Well, the night in the Alexander Hütte wasn’t quite as relaxing as we hoped. After having difficulties in the evening to find the bathroom free for cleaning the teeth and no hot water after 8 p.m. anymore we nearly were asleep when we heard strange noises. It was kind of quiet crawling and knocking and seemed to come from our room but we couldn’t find anything. We finally decided it must have been a mouse (or more) hiding somewhere in the walls. The noise got louder at night and woke us up on several occassions before it stopped in the early morning. Then a human being woke us when he or she trampled into the bathroom to get a shower at 5.45 o’clock. Funny thing: no hot water before 6 o’clock because when I hit the bathroom afterwards, being too annoyed to continue to sleep, I still had icecold water. 😂
At 6.30 a.m we made our way over to the restaurant because the landlady promised us we could have a small breakfast a bit earlier since she is around at 6.30 anyway. Well, we waited 15 minutes before she showed up. Just murmered “Morning” in a very stinky mood and began shuffling around with dishes and everything else except breakfast and completely ignored us. Finally, at 7.00, we were pissed off and walked out without breakfast. Never ever have I experienced such an inflexible, bad tempered innkeeper, especially not on our trail so far. Everyone else was so nice and helpful but not the lady at the Alexander Hütte. Definitely not a place to return anymore.
But the early morning mood in the mountains was great, the air crisp and everything so quiet that we didn’t want to spoil the fun for ourselves.
We decided to hike the 20 minutes or so up to the Millstätter Hütte and ask for breakfast there. Perhaps we might even have breakfast with Martin all along.
At the Millstätter Hütte the landlady was so very friendly and had no problem with us also joining the breakfast with those who slept there. Then, indeed, Martin came along and was quite surprised to see us sitting there. We had a wonderful breakfast together and chatted about the night’s events. Obviously there was a halestorm yesterday at the Millstätter Hütte, while at the Alexander Hütte only 20 minutes further down it was only a little rain.
We paid for our breakfast, said goodbye to Martin whom we’ll meet anyway on the route again and headed off to the Kamplnock. Again the view was spectacular in all directions and you really could get used to those great 360 degrees views!
Afterwards the path led over the ridge with again awesome views to the famous Granattor where there were already a whole lot of people around. At 9.10 a.m. 😱 It is a famous spot on the Millstätter Alpe and there’s the tale that when you walk through the gate with a garnet in your hand and think of the one you love is a sure way to guarantee an everlasting relationship. 😉
We sat down, drink and ate a little and made some pictures.
Afterwards we continued along the ridge and had a few last gorgeous views before the path slowly led down again.
Down until the Lammersdorfer Hütte the way was still on alpine pastures and very nice but there were more and more people coming up. A nice elderly couple from Lower Austria chatted with us for a little while before we continued down again.
At the Lammersdorfer Hütte we stopped for something to drink and a little snack. Then we hiked a few hundred metres up again to the Jufen where we had the last wonderful view to the Mölltal.
And then the hard and very long descent began. At first the marks very totally unclear and if it wasn’t for the nice Swiss couple who’re also hiking a part of the AAT we might have chosen the wrong direction once. Together we four stood there at the crossroad looking at two GPS and some very unhelpful marks until the Swiss guy found the correct, very hidden path.
From there it was only down and down and down. Especially before Matzelsdorf there were 3km of the most boring winding roads ever. Most of the forest has been cut down, there was no shadow and we just dragged us along.
We were so happy to finally arrive in Matzelsdorf where we stopped at the Matzelsdorfer Hof for drinks and food because we just couldn’t get ourselves to finish the last 2-3km at once. Moreover, it looked like rain.
Finally we decided to finish with the rest of today’s part and hiked to Döbriach. Of course the rain caught us. 😒
In Döbriach we went to a supermarket and then finally, after a tiring hike, arrived at the Hotel zur Post, our tonight’s accomodation. It was so awesome to have such a large room just for ourselves with bathroom and WC and little shower gel and soaps…
Later we went down to eat some vegetarian burgers in the garden behind the hotel.
Some figures for today:
- 26,1km
- 570m up
- 1750m down
- Hiking time: 4h 59m