Day H for Hopfgarten

Hopfgarten in the Austrian Tyrol is possibly the most beautiful place on earth. Words and photos will never ever come close to describing this place. Mountains and streams all over the place, and rolling bright green hills. Grass – what is that??

We arrived in Hopfgarten (Hoffy) at 10:30am and geared up for our 14 km bike mountain bike ride.

We got our bikes, which looked like the Rolls Royce of bikes compared to our ‘Subway Specials’ at home. The mountain bike ride was awesome through valleys that apparently look like the hills in the Sound of Music (which I haven’t seen), just unbelievable. We had a delicious BBQ lunch out on the terrace at a mountain lodge. Baked potatoes and sour cream and sausages, mustard and sauerkraut!!!! Oh and homemade chocolate cake!

After we rode back (luckily downhill after lunch), the man went paragliding (or parragliding as Mecha misspelt it). While he was away jumping off mountains I had the bike to myself for the rest of the afternoon so I went and had some JenTime™ and explored the rest of the town. I kept stopping every five seconds to take a photo, like I said photographs (especially those taken by me) will never do justice to how beautiful it was. Bought a postcard and went and had a coffee to sit down and write it. You can’t sit down at a table with pen and paper and no coffee. I tried to ask for skim milk and got a glass of water (some kind of language barrier there). Then I watched her make the coffee, she put my cup under a spout and pressed ‘cappuccino’.

After writing my postcard and sipping my undrinkable coffee I rode out almost to where we had lunch again (more photos).

Headed back to camp and caught up with Mr Adrenaline himself and Mr Anti-Adrenaline (Geoff). The man was pumped from paragliding and asked his instructor to make it as scary as possible whereas Geoff asked for the floaty smooth ride. Geoff was still pale and trembling slightly.

Dinner-time and the man was a dishy which meant he had to serve the food. Roast Lamb!!! Such a huge serve with roast potatoes and vegies and gravy!! Best meal so far! Average fruit salad for dessert but I was still on a high from eating meat.

Then the man and I went to bed. There was a party on but I think a lot of our group crashed out early.

Woke up, awesome brecky – about four types of cereal and cold milk. For the cooked breakfast types there was bacon (bacooonn!) and eggs. Then packed up and left for white water rafting and Venice!

- Jen