Muldorf to Alteiselfing.

August 2, 2016

Music, mowers, meadows and mountains.

August 2 Tuesday 55km

Music, mowers, meadows and mountains.

Over breakfast we talk with a man from Düsseldorf, returning with young family from a holiday in Croatia. Always interesting to hear from a local. He was 15 yrs old and on a class visit to Berlin, when the wall came down. We discuss borders and migrants and holidays. Our early morning is accompanied by a beautiful violin solo, but there are no sign of the musicians as we leave.

Agriculture dominates the day.

Outdoor shrines are a regular feature of Catholic Austria.

Farm buildings at Unterreit. An unusual feature discovered on viewing later is ‘the body in the bush’.

Mowers, threshers, harvesters and poo sprayers are in action. Farm buildings are enormous and house giant machinery, animals in stalls, wood, and straw. There is still plenty of corn and grain in the fields, and the meadows look more alpine. A few cattle are outside. We also see brown goats and long eared sheep. Birds are not so common now.

Much of the “up” is in forest- straight trimmed conifers, so comfortable for offering shade from the heat.

We pass a clearing with wood piles and a woodcutter’s hut but do not see Hansel and Gretl. Later, I wait for a huge log handling machine to reverse into a clearing where a man with chainsaw is trimming a tree, then round the bend to find two little girls stepping out of the woods with their lunch boxes, and reflect on their familiarity with this environment.

Wackiest yet! Must have been a great party!

The day involves several challenging hills but the descents on sealed path across wide vistas of greenery are exhilarating. It is on one of these that we catch our first sight of the alps- blue in the distance, but clear enough to give the profile of some magnificent looking peaks.

We regard Wasserburg from above.

If we go down, cross the river and enter through the town gate we will have to come up, as our accommodation is this side of the river. I believe we missed a pretty town, but the road to Alteiselfing is nearby, so it’s off to Gasthaus Lax.

The Gasthaus was not at all lax and treated us well.

Today's ride: 55 km (34 miles)
Total: 2,445 km (1,518 miles)

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