On the Road Again!

One day when the great plague is over and we can get out again, maybe the Alps and the Grossglockner will be on the cards. Maybe it will be in 2022. I will have retired by then and will be able to travel out of season. By that it means not in school holidays when it is expensive. The last long trip I have done was to the Wasserbüffel Club Austria Treffen way back in 1999. Since then only shortish trips to Paris etc. This photo was taken in May 1999 on the Grossglockner Pass. Taken on Casio QV10 digital canera One day eh?

And here we are back in August 2006 and the ride up the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse . I came across a batch of photo prints in a Truprint envelope.  So I scanned a few in. If it wasn't for the date stamped by the camera I would not have even thought it was so long ago. Sorting the photos by date was easy enough, but sorting them by time they were taken was harder.  Not a problem had I been using digital technology but what we now get to call an analogue camera meant the date was hard enough. Anyway I have had a stab at it. At least I know the first one and the last one and maybe cluster some together from the middle. The others could have been anywhere along the road. In the morning we had breakfast in the youth hostel we had stayed in the night before in Zell am See, before setting off to the Grossglockner itself. Claire and I were travelling on my 1999 BMW R1150GS. At the northern end toll plaza All on the ride up or indeed down the mountain! At the Bikers Nest - Edelwei...

There was only one goal for today and that was the Grossglockner and the two side attractions, Edelweisspitze and the Glacier. After a very slow procession across country we got to the Grossglockner. The trip took us around the Hallstatter See and on small roads clagged with trucks and motorhomes. As it was a working day we would have better off retracing our steps from the day before and going via Schladming and Radstatt. Unfortunately it was also the last weekday of the local school holidays in Austria and Germany and many people decided to cause a massive road block. Ironically to avoid the weekend's massive roadblock! Once again we had to slip on waterproofs as it began to rain a little. On the way up to the tolls we stopped for a spot of lunch at the side of the road and watched the bikes going up towards the tolls and those that had done it and were coming back. Bikes of every sort, some fast but most taking it steady. For most of the way from t...