couple of days before the Tour arrived we had driven up part of this stage. A couple of things became apparent; one was that the climb up to the Col de Joux-Plane was long and really steep. The other was that people had already staked out their spots. There were campervans everywhere. We decided that I should park our car up at the Col to reserve a spot. That night I drove up and parked the Fiat next to the road 100mtrs from the top of the Col. I had brought the bike up with me so I could ride down the dirt road and back into town.
At 9.00 in the morning of the tour I received a call from Gav saying that their were lots of people heading up to the Col. The race wasn’t due to go through until 4.30pm. After a quick change of plans I headed up the chair to meet Gav at the top. Anna, Jen and Jasmin were coming up later along with a couple of expat Aussies Ross and Ann Marie.
Luckily when we arrived the crowd had moved to find their own space and our base camp around the car was safe. It was now just a matter of waiting 5 hours until the tour arrived. We had all the picnic hardware and supplies installed next to the van and we sat in the sun.
Although the Tour itself passes by very quickly it is preceded for over an hour by sponsors cars handing out freebie stuff. This turns the waiting into a carnival and time passed quickly. It was amazing to see the lengths the sponsors and gone to. All sorts of strange vehicles and floats went by. Even stranger when the people on them had to dance and hand out free stuff over a 200km stage.
We could follow the progress of the stage, as it got closer by listening to a German guy who was watching a small hand held TV. The anticipation was incredible as we new that Floyd Landis had gotten away with an early break and was 7 minutes in front of the next group. This was even more amazing considering that he had “hit the wall “ on a previous stage and lost 10 minutes on one climb whilst leading. We knew that he was getting closer as the helicopter was almost over ahead and the crowd was cheering down the road. Next thing a police bike came around the corner going quite fast and behind it was Landis. He passed by very quickly with everyone yelling and cheering. The things everyone noticed at this point was the speed he was going at. He went by fast, probably around 60kms per hour, he was focused and his rhythm was smooth. He was on it. The team car, more police, followed him and then he was gone. The next group were around 6 minutes behind and when they arrived they were fast, but not as clean and smooth as Landis had been. Various bunches went by and half an hour later the peleton came past. More team cars and then it was all over.
Thinking about it now I realized that we had seen something very special. Even at the time and not knowing that Landis’s stage win was going to be described as one of the greatest in Tour de France history you could feel that it was a specia