Dora takes to the tracks

Sometimes I really think we should invest in a satnav!

Come late September, Dora is up for sale.    If you or anyone you know is looking for a reasonably priced motorhome then please check out the following link; https://www.2wanderers.com/dora-for-sale/ or if you have any questions email us at; info@2wanderers.com Thanks

 

Our little atlas, an AA Drivers Atlas of Europe, is really small and manageable, not those cumbersome oversized portfolio type ones that take up the whole dashboard, even in a motorhome, and impede the drivers view of the road.

This one is the size of an large novel, but with a typical scale of 1:1,250,000 it is not the most detailed. This does have the advantage of omitting all those really small roads, where you wouldn’t want to take Dora anyway. But it is a little old, 2004, and there are certain places where the road network has changed dramatically in the last decade! So why the preamble about maps? more about that later.

It was our second night below the peace and tranquillity of Triglav, and with all the exertions of yesterday we slept OK, maybe a bit restless, either aching limbs, or perhaps they have worked so hard during the day they don’t know how to stop.

Today was going to be a bit of a rest day. Well I say that, we are intending to do some serious mileage, well Dora is.

We are heading back into Austria, but our actual destination is the most south easterly bit of Germany and a small village called Obersalzberg.

Before that, we need to replenish our fridge and larder and just past Bled we find a Lidl. A Lidl with a fantastic view of Triglav.

Yesterday we climbed that!

In fact we are surrounded by beautiful mountains, but Triglav certainly dominates and we are so pleased that we climbed it. It was a bit of a nice surprise, to find it gift wrapped like that, right on our route and ready for a days outing.

But we need to leave Triglav and Slovenia behind us. The Austrian border is just around the corner, actually through a tunnel. We pay the toll and within minutes are across, back in Austria, no fuss, no border control, just more beautiful mountains.

We leave the motorway at the first exit, and proceed along the just as good parallel road. It is not quite as direct, but we are in no hurry, and it gives you great views of the road we have just left.

Like the Swiss, the Austrians do some really impressive engineering.

And the meadows around here, pristinely manicured. It could be a bowling  green.

After all the expended energy yesterday it is nice to just sit back, relax and watch the countryside waft by.

Such a picturesque landscape.

Now we had a choice of routes; we could either take the motorway through the Katschberg tunnel, which meant buying a carnet for a week, or we could travel through the Hohe Tauern national park, it was quite an easy choice, one was slightly longer, but we both agreed it must be more dramatic

So just after Spittal an der Drau the motorway departs, snaking off to the right, on its boring journey north, while we are left journeying towards Mallnitz.

And what a journey it is.

We are gradually climbing, higher and higher. And at the end should be a tunnel, that takes us through to the other side.

Strangely, there is not so much traffic up here. We suppose everyone else has taken the motorway.

Eventually we get to Mallnitz and continue along the road in search of the tunnel.

But the road gets smaller and smaller, eventually it ends in a car park with lots of walking signs off into the mountains,

but no sign of the tunnel.

Some bells start to ring in both of our heads. We had started to see signs showing vehicles on a train.

On the way up we had had a bit of a discussion about this but only now does it dawns on both of us; this isn’t a road tunnel, it is just a rail tunnel. The only way through for cars is to pop it on the train.

This leaves us a bit of a dilemma;

We can back track to the motorway, a couple of hours away.

We can back track and go through a mountain pass, a couple of hours away.

We can go by train, but there are things to consider;

Will Dora fit?

How much does it cost?

Plus taking the road would mean driving down to the head of the valley and going back up, in total 70 kms, which would cost us €16 and over an hours drive. So, as long as the ticket costs that price and we wait for an hour, we will take the train. SM

Well if this had been the UK, to even think of taking your car on the train you would need to second mortgage your house or give up a kidney, here it costs you €17, and as long as you can fit her through that opening we are going to be OK.

She has been on a diet recently and squeezes through.

Not only has this saved us half a day, it is also quite an experience.

A she fits with enough room so that we cab still just about squeeze out of a door.

We have to leave her and join a carriage at the front of the train.

The guys are not so efficient in stacking on the motorbikes, so quite a few cars do not get on this train and will have to wait forty minutes for the next.

And then we are nervously off. Did I leave Dora in gear and with the handbrake on, or will she shunt all those cars in front of her when the train brakes or goes round a corner?

From our carriage you can just about see her bulk.

But not for long as we enter the tunnel.

And fifteen minutes later we are through to the other side and disembarkation proceeds.

Careful now, not much room to spare.

And off.

Happy to have tarmac again below us.

One of the joys about travelling like this is the ability to change your itinerary at a moments notice. We were planning on a small place in the SE of Germany, but before that should we squeeze in another city? I have been to Salzburg, but many years ago, Susana has never been. Although Austria had never been part of the agenda, as we are so close, why not take up the opportunity.

So that is what we have decided to do, delay Germany by a day to visit Salzburg. We just need to drive back down the valley and we have found a reasonably local aire where we should be able to take a bus into the city centre tomorrow.

One of the reasons why I love the mountain landscape so much is the usual no through road you get as you go up to one head of the valley, it gets quieter and quieter until eventually the only possibility is to put on your walking boots and head into the hills.

Or you get some crazy mountain road winding its way up some precipitous incline to some remote pass, and the cascading down the other side, maybe with a remote plateau in between.

Now we have found another alternative; a tunnel, rail at that, pushes through from one head of the mountain to another. Human ingenuity at its best.

Not too far now to go.

Although we eventually get to the outskirts of Salzburg it takes us ages to circumnavigate around it. There are a lot of road works which hinder our escape from the city.

Actually the aire we are looking for isn’t even in Salzburg, or Austria. We are so close to the border, we thought we would stay in Germany.

When we eventually find it it is probably the most undesirable aire we have found to date, litter is strewn everywhere, this is not what we had imagined in Germany. It is too late to change our minds now, so we find a spot at the edge and keep to ourselves.

We are better off parking wild. SM

After checking out the times of the buses for tomorrow we pull down our blinds, have dinner and go to bed. I am not sure we should leave Dora here tomorrow, perhaps we should move her to a different spot!

It is interesting, we are more confident in leaving Dora in a remote and isolated area than next to humans. SM

GDR