A Good Day to Dry Hard

Day 3.

It rained, quite a lot. I went to the gorge on the bus, after I found the start, I found the notice board, there was the 45 minute route, the 2.5 hour route and the 4.5 hour route. At this point etc., for I went on the 4.5 hour route. The Gorge itself was lovely, tastefully engineered as you can see,

but, ironically, a little low on the water front. At the top I found some sort of encampment featuring a giant wooden foot and a couple of slack lines, it took me five seconds to realise that slacklining was not my forte. I continued along the wet path, discovering at one point that walking didn't appear to be my forte either. However I eventually arrived at the Jagersteig, my predetermined make or break point, peering into the crepuscular dark of the forest, I determined it might be drier than, say, rolling in the stream behind me. My new cheap waterproof coat was proving to be 50% correct, though to be fair this could have been a storm flap problem (like it didn't work or somesuch). I pulled together the reserve of Red Riding Hood and moved up into the Grimm darkness.
The path did the usual series of soaring v's, before contouring round to a col and dumping me in the mountain pastures or alms. Fortunately it dumped me on an access road so that I didn't have to do that much skating. I descended the road to the Angeralm which made its presence felt with a weathercock poking over the top of the hill, normally, this being lunchtime, it would be full of jolly Austrians washing down plates of hot carbohydrate with lashings of cold beer, instead it just dripped, sullenly. From there a connecting path to the Huberalm, only 22 metres of descent, waht could go wrong, surprisingly nothing. As the alm focused through the continuing rain, I could see a cow, if Milka made rain-sodden chocolate, this was their cow. Closer still and I could see a blonde in the door of the alm who had probably sized me up as a dead loss (she could have waved hot chocolate at me, that would have worked), I could also see a variety of strange objects under the eaves,

Alright lads, don't get up.

one of which appeared to be a sheep-shaped log (actually a mule-shaped log, but that's mule as a sort of sheep, and I didn't want to confuse you.) As you can see there was an entire petting zoo hiding from the rain. Now when sheep stand their ground you realise that the weather is .. inclement, millenia of prey animal reactions gone at a stroke. The raising of the heads that you can see in the picture was more from interest than a flight reaction, basically they are saying, "What on earth are you doing out in this?" I didn't have a good answer, passed within three inches (7cm) of the cow, which gave me a look that spoke volumes. Such eloquence could not be denied, I consulted the map, called off the descent through the woods, and, once again, added a couple of miles to the journey by taking the forest track, I arrived at the bottom 15 minutes after the bus had left it, as I stepped into the square at Erpfendorf the rain stopped, the next bus was in just over an hour. I strolled through the town and a minute later had discovered nothing open but the Tourist Information, which wasn't really open, I decided to walk to the Kneippenage (I have explained Kneippe before) and did what sensible people do there - had lunch. I then returned and perused the leaflets outside the, now shut, TI., learned a few things, and got on the mercifully on-time bus.
Later I made a discovery, there's an awful lot you can hang from a radiator with the right tools, even unstealable coat hangers can be pressed into service! The evening was supposed to be a barbecue, it wasn't.