Day 34 – Unken to Ruhpolding

Daily Distance – 12km + 15km bus (to avoid a long, muddy, forest/cow pasture ascent/descent)
Daily Ascent – ~50m
Daily Descent – ~100m
Total Distance – 559km
Distance Remaining – 458km

I have come to the conclusion that Austrian radio owns the rights to only two songs. Sweet Child o’ Mine by Guns ‘n’ Roses and the theme song from Baywatch. Not that these are bad choices, but together make for strange bedfellows and unfailingly appear whenever I turn on the radio. It may well be raining outside, and being 2023 in northern Europe it probably is, but when the guest house breakfast room is playing the theme music to Baywatch it’s golden sand and red swimming suits in my imagination. Peculiar for Germany and Austria given the tendency of the people to spontaneously bare all as soon as they feel sand between their toes. Culture tip; insist that native German speakers wear closed shoes when entering any sandy area; building supply yard, long jump, children’s sandpit, or be responsible for the naked consequences.

The point of this talk about Austrian radio is that apparently I was in Austria last night. At some point after Königssee I must have strayed back over the border without noticing. The first I realised was when arriving at the German border this morning, which this time was good enough to have a marker. Not only a marker, but the border crossing actually runs behind a waterfall! Certainly the first time I have ever walked behind a waterfall. As pictures were failing to do it justice I branched out into shaky handheld videography, which I will attempt to upload. WordPress is pretty finicky about what it will allow me to upload, so fingers crossed. This is something I may look at doing more of, but does highlight the need for some sort of image stabilization mechanism or software. Some rainy day research perhaps. Speaking of which…

Tomorrow is unfortunately looking like an enforced rest day. Ruhpolding is currently sitting in the centre of an incoming storm warning, which is predicted to deposit 83mm of rain throughout tomorrow. I have invested decent money in a quality rain coat and trousers, but nearly 10cm of rain is more scuba tank and flippers territory, which I shortsightedly failed to pack. Hopefully the region will survive without any rivers bursting their banks. Much of today I spent walking alongside the river flowing into Ruhpolding and it is quite striking the number of tributaries flowing down from the heights and joining the main body of the river. I haven’t a clue what the catchment area of this river is, but it does make me glad to be sleeping on the first floor.